Central Office of Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience (COR3) Executive Director Manuel A. Laboy Rivera noted in a recent report that the number of reconstruction projects underway due to earthquake damage continues to rise.
The information comes from the Quarterly Progress Report (QPR), consisting of data from officials who lead reconstruction efforts in municipalities, government agencies and non-profit organizations.
“Last year, we had three permanent works projects under development, while [currently] we already have 140 projects, amounting to $44.1 million, in one of the execution phases,” Laboy Rivera said in the report. “Of these, 87 projects valued at $16.7 million are under construction, and 22 developments estimated at $8 million are in the design-build acquisition stage.”
The officials reported in the July to September QPR that they completed 26 projects after an investment of approximately $5 million.
“We continue to comply with Governor [Pedro] Pierluisi’s mandate to expedite and ensure work throughout the island,” Laboy Rivera said.
By way of example, among the completed critical infrastructure projects are 12 reconstruction works carried out by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority at the Costa Sur power plant at a cost of $3.4 million. The projects include the recently completed construction of two tanks for demineralized water.
The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), meanwhile, completed a sewer project in Villa del Carmen in Ponce, for which the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) obligated $891,600. PRASA has completed nine projects after investing $1.3 million in FEMA funds.
In addition, after an investment of $7.5 million, the island Department of Education (DE) completed the construction of a modular school on the land occupied by the Agripina Seda campus in Guánica. That project was inaugurated last year by the governor. Meanwhile, the DE continues rebuilding 36 additional structures for which the federal agency obligated $1.1 million.
“At the moment, we have allocated $807 million represented in some 750 projects to help rebuild the affected communities in the country’s south,” said José Baquero, FEMA’s federal disaster recovery coordinator.
“This new year, we renew our promise to ensure Puerto Rico has the necessary resources to fully recover.”
Among the projects in progress is the demolition of the Guánica Government Center, which will soon begin its reconstruction after receiving an allocation of $8.8 million from FEMA. In addition, the University of Puerto Rico is repairing its campuses in Utuado, Mayagüez and Ponce, with an approximate investment of $1.2 million.
The municipality of Ponce, meanwhile, is working on the reconstruction of Francisco “Paquito” Montaner Stadium with a federal contribution of $4.4 million.
There are 27 projects in municipalities, government agencies and nonprofit entities, with an obligation of around $22.4 million. Those projects in the acquisition, design or permitting stages will begin construction in the first semester of 2023.
“During the next year, the COR3 team will continue to work with the recipients and FEMA to expedite the reconstruction of the infrastructure affected by the earthquakes and past hurricanes,” Laboy Rivera said. “Now with the availability of the Working Capital Advance pilot program, we project an increase in permanent projects under development. We continue to comply with the commitment that Governor Pedro Pierluisi made with the people to implement efficient measures that positively impact the progress of the reconstruction of the island.”
Tax reform, improving the permit system, addressing the situation of hospitals, access to housing, renewable energy platforms, and increasing the manufacturing base are part of the work agenda of the New Progressive Party (NPP) delegation and its minority leader, Rep. Carlos “Johnny” Méndez Nuñez, ahead of the start of the new regular legislative session scheduled to begin next Monday, Jan. 9.
“The NPP delegation has a very broad work agenda in the next session, which has as a priority to reduce the tax burden of individuals, as well as that of small and midsize merchants,” Méndez Nuñez said Monday in a written statement. “It’s been 12 years since a sweeping tax reform was last implemented. We will be evaluating how we lower contributions in a real, concrete way and with a verifiable source of repayment. The time has come for this reform.”
The NPP leader in the lower chamber stressed that with the fiscal actions taken by the administration and the successful implementation of Law 52-2022, which enables the transition of Law 154-2010 to a new tax platform for foreign corporations, with operations in force on the island, thus guaranteeing the entry into the treasury of about $1.7 billion annually, the door is open for providing people with tax relief.
The former House speaker went on to say that “[w]e believe that the time has come to make the granting of a permit in 30 days or less a reality.” “The technology is available and the resources are, too; this has to be a priority. Many Puerto
Ricans who want to start their own business are discouraged by the reality that the permit takes a long time. That has to end. Although progress has been made, the priority is that the permit will not take more than a month.”
Also on the economic front, Méndez Nuñez pointed out that “we should take advantage of the ‘boom’ in tourism that we are experiencing to provide incentives to companies that establish new airlines, as well as those that add routes, at regional airports.”
This, the minority leader said, will have a multiplier
effect on the creation, not only of new jobs, but also of new businesses.
The NPP delegation will also evaluate the expansion of the manufacturing base, taking as a starting point the incentives in Law 52-2022, particularly those in the Economic Incentives for the Development of Puerto Rico Act (Law 73-2008).
Meanwhile, Méndez Nuñez noted, “there is a situation with access to housing, particularly for the middle class.”
“High interest rates, coupled with the limitation of available housing units, have raised the costs of acquiring homes for our people,” he said. “We are going to study initiatives that mitigate these effects and facilitate the purchase of houses.”
The NPP leader also said the party delegation will address the crisis that has already brought about the bankruptcy of two hospitals, Los Maestros and San Jorge Children’s Hospital, this past year.
And on the issue of energy policy, Méndez Nuñez said “the historic increase in solar system installations — 4,000 systems are now installed per month compared to 50 in 2017 — presents challenges for everyone and includes recycling equipment such as panels and batteries.”
“The same applies to the electric vehicle market, which has doubled, from 2,000 in December 2021 to 4,000 in transit today,” he said. “This also brings about situations of sale and service, among others. Let’s work on it.”
Other areas to be evaluated are greater consumer protections, road and bridge infrastructure, improving services to the community with special needs, climate change, and solid waste management, among others.
Saying that parents must be given the tools necessary to guarantee the safety of their children, Caguas Superior Court Judge Sonya Nieves Cordero ordered late last week that Lisha Ramón Mejías regain custody of her two-year-old daughter, who had been removed on Wednesday night by the Family Department (DF) after the woman attacked her common-law husband in the presence of the child.
Ramón Mejías was represented by attorney Ramón Rivera Grau.
“There are no elements of abuse. None of the allegations even involved mistreatment by Lisha,” Rivera Grau told reporters. “There were simply allegations that there were incidents of domestic violence … and there were no accusations, there are no criminal charges against my client, there are no protection orders in place.”
“What there was was an allegation in an existing ex parte protection order by the petitioning party; therefore there were no allegations of domestic violence in this case,” the attorney added. “There is nothing in the nature of this case that supports the most drastic measure, which is the removal of a minor.”
Ramón Mejías, when approached by the press, denied feeling discriminated against by the DF.
“No, but I did feel like there was abuse for just being on social media,” she said. “[There were] many people who unfortunately do not agree with the upbringing and lifestyle that I lead with my daughter, and that caused this.”
The Family Department took custody of the child after Nieves Cordero allegedly attacked her boyfriend on Dec. 18 with a knife, causing a laceration on his right hand, scratched his left arm and bit him in the left leg, all in presence of the child.
In a written statement, Glenda Gerena Ríos, who heads the Families and Children Administration, said: “The Family Department has the obligation to guarantee the safety of minors, regardless of judicial, administrative or any other determinations, in cases of potential aggression or abuse against any minor in Puerto Rico.
“As a department of law and order, we respect and abide by court determinations, but we are also required to exhaust all available remedies to ensure the protection of the child,” the official added.
The judge in the case said “We continue to make every effort to achieve an opening for mom and dad to receive
services that strengthen her, so that she can guarantee the safety and well being of the child.”
“Specifically, part of the help that the Family Department offers in cases like this is a sensitive service plan that, according to the needs of the family, provides the skills and tools they need,” she added. “As we have said before, our goal is for the child to be healthy and safe, and provided that the parents are trained to guarantee this, we will give the necessary help and support so that, at the end of the process, she can continue in her family nucleus.”
By THE STAR STAFF
The Office of the First Lady of Cataño invites the children of the metro area town to the municipal convention center today from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to participate in the visit of the Three Kings and the delivery of gifts.
In addition, the award ceremony of the painting contest in which Cataño students participated will take place.
“It fills the mayor and me with enthusiasm to receive the children of our town to give them a little joy to follow with hope the tradition of the Three Kings,” Cataño first lady Bethzaida Rodríguez Torres said in a written statement. “Likewise, we will announce the winners of the painting contest, ‘Christmas Customs of Our Is-
The fun starts at 9 a.m. today at the municipal convention center in Cataño.
land,’ in which students from five of our schools participated. We invite parents to come with their children since we will have surprises for the children who visit us at the Waterfront Convention Center.”
Today’s delivery of gifts will take place in drive-through mode starting at 9 a.m., while the painting contest award ceremony will begin at 10 a.m.
After that, the kickoff “One Book at
a Time” event will be held. The initiative seeks to encourage reading from the earliest grades and consists of a community leader, artist, athlete or other public personality reading a short story to children.
Mayor Julio Alicea Vasallo emphasized the importance of reading and how the first lady, a preschool teacher, has come up with the concept of “One Book at a Time.”
“In different spaces of the municipality, at least once a month we will have a special guest reading to children of our town,” the mayor said. “Reading is the key to knowledge and the door to better opportunities. Under that premise, my wife Bethzaida and I know that this initiative will be very welcome and beneficial for the children of Cataño.”
Citizen Victory Movement Rep. Mariana Nogales Molinelli established a camp on Monday near the main entrance of the Las Golondrinas cave in Aguadilla to protest construction work that opponents say is damaging the environment.
The legislator said the camp was to demand a stop to the destruction of Las Golondrinas cave, a mogote or limestone deposit, and the easement of the railroad tracks and government facilities. She also complained of the continuous flow of sediments and runoff from the topsoil and fill removal activities affecting the marine ecosystem and activities obstructing the public railroad line called Camino Cuesta los Lazos.
She said Cliff Corp. President Carlos Román González, the developer, has destroyed the environment with impunity. She said he has appropriated public domain assets, silenced politicians with juicy donations, closed the Cuesta los Lazos Public Road, invaded the property
of several adjoining residents while installing fences and walls on other people’s farms, hindered administrative and judicial procedures and destroyed the historic tunnel through which an old train track ran.
“There are judicial and administrative procedures against these construction works before the courts, the DNER [the island Department of Natural Environmental Resources], OGPe [the Permits Management Office] and the EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency], as well as required procedures before agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and, nevertheless, nothing happens,” Nogales Molinelli said in a written statement.
“Environmental crime continues,” she said. “How have decrees from the Department of Economic Development and incentives for millions of dollars been obtained? How did you get incentives from the Tourism Company for $10 million for a tourism project that turned out to be residential?”
“While all this is happening, numerous deaths of swallows have been verified in violation of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty, Title 16 sections 703-712 USC, and trees located on public domain property and close to the cliff that housed swallows’ nests have been cut down,” the legislator added.
Nogales Molinelli, an attorney, detailed the various steps that have been taken to stop the destruction but have yet to be effective or are hindered by various actors.
“On September 14, 2022, at the request and in collaboration with the community and organizations that protect the environment, I introduced House Resolution 830 to investigate these illegal construction works, which was unanimously approved on November 14. Immediately, I sent a letter to the Natural Resources Committee, chaired by representative Edgardo Feliciano, requesting that the resolution be heeded and that an onsite inspection and public hearings be scheduled as soon as possible,” she said. “However, on December
19, the committee informed me that it will not deal with House Resolution 830 because ‘it wasn’t a priority.’ Nothing has been done.”
The lawmaker continued to point out that “We know that the mayor has a close relationship with Román González and received campaign donations from him.”
“In addition, the destroyer has donated to NPP [New Progressive Party] and PDP [Popular Democratic Party] campaigns,” Nogales Molinelli said. “The DNER is also conducting the investigation of complaint 22-116-CCS, which determined that Román González has to demolish the structures that he recklessly and illegally erected on top of the Las Golondrinas cave, causing the system to be unstable, and that the demolition must be done with the necessary supervision so as not to further affect the stability of the cave. There the reports and the interventions of the [DNER] rangers date from 2017 onwards, but at this point, there has been no compliance with these orders either.”
Banks and financial advisers that participated in Puerto Rico’s bond deals want U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to make them pay for their role in contributing to Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy.
The adversary proceeding The Special Claims Committee et al v. Barclays Capital, seeks to claw back underwriting fees and swap payments made to the aforementioned professionals and institutions.
Acting as avoidance actions trust trustee, Drivetrain sued in May 2019 but filed a second amended complaint in September alleging that the financial institutions, underwriters and other financial service professionals illegally make hundreds of millions of dollars in fees and swap termination payments by helping Puerto Rico issue debt that it could not pay back.
The defendants are denying the allegations, which were first brought up in a report written by Kobre & Kim LLP, a firm that investigated the causes of the island’s massive $70 billion debt several years ago.
For decades, successive governments of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and its instrumentalities turned to the defendants and other financial institutions to help them raise funds in municipal debt markets to manage their finances. According to the Second Amended Complaint (SAC), those funds allowed Puerto Rico to pay off maturing bonds and extend the timetable for retiring municipal borrowings, while it searched for other ways to address its budgetary deficits. To
hedge the interest rate risk of its debt, Puerto Rico also entered into swap agreements with certain defendants.
“All of the challenged transfers were ordinary course transactions made under valid and enforceable agreements,” the financial institutions argued in a petition to dismiss last week. “Accordingly, as detailed further herein, each of the claims is barred as a matter of law, even had each been sufficiently [pleaded].”
The financial institutions argued that the challenged transfers — payments made in connection with securities and swap transactions — are protected under the safe harbors of the Bankruptcy Code. In addition, the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, commonly known as
PROMESA, expressly incorporates such safe harbors and provides that its provisions will prevail over any general or specific Puerto Rico laws.
“The remedies that the trustee seeks under Puerto Rico law are irreconcilable with the protections provided for securities and swap transactions (under federal bankruptcy laws) and allowing the trustee to recharacterize its claims under state law would defeat the safe harbors’ purpose of preserving certainty in securities markets,” the financial institutions and banks argued.
Many of the claims have surpassed the statute of limitations, the financial institutions said. The trustee’s fraudulent transfer claims should be dismissed because the second amended complaint does not allege any
transfers within the two-year statutory lookback period, the banks said.
There is no precedent for holding that these debtors — part of democratically elected governments — intended to defraud creditors when they made the challenged transfers in connection with managing their budgets, the financial institutions argued.
The banks also argued that the plain text of Puerto Rico’s Constitution and laws establish that the challenged bonds were lawful. For instance, the trustee claims that bonds issued by the Public Buildings Authority should have been included in the calculation of the direct obligation constitutional debt limit, but Puerto Rico’s Constitution states that the relevant debt limit only includes debts directly incurred by the commonwealth and actual payments on the commonwealth’s guarantees of agency debts.
The SAC lists as defendants UBS Financial Services Inc. of Puerto Rico; Santander Securities LLC; BofA Securities Inc., a/k/a Bank of America Securities LLC, a/k/a BofA Merrill Lynch; Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, & Smith Inc.; Barclays; Samuel A. Ramirez & Co. Inc.; RBC Capital Markets LLC; BMO Capital Markets Corp.; Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC; Morgan Stanley; J.P. Morgan Securities LLC; Citigroup Global Markets; and Jefferies Group LLC.
The swap defendants are: Morgan Stanley Capital Services LLC f/k/a Morgan Stanley Capital Services Inc., Citibank N.A., UBS AG, Goldman Sachs Bank USA f/k/a Goldman Sachs Capital Markets L.P., Goldman Sachs Mitsui Marine Derivative Products, RBC Capital, and Merrill Lynch Capital Services Inc.
After days of pounding rain, winds and snow, Californians woke up to sunny skies and waterlogged streets on New Year’s Day, scrambling to recover during a brief intermission before the next rainstorms that are forecast to hit the region later this week.
Northern California bore the brunt of an intense “atmospheric river” system that brought floods and landslides to parts of the West Coast on Saturday.
On Sunday, rescuers were still plucking trapped passengers from submerged vehicles, while bloated rivers and creeks spilled over banks. Streets in downtown San Francisco were still draining after the city nearly broke its record for the most rainfall on a single day. The National Weather Service’s downtown site recorded 5.46 inches on New Year’s Eve, 0.08 inch shy of the 1994 record in more than 170 years of record keeping there — and 46.8% of the monthly rainfall.
Agricultural workers in Sacramento County ushered in the new year by patching up a weakened levee system.
Firefighters and rescue crews combed through a rural section of Sacramento County on Sunday afternoon, searching for people who might be trapped in homes and cars.
Rescue crews circled the county’s flooded roads in helicopters and boats, finding vehicles either stuck in or submerged by floodwaters, according to a spokesperson for the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.
The county conducted roughly 40 rescues over the course of around 24 hours, according to Dan Quiggle, deputy fire chief of operations for the Cosumnes Fire Department in Sacramento County.
Although severe damage was not widespread, one person died and several were injured as result of flooding, with most rescues occurring near the Cosumnes River, Quiggle said.
Multiple survivors were stranded in their vehicles for hours before being rescued, he said Sunday.
The storm is expected to move from Salt Lake City down to Phoenix, according to Bob Oravec, a forecaster at the National Weather Service. The severe storm is expected to bring rain to areas such as Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.
On Sunday, more than 130,000 utilities customers were without power in California, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages.
The storm also caused power outages in Nevada, with
tens of thousands of people without power in Washoe County.
In Sacramento County, two levees failed near the Cosumnes River in Wilton, a farming area. Previous rainstorms had already left the ground oversaturated, according to Matt Robinson, a spokesperson for the county.
“If we had just this rain event without any previous storms, we would’ve been pretty much OK, the levees would have been OK,” he said.
“The water from levee breaches has to go somewhere. It can’t just go and get absorbed into the ground, like normal,” Robinson said.
The levees, which broke in a rural area and flooded a highway, are maintained by an elected board for the area called Reclamation District 800, a type of homeowner’s
association for agricultural land.
Mark Hite, a spokesperson for Reclamation District 800 and a member of the board, said it was too soon to properly assess the extent of the storm’s damage.
“We have some crews doing repair jobs on the levees right now, but I haven’t seen high water like this in 20 years,” Hite said.
County officials hope that the next storm forecast to hit Northern California on Wednesday won’t be as bad. Warmer weather meant rain instead of snow, which worsened flooding issues. Cold weather is expected for the next round of precipitation.
“Hopefully the cold will freeze some of the runoff and give us a chance to catch our breath,” Robinson said.
Police shot a machete-wielding man who attacked three officers Saturday night near Times Square, injuring him and creating a chaotic scene just hours before
the ball dropped to mark New Year’s Day in New York City, authorities said.
The suspect was struck in the shoulder and taken to a hospital, police said. Authorities did not say how severe the suspect’s injuries were and did not identify him beyond
saying that he was a 19-year-old man.
At a news conference early Sunday, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Mayor Eric Adams emphasized that there was no ongoing threat to public safety.
her refrigerator stayed shut. “A week ago, my fridge flew open and everything went flying,” she said.
Officials didn’t report any deaths or serious injuries and said Sunday that they were assessing the damage. State Sen. Mike McGuire said on Twitter that some structures were damaged and that the city was conducting tests of the water system. The earlier quake had left two people dead, injured a dozen and damaged 95 homes in the area, 25 of them severely.
The effects of the first quake were so fresh that officials from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services were still in town to help with that response.
Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for that office, said the teams already on the ground will help the recovery effort move more swiftly.
departments were called in to help. As of Sunday afternoon, about 30% of the town was without water, and half were without power, officials said. Some homes had been damaged.
“There are new houses off their foundations,” Rio Dell Fire Chief Shane Wilson said. The damage for this quake seems to be a little more spread out in the central and eastern part of town rather than concentrated in the northern part of town, as with the last quake, he said.
By JOSÉ QUEZADA, STEVEN MOITY and OLLIE HANCOCKThe first jolt came days before Christmas, in the middle of the night, shaking residents awake, toppling walls and cracking roads. The town was still recovering from that 6.4-magnitude earthquake when they got another, this time on a sunny, otherwise quiet New Year’s Day.
At 10:35 a.m., a 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck the Northern California town again, causing more damage to roads and homes and fraying nerves further.
“It’s a new year, there’s no clouds, it’s not raining. And boom, just when you think you’re in recovery, it’s back to response,” said Rio Dell Mayor Debra Garnes. People
were tired, but their generosity was not tapped out, she added: They showed up with mattresses, water and cleaning supplies from the community and across California.
Around town, residents were picking up the pieces, again.
“Everything is on the floor,” said Cynthia Dobereiner, who had reordered her house after the first quake less than two weeks ago. This one caused “way more damage” despite being smaller, she added. She worried about a new crack that had emerged in one of her walls.
She also vowed not to put anything back on a high shelf. “Everything is going to be ground level. All our food, our pots and our pans — nothing is going above the second shelf.” At least this time, she said,
People in the region “just went through the most traumatic moment of their lives,” with the first quake less than two weeks ago, said Andrew Bogar, a regional program manager for the Red Cross. Sunday’s quake wasn’t as big as the last one but was prompting “a lot of anxiety about going back into their homes,” he said.
The first quake had cracked and closed Fernbridge, a historic arched bridge that connects the neighboring city of Ferndale to Eureka, Humboldt County’s largest city, across the Eel River. The bridge was repaired and reopened, only to be closed again Sunday for safety inspections, according to the California Department of Transportation. The bridge reopened by Sunday evening.
Thirty calls for emergency services came within the first two hours after the quake struck, fire officials said. Other fire
From page 7
“We are working with our federal partners for this investigation, and it is ongoing,” Sewell said, urging witnesses to contact police with any information they might have. She declined to comment on whether the suspect was previously known to law enforcement or had a history of mental illness.
The attack occurred shortly after 10 p.m. near the corner of Eighth Avenue and 52nd
Street, just outside the security screening area that police had established for the New Year’s Eve celebrations, authorities said.
The man, unprovoked, tried to hit one officer with the machete before striking two other officers in the head, Sewell said. One officer suffered a laceration, she said; the other, who had just graduated from the police academy Friday, suffered a skull fracture and a large laceration.
One of the officers fired their gun, strik-
ing the suspect in the shoulder, Sewell said.
All three officers were taken to a hospital and were in stable condition, Sewell and Adams said. Hospital officials, citing medical privacy laws, declined to comment on the conditions of any of the patients.
“It is a happy New Year,” Adams said. “We’ve got three officers who are going home.”
The attack and subsequent gunfire rattled the crowds nearby. Video from the
The quake is considered an aftershock of the Dec. 20 earthquake, said Rafael Abreu Paris, a U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist. Aftershocks — typically lesser-magnitude quakes than the first major one — are normal after a big earthquake, seismologists say. But even a moderatesize or smaller quake can feel violent and cause damage depending on its location, depth and type.
The Dec. 20 quake led to a series of offshore aftershocks, Paris said. More than 50 aftershocks followed the December earthquake, including a large one — with a magnitude of 4.6 — about 5 minutes later.
Sunday’s tremor was part of a different cluster of inland aftershocks but occurred in the same tectonic process, he said. More aftershocks are possible.
Jason Freitas, a local resident, said the intensity of Sunday’s quake felt familiar. “It was very similar to the earthquake we just had,” he said. “It violently shook everything off the walls.” The difference, he said, was that his apartment sustained more damage this time. When it happened, he threw on a shirt and ran outside. “It was very part and parcel of living in California, really.”
scene showed people running up Eighth Avenue and across 52nd Street in the rain, trying to hurriedly navigate the slick sidewalks and streets filled with metal barricades. Officers screamed over blaring sirens, ordering people to move in various directions — and out of the way.
Within roughly 30 minutes of the attack, the New York Police Department warned of a heavy police presence and a continuing investigation in the area.
Judy Ingraham surveyed the damage to her shed after an earthquake in Rio Dell, Calif.Eleven days before four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in a home near campus, Bryan Kohberger was sitting in a criminology class at a college just a short drive away, leaning into a conversation about forensics, DNA and other evidence prosecutors use to win convictions.
The 28-year-old graduate student seemed highly engaged in the discussion, a former classmate recalled. It was a subject that had long captivated Kohberger, who had researched the mindsets of criminals, studied under a professor in Pennsylvania known for her expertise on serial killers and, for the past few months, pursued a doctorate in criminology at Washington State University, about 10 miles from the Idaho crime scene.
Less than two months later, Kohberger would be the subject of a criminal inquiry, arrested Friday and charged with killing the four Idaho students.
Investigators have yet to outline a motive, but the details emerging about Kohberger’s deep interest in the psychology of criminals has opened another layer of mystery in a case that has traumatized the college town of Moscow, Idaho, and spawned countless theories from people nationwide who followed the case in captivated horror.
Kohberger was taken into custody Friday at his parents’ home in Effort, Pennsylvania, and was ordered to appear at an extradition hearing on Tuesday. Jason LaBar, the public defender in Monroe County who is representing him, said Kohberger had been following the case with interest but was “shocked” to be arrested.
“He looks forward to being exonerated, is what he said,” LaBar said. Kohberger, he added, would not oppose the effort to return him to Idaho to face the charges. On Sunday, LaBar issued a statement from Kohberger’s parents and two sisters saying that they “love and support our son and brother” and had cooperated with the police in an effort to “promote his presumption of innocence.” They also offered prayers for the victims.
Kohberger grew up in suburban eastern Pennsylvania, attending Pleasant Valley High School in Brodheadsville, where former classmates and peers recalled that he had an analytical mind but could sometimes be cruel. Thomas Arntz befriended him while riding the school bus around 2009. He said their friendship ended in 2014 after lighthearted “ribbing and jabbing” between friends turned “meanspirited,” with Kohberger sometimes putting him in a headlock hold.
“Over time it just got so, so bad that I
just shut down when I was around him,” said Arntz, now 26. “I eventually just had to cut ties with him.”
Kohberger had struggled with a heroin addiction beginning in high school but had seemed to have moved past it in recent years, friends from Pennsylvania said.
Jack Baylis, who became friends with Kohberger in eighth grade, said Kohberger had long been fascinated with why people acted the way they did and had seemed to enjoy his job as a security guard for the Pleasant Valley School District, where he worked for several years until 2021.
The last time Baylis saw Kohberger was in 2021, when they shot airsoft guns together in the Poconos. At the time, Baylis said, Kohberger drove a white Hyundai Elantra, the same model of car that police in Moscow said had been spotted near the Idaho victims’ home on the night of the attacks.
“I pray he’s innocent,” Baylis said.
After earning a psychology degree at a community college in 2018, Kohberger began studying psychology and later criminal justice at DeSales University, a Catholic institution in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. There, he studied in part under Katherine Ramsland, a well-known forensic psychologist whose books include “The Mind of a Murderer” and “How to Catch a Killer.” She declined to comment.
Kohberger was a quiet person who liked to work alone but came across as smart, said Brittany Slaven, who took several classes with him at DeSales. She recalled an instance in one of Ramsland’s classes when students were asked to look at photos of a crime scene and figure out what happened; she said Kohberger was quick to come up with ideas.
He seemed to show a particular interest in crime scenes and serial killers, Slaven said.
“At the time it seemed as if he was just a curious student, so if his questions felt odd we didn’t think much of it because it fit our curriculum,” she said.
In a post on Reddit from about seven months ago, a user who identified himself as Bryan Kohberger sought people who had spent time in prison to take a survey about crimes they had committed. The survey listed Kohberger as a student investigator working with two professors at DeSales, and it asked respondents to describe their “thoughts, emotions and actions from the beginning to end of the crime commission process.”
DeSales University said Kohberger had received a bachelor’s degree there in 2020 and earned a master’s degree in June 2022. A spokesperson for the university said the principal investigator on the crime survey — Michelle A. Bolger, who is listed on the university website
as an associate professor — and her colleagues would not be granting interviews about their experiences working with Kohberger. The assistant professor listed as the co-principal investigator, Jeffrey E. Clutter, did not respond to numerous messages.
Kohberger then moved across the country to Pullman, Washington, where he began the fall semester in August in the graduate criminology program at Washington State University, across the state border from the University of Idaho.
On the morning of Nov. 13, after a Saturday night of college town parties and a University of Idaho football game, four students were found stabbed to death in the rental home in Moscow where three of them lived.
Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, were attacked in at least two separate bedrooms, probably as they slept, according to investigators. The three women lived in the home; Chapin was spending the night with his girlfriend, Kernodle.
The brutal nature of the deaths — the coroner said all four were fatally stabbed with a long knife — and the lack of any suspect cast a sense of fear across Moscow, a city that had not recorded a homicide in seven years. Students began walking in groups. Residents checked the locks on their doors and windows. A DoorDash driver said she noticed more people were ordering meals delivered to avoid going out after dark. And police began receiving a wave of calls from nervous residents: a suspicious-looking man, a driver revving an engine, sounds in the night.
Police at both college campuses added security measures, adding patrols and holding self-defense workshops.
At Washington State, Kohberger was continuing with his studies, his classmates said. B.K. Norton, who was in the same graduate program as Kohberger, said his quiet, intense demeanor had made some classmates uncomfortable.
Another student said Kohberger seemed interested in the thought processes of criminals while they committed crimes and less interested in the social factors that might lead people to do them, saying he believed some people were just bound to break the law. The fellow student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared that speaking publicly could jeopardize his safety, described Kohberger as the black sheep of the class, often taking contrarian viewpoints and sometimes getting into arguments with his peers, particularly women.
The classmate recalled one instance in which Kohberger began explaining a somewhat elementary criminology concept to a fellow doctoral student, who then accused him of “mansplaining.” A heated back-and-forth ensued and the doctoral student eventually stormed out of the classroom, leaving behind her laptop and coffee, he said.
At the time, a growing team of investigators from local and state agencies, as well as more than 60 agents from the FBI, had descended on Moscow. Forensics investigators combed the house for physical evidence, including DNA, and searched fruitlessly for a murder weapon.
Officials pleaded for tips and videos, while thousands of internet sleuths around the country suggested an array of people as the likely culprit: a former boyfriend of one of the victims, a man who was with two of the victims when they got a meal from a food truck, two roommates who were in the home when the killings occurred but apparently slept through them.
None of the online discussion groups identified Kohberger. It is not clear how or if he knew the victims.
Police had tried to tamp down rumors by ruling out several people as suspects, although accusations were flying so fast that it at times appeared they could not do so quickly enough. They withheld nearly all details of the investigation, raising frustrations and prompting some people, including relatives of the victims, to wonder publicly whether police were up to the task.
Still, investigators worked through the holidays to process thousands of tips and extensive evidence collected in and around the scene. In announcing Kohberger’s arrest on Friday, Moscow’s police chief, James Fry, said investigators had located a white Hyundai Elantra but had not yet found a murder weapon.
Fry looked exhausted and almost tearful as he announced the arrest at a news conference, making it clear that investigators were still looking for tips to help resolve the questions they could not yet answer: Did the suspect act alone? What was the motive?
“Be assured the work is not done,” Fry said. “This is just getting started.”
business shows support for investigators working to find the suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students, in Moscow,Idaho, Dec. 31, 2022.
House Democrats released six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax records late last week, offering new insight into his business dealings that further undermined his long-cultivated image as a wildly successful businessman.
The release Friday morning contained thousands of pages of tax documents, including individual returns for Trump and his wife, Melania, as well as business returns for several of the hundreds of companies that make up his sprawling business organization. It followed the release of reports from Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee that showed Trump had paid a total of $1.1 million in federal income taxes in the first three years of his presidency, but paid no tax in 2020 as his income dwindled and losses mounted.
The document disclosure drew rebukes and threats of retaliation from Trump and his Republican allies in Congress, who suggested that once their party takes over the House on Jan. 3, they may seek to disclose tax returns filed by Democratic politicians, Supreme Court justices and members of President Joe Biden’s family, such as his son Hunter.
The documents appeared to show that Trump violated his campaign promise to donate his salary as president, at least in 2020, when he reported no charitable giving of any kind. They also suggested Trump’s tax bill may have gone up because of a change in his signature 2017 tax overhaul: a limitation on the deduction of state and local taxes paid.
In a statement Friday, Trump denounced Democrats and said the decision to release the returns had been “weaponized.”
“The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises,” he wrote.
But the returns, which cover the tax years 2015 through 2020, do not show much success for Trump in his recent business dealings. They show Trump often reported heavy losses from his own ventures, even as he continued to cash in on assets he inherited.
Trump’s history of inheriting wealth and then losing it was chronicled by The New York Times in 2020, when it obtained decades of Trump’s tax information, including much of what was disclosed Friday.
In 2018, after a decade in which the former president declared no taxable income according to tax returns reviewed by the Times, Trump reported taxable income of more than $24 million. He paid almost $1 million in federal taxes, nearly the entire total he paid as president.
That income appeared to be the result of more than $14 million in gains from the sale of an investment his father had made in the 1970s, a Brooklyn housing complex named Starrett City, which became part of Trump’s inheritance.
Much of what the committee made public Friday had also been revealed in a report with top line numbers that the committee released last week. But the thousands of pages of tax
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), center, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, speaks to other members in Washington on Dec. 20, 2022, before the panel published two reports on Donald Trump’s taxes.
documents offered new insights into the president’s income and spending.
The documents show, for example, that the effect of his inheritance in 2018 was greater than what the Times previously reported: Trump recorded $25.7 million in gains from the sale of business properties that he and his siblings had inherited or taken through trusts, including the sale of Starrett City.
The sales of business properties Trump created himself came at a loss, however, dragging down his net proceeds and somewhat reducing his tax liability, the tax itemization shows. They included a total of $1 million in assets or equipment sold at a loss by two of his business entities, and another $1 million loss for bailing his son Donald Trump Jr. out of a failed business to build prefabricated homes.
Trump also received tens of thousands of dollars in dividends while he was in the White House from trusts that had been established for him when he was young, his tax returns show.
Tax returns are among the most privately held documents in the United States. Although Congress has the power to obtain and release them, it rarely takes such action.
After Trump broke with tradition and declined to release his returns as a presidential candidate or while he was in office, Democratic lawmakers sought them out of concern about potential conflicts of interest. Ultimately, they were able to unlock them using their oversight powers through the inquiry into the Internal Revenue Service’s policy of auditing presidents and vice presidents.
The final release came after years of legal battles and speculation about Trump’s wealth and his financial entanglements.
Democrats cast the disclosure as necessary oversight of a president who broke decades of precedent in declining to release his returns.
But Republicans warned Democrats that they had set a dangerous precedent. The Republicans issued a report of their own on Friday that included detailed complaints about the process leading to the disclosure of the documents.
“Going forward, all future chairs of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will have nearly unlimited power to target and make public the tax returns of private citizens, political enemies, business and labor leaders, or even the Supreme Court justices themselves,” Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement preceding the report.
Trump also raised the threat of retaliation.
“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” he said in his Friday news release. “The great USA divide will now grow far worse. The Radical Left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”
As a presidential candidate in 2015, Trump said he would not take “even one dollar” of the $400,000 salary that comes with the job. “I am totally giving up my salary if I become president,” he said.
In his first three years in office, Trump said he donated his salary quarterly. But in 2020, as the pandemic recession swiftly descended during his last year in office, Trump reported heavy business losses, no federal tax liability and nothing in donations to charities.
In the earlier years, White House officials made a point of highlighting which government agencies were receiving Trump’s salary, starting with the National Park Service in 2017. The tax documents released Friday show that Trump reported charitable donations totaling nearly $1.9 million in 2017 and just over $500,000 in both 2018 and 2019.
The tax law Trump signed in late 2017, which took effect the next year, appears to have yielded mixed results for him. Some of its provisions most likely gave him an advantage at tax time — including the scaling back of the alternative minimum tax on high earners.
But the law also included a limit on the so-called SALT deduction, which disproportionately hit higher earners, including Trump, in high-tax cities and states like New York. In 2019, Trump reported paying $8.4 million in state and local taxes. Because of the SALT limits included in his tax law, he was able to deduct only $10,000 of those taxes paid on his federal income tax return.
Trump’s returns are complex, sprawling across thousands of pages. The documents show he has switched accountants to compile them.
For years, Trump used the accounting firm Mazars USA to prepare his taxes and those of his businesses. Donald Bender had long been listed on the former president’s taxes as his accountant.
The firm formally cut ties with Trump and his businesses this year, saying it could no longer stand behind a decade of annual financial statements it had prepared for the Trump Organization.
But it turns out Mazars and Trump had begun distancing themselves from each other as early as 2020. That year, BKM Sowan Horan, a Texas-based accounting firm, prepared Trump’s taxes, his returns show.
Stock markets edged higher, European bond yields dropped and the dollar remained firm in light trading on Monday amid warnings from the International Monetary Fund’s managing director that a third of the world will fall into recession in 2023.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) rose 0.06%, just short of an index of global shares, which climbed 0.16%.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) climbed 0.6%, retracing little of the nearly 12% it lost in 2022, bludgeoned by central banks’ aggressive monetary policy tightening.
However, traders were reticent to trust early-year starts in stock and bond moves with many markets closed for a holiday and ahead of a host of economic numbers due this week.
Inflation data from Europe, minutes from the December U.S. Federal Reserve meeting and U.S. labour market numbers were some of the highlights that Danske Bank chief analyst Piet Haines Christiansen said would be worth watching.
“I would be cautious over interpreting any moves this morning,” said Christiansen.
Markets in the United States, Britain, Ireland, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia were shut.
Christiansen expected the new year to kick off with a renewed focus on central banks and inflation. Traders would be vigilant for any signs of an approaching recession, he said.
Buoyant stock prices in Europe might be due, he said, to survey results published on Monday, which pointed towards a rebound in optimism among euro zone factory managers.
S&P Global’s final manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) bounced to 47.8 in December from November’s 47.1, matching a preliminary reading but still below the 50 mark separating growth from contraction.
Elsewhere, the dollar edged almost 0.2% higher against a basket of major currencies, while the pound and euro fell 0.4% and 0.2% respectively.
“There is an attempt by the dollar index to pull higher today but we do see that it is losing a good part of the strength it gained last year,” said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of forex research at Commerzbank.
“After the last Fed meeting, the market was not convinced that the Fed won’t cut rates later in 2023. It’s going to be an interesting year.”
U.S. Treasuries will resume trading on Tuesday after a public holiday on Monday. The benchmark 10-year yield climbed around 27 basis points (bps) last week and over 200 bps last year, ending 2022 around 3.88%.
German government bond yields on Monday tumbled from their highest levels in more than a decade amid more hawkish signals from the European Central Bank (ECB).
ECB President Christine Lagarde said euro zone wages were growing quicker than earlier thought, and the central bank must prevent this from adding to already-high inflation.
Germany’s 10-year bond yield fell 8.4 bps to 2.47%,
after hitting its highest since 2011 at 2.57% on Friday.
Oil markets were closed but prices in 2023 are set for small gains, as a darkening economic backdrop and COVID-19 flare-ups in China threaten demand growth and offset the impact of supply shortfalls caused by sanctions on Russia, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.
The new year is going to be “tougher than the year we leave behind,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Sunday on the CBS Sunday morning news program “Face the Nation.”
“Why? Because the three big economies - the U.S., EU and China - are all slowing down simultaneously,” she said.
Ukrainian forces used U.S.-supplied guided rockets to hit a building housing Russian soldiers in an occupied eastern city early on New Year’s Day, both sides said, in one of the deadliest strikes on Moscow’s forces in the 10-month-old war.
The deaths of at least 60 soldiers, and possibly many more, drew immediate and harsh criticism in Russia from supporters of the war, who said that the military was making repeated and costly mistakes, including housing soldiers in dense numbers within striking distance of Ukrainian weapons.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that 63 service members had been killed in the strike in the city, Makiivka, which is in the Donetsk region. Ukraine claimed that “about 400” Russian soldiers had died. Neither figure could be independently verified.
A spokesperson for the Russianinstalled proxy government in the Donetsk region, Daniil Bezsonov, called the strike “a massive blow” and hinted at errors by Russian commanders. “The enemy inflicted the most serious
defeats in this war on us not because of their coolness and talent, but because of our mistakes,” he wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine hit the building housing the soldiers, which both sides described as a vocational school, using HIMARS, a guided rocket system supplied by the United States. The system’s range of dozens of miles has for months helped Ukraine’s forces strike deep behind the front lines, and it is part of a growing arsenal of sophisticated Western weapons that have helped change the course of the conflict.
Monday’s strike reflected a shift in Ukrainian tactics with the U.S.-supplied rocket systems, Western military analysts said. Kyiv has moved from targeting ammunition dumps and supply lines to hitting barracks and other troop concentrations, said Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Virginia.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that four HIMARS rockets had hit the building, while two others had been shot down by Russian air defenses.
A former Russian paramilitary commander in Ukraine, Igor Girkin, confirmed the seriousness of the disaster, writing on Telegram that “many hundreds” were dead and wounded and that many “remained under the rubble.”
Accounts by prowar military bloggers — who have become influential opinionmakers in Russia amid the censorship of mainstream media — suggested that the strike in Makiivka had proved so deadly partly because of a litany of errors by Moscow’s forces, some of which have been repeated throughout the war.
Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, said that the vocational school had been “almost completely destroyed” because “ammunition stored in the same building” detonated in the strike. Video posted on social media showed firefighters amid the ruins of the structure and piles of steaming rubble.
The ammunition was stored “without the slightest sign of disguise,” Girkin wrote, adding that similar strikes had occurred earlier this year, albeit with fewer casualties. “Our generals are untrainable in principle,” he said.
Many of the soldiers appeared to be new recruits, recently mobilized in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to conscript more men into the fighting in Ukraine. One report in Russian state media said that “active use of cellular phones by the newly arrived servicemen” had been a prime reason for the attack, helping Ukrainian forces to pinpoint their location.
Throughout the war, Russian soldiers in Ukraine have spoken on open cellphone lines, often revealing their positions and exposing the disarray in their ranks. But the military bloggers said that this official explanation shifted the blame for Makiivka onto the victims, without explaining why commanders housed so many conscripts in an unprotected building within reach of U.S.-made rockets.
“No one is assuming the responsibility for the needless deaths,” one blogger, Anastasia Kashevarova, wrote on her Telegram channel.
Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at RAND Corp., said it was highly unusual for Moscow to admit it had lost such a large number of soldiers in a strike. The Russians “do not typically provide this type of information after a major loss, which suggests they want to control the narrative on this event,” she said.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took the reins of the Brazilian government Sunday in an elaborate inauguration, complete with a motorcade, music festival and hundreds of thousands of supporters filling the central esplanade of Brasília, the nation’s capital.
But one key person was missing: the departing far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro was supposed to pass Lula the presidential sash Sunday, an important symbol of the peaceful transition of power in a nation where many people still recall the 21-year military dictatorship that ended in 1985.
Instead, Bolsonaro woke up Sunday 6,000 miles away, in a rented house owned by a professional mixed-martial-arts fighter a few miles from Disney World. Facing various investigations from his time in his office, Bolsonaro flew to Orlando on Friday night and plans to stay in Florida for at least a month.
Bolsonaro had questioned the reliability of Brazil’s election systems for months, without evidence, and when he lost in October, he refused to concede unequivocally. In a sort of farewell address Friday, breaking weeks of near silence, he said he tried to block Lula from taking office but failed.
“Within the laws, respecting the constitution, I searched for a way out of this,” he said. He then appeared to encourage his supporters to move on. “We live in a democracy or we don’t,” he said. “No one wants an adventure.”
On Sunday, Lula ascended the ramp to the presidential offices with a diverse group of Brazilians, including a Black woman, a handicapped man, a 10-year-old boy, an Indigenous man and a factory worker. A voice then announced that Lula would accept the greenand-yellow sash from “the Brazilian people,” and Aline Sousa, a 33-year-old garbage collector, played the role of Bolsonaro and placed the sash on the new president.
In an address to Congress on Sunday, Lula said that he would fight hunger and deforestation, lift the economy and try to unite the country. But he also took aim at his predecessor, saying that Bolsonaro had threatened Brazil’s democracy.
“Under the winds of redemocratization, we used to say, ‘Dictatorship never again,’ ” he said. “Today, after the terrible challenge we’ve overcome, we must say, ‘Democracy forever.’ ”
Lula’s ascension to the presidency caps a stunning political comeback. He was once Brazil’s most popular president, leaving office with an approval rating above 80%. He then served 580 days in prison, from 2018 to 2019,
on corruption charges that he accepted a condo and renovations from construction companies bidding on government contracts.
After those convictions were thrown out because Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that the judge in Lula’s case was biased, he ran for the presidency again — and won.
Lula, 77, and his supporters maintain that he was the victim of political persecution. Bolsonaro and his supporters say that Brazil now has a criminal as president.
In Brasília, hundreds of thousands of people streamed into the sprawling, planned capital, founded in 1960 to house the Brazilian government, with many dressed in the bright red of Lula’s leftist Workers’ Party.
Yet elsewhere in the city, thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters remained camped outside the army headquarters, as they have been since the election, many saying they were convinced that at the final moment Sunday, the military would prevent Lula from taking office.
“The army has patriotism and love for the country, and in the past, the army did the same thing,” Magno Rodrigues, 60, a former mechanic and janitor who gives daily speeches at the protests, said Saturday, referring to the 1964 military coup that ushered in the dictatorship.
Rodrigues has spent the past nine weeks sleeping in a tent on a narrow pad with his wife. He provided a tour of the encampment, which had become a small village since Bolsonaro lost the election. It has showers, a laundry service, cellphone-charging stations, a hospital and 28 food stalls.
The protests have been overwhelmingly nonviolent — with more praying than rioting — but a small group of people have set fire to vehicles. Lula’s transitional government had
suggested that the encampments would not be tolerated for much longer.
How long was Rodrigues prepared to stay? “As long as it takes to liberate my country,” he said. “For the rest of my life if I have to.”
The absence of Bolsonaro and the presence of thousands of protesters who believe the election was stolen illustrate the deep divide and tall challenges that Lula faces in his third term as president of Latin America’s biggest country and one of the world’s largest democracies.
He oversaw a boom in Brazil from 2003 to 2011, but the country was not nearly as polarized then, and the economic tail winds were far stronger. Lula’s election caps a leftist wave in Latin America, with six of the region’s seven largest countries electing leftist leaders since 2018, fueled by an anti-incumbent backlash.
Bolsonaro’s decision to spend at least the first weeks of Lula’s presidency in Florida also shows his unease about his future in Brazil. Bolsonaro, 67, is linked to five separate inquiries, including one into his release of documents related to a classified investigation, another on his attacks on Brazil’s voting machines and another into his potential connections to “digital militias” that spread misinformation on his behalf.
As a regular citizen, Bolsonaro will now lose the prosecutorial immunity he had as president. Some cases against him will probably be moved to local courts from the Supreme Court.
Some top federal prosecutors who have worked on the cases believe there is enough evidence to convict Bolsonaro, particularly in the case related to the release of classified material, according to a top federal prosecutor who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
discuss confidential investigations.
On Sunday, Lula told Congress that Bolsonaro could face consequences. “We have no intention of revenge against those who tried to subjugate the nation to their personal and ideological plans, but we will guarantee the rule of law,” he said. “Those who have done wrong will answer for their mistakes.”
It is unlikely that Bolsonaro’s presence in the United States could protect him from prosecution in Brazil. Still, Florida has become a sort of refuge for conservative Brazilians in recent years.
It is not uncommon for former heads of state to live in the United States for posts in academia or similar ventures. But it is unusual for a head of state to seek safe haven in the United States from possible prosecution at home, particularly when the home country is a democratic U.S. ally.
Bolsonaro and his allies argue that he is a political target of Brazil’s left and particularly Brazil’s Supreme Court. They have largely dropped claims that the election was rigged because of voter fraud, but instead now claim that it was unfair because Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice who runs Brazil’s election agency, tipped the scales for Lula.
Moraes was an active player in the election, suspending the social-media accounts of many of Bolsonaro’s supporters and granting Lula more television time because of misleading statements in Bolsonaro’s political ads. Moraes has said he needed to act to counter the antidemocratic stances of Bolsonaro and his supporters. Some legal experts worry that he abused his power, often acting unilaterally in ways that go far beyond that of a typical Supreme Court judge.
Still, Bolsonaro has faced widespread criticism, on both the right and the left, for his response to his election loss. After suggesting for months he would dispute any loss — firing up his supporters and worrying his critics — he instead went silent, refusing to acknowledge Lula’s victory publicly. His administration carried out the transition as he receded from the spotlight and many of his official duties.
On Saturday night, in his departing speech to the nation, even his vice president, Hamilton Mourão, a former general, made clear his views on Bolsonaro’s final moments as president.
“Leaders that should reassure and unite the nation around a project for the country have let their silence or inopportune and harmful protagonism create a climate of chaos and social disintegration,” Mourão said.
On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, as Pope Francis rested in the quarters of his humble residence before an evening Mass, gendarmes closed off to visitors the winding walking paths that cross the Vatican gardens in case Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, frail as he was, walked out of his monastery to pray.
In the near-decade since Benedict stunned the Catholic Church and the world by becoming the first pontiff in nearly 600 years to retire, an awkward and captivating arrangement pervaded the church. Two popes, past and present, traditionalist and reformist, both cloaked in white robes and invested with moral authority, coexisted on the same minuscule grounds.
That oddness, unprecedented in the modern era of the church, persisted after the death of Benedict on Saturday morning, as the church again found itself in rare territory, with a living pope set to preside over the funeral of his predecessor.
The funeral of Benedict XVI will be held Thursday morning and will be “presided over by Pope Francis, evidently,” said Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni, who delivered what he called the “sad news” of the death in a short statement Saturday morning that made sure to refer to Benedict without fail as “pope emeritus” — in both Italian and English — to avoid any confusion. He declined to answer questions. “I don’t think now is the time for questions to leave us time for some sadness in our heart.”
The timing was also inopportune because no one was quite sure what exactly would happen and what the first funeral for a pope emeritus would look like.
“The question is complicated,” said Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a historian of the papacy.
Those complications were immediately inescapable. Bruni said the funeral would be “simple,” and “solemn but sober,” in keeping with Benedict’s wishes. But Benedict, having retained his title of pontiff, if an emeritus one, was no simple cardinal, and it was not clear if he would receive the full procedural pomp and circumstance for a pontiff who died in office, among other things.
Two official delegations will be present, those of Germany and Italy. But would other nations send representatives? Benedict’s Fisherman’s Ring — the seal used for papal documents — was already destroyed, so it wouldn’t need to be. But would his study and bedroom be closed off?
When a pope dies, cardinals come from around the world to gather to mourn, but also to vote in the conclave that elects his successor. “Clearly that’s not an issue in this case,” Paravicini Bagliani said, adding that the cardinals who did come would do so solely “as mourners.”
On Sunday, Bruni confirmed that immediately after Benedict died, his closest and most loyal aide, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, called Pope Francis, who went directly across the gardens to bid adieu to his predecessor. The Vatican said Benedict’s body will be displayed to the faithful for a final “farewell” in St. Peter’s Basilica for three days starting Monday morning. Until then, his remains would stay at Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, where he lived during his nearly 10-year post-papacy.
The Vatican on Sunday released a photograph of the deceased pope, dressed in a miter and red vestments, his hands wrapped in a rosary as his body reclined on pillows below a crucifix and between a Christmas tree and Nativity scene.
Benedict had expressed a desire to be buried in the Vatican grottoes, underneath the basilica, in the niche where two former popes, St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II, were buried before the transfer of their remains to chapels in the basilica. The Vatican on Saturday confirmed that he will be buried in the grottoes but hasn’t yet announced exactly where.
All the decisions, according to The Seismograph, a website deeply sourced in the Vatican, belonged to Francis alone.
“At this moment, my thought naturally
goes to dear Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who left us this morning,” Francis said during a church service Saturday in St. Peter’s. “We are moved as we recall him as such a noble person, so kind. And we feel such gratitude in our hearts: gratitude to God for having given him to the church and to the world; gratitude to him for all the good he accomplished; and above all, for his witness of faith and prayer, especially in these last years of his recollected life.”
Addressing the faithful in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Francis again honored “Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who left this world yesterday morning.”
“We are all uniting, with one heart and one soul,” he said, “in thanking God for the gift of this faithful servant of the gospel and the church.”
Francis’ forbearers in the medieval era took a less than gracious approach toward their resigned predecessors.
When Celestine V resigned in 1294 to live like a monk, his successor, Pope Boniface VIII, in part fearing a rival claim, threw him in jail and deprived him a pope’s funeral when he died in 1296. When Gregory XII stepped down from the throne in 1415, the last pope to resign before Benedict, he reverted to being a cardinal and he received the funeral rites reserved for a cardinal when he died two years later. In 1802, Pius VII presided over the funeral of his predecessor, Pius VI, whose body returned to the Vatican after he died in 1799 in exile.
The uncertainty surrounding the rituals honoring Benedict in death stemmed from the
decision that generated the confusion in the last years of his life. After Benedict resigned, he promised to be “hidden from the world,” an oath he mostly kept. But to the dismay of many, he took the title of pope emeritus, keeping his white robes and a following of ideological conservatives who tried to make him into an alternative power center.
He also sometimes undercut Francis. In a 2019 essay, he — or aides writing in his name — asserted that sex abuse was a symptom of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, secularization and an erosion of morality that he pinned on liberal theology. That undercut Francis’ view that it resulted from an unhealthy abuse of power by clerics who held themselves above their flock.
And as Francis appeared to be mulling whether to lift the restriction on married priests in remote areas, as had been proposed by his bishops, Benedict firmly defended the church’s teachings on priestly celibacy in a 2020 book. Francis ended up rejecting the proposal, a decision welcomed by conservatives.
That strange duality, which inspired the film “The Two Popes” and captured the public imagination, has become the new abnormal in the Vatican for nearly a decade. As Francis has faced his own health setbacks, some wondered whether the emeritus pope would survive the acting one. If Francis suddenly retired, would there be three popes in the Vatican?
For his part, Francis, who as pope also serves as the bishop of Rome, has repeatedly left the option of retirement on the table. But he has suggested he would avoid confusion by taking the title of emeritus bishop of Rome “rather than pope emeritus” and spend his last days hearing confessions and visiting the sick.
The confusion of the multipope years still cast a shadow over some of the faithful who made their way to St. Peter’s Square on Saturday.
“I still have not really understood how this will work,” Chiara Darida, 73, a retired schoolteacher, said as she faced the basilica. She wasn’t sure if all the city’s bells would peal, and if heads of state and armies of pilgrims would rush into Rome.
“It’s a new situation, it never happened before,” she said, adding “there is some confusion.”
Sister Priscila Danieli Da Silva, a student of choir direction in sacred music who waited to get into St. Peter’s Basilica, found it thrilling.
“A pope who celebrates the funeral of another pope!” she said, adding that the event marked an example of how in a changing world, the church was also changing. “It’s a total novelty.”
Enough with the doom and gloom! Our planet may be in better shape than you think.
Human beings have a cognitive bias toward bad news (keeping us alert and alive), and we journalists reflect that: We report on planes that crash, not planes that land. We highlight disasters, setbacks, threats and deaths, so 2022 has kept us busy.
But a constant gush of despairing news can be paralyzing. So here’s my effort to remedy our cognitive biases. Until the pandemic, I wrote an annual column arguing that the previous year was the best in human history. I can’t do that this year. But I can suggest that broadly speaking, much is going right and this may still be the best time ever to be alive.
Where 2022 excelled particularly was in technological strides.
Solar power capacity around the world is on track to roughly triple over the next five years and overtake coal as the leading source of power globally. Technical improvements are constant — such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers’ developing a way to produce thin and flexible solar panels that can turn almost any outdoor surface into a power source.
There are parallel breakthroughs in batteries. Batteries, boring? No! They’re one of the most exciting frontiers of technology, making remarkable advances crucial to storing
green power. Likewise, nuclear fusion as an energy source marked a milestone in 2022. Green hydrogen is also gaining ground and could be useful for shipping and energy storage.
The upshot is that we are in the midst of a revolution of renewables that may soon leave us far better off. If things go right, we’ll be able to enjoy cheaper, more reliable and more portable power than ever before. Truly cheap energy, whether from solar or fusion, could be transformational: For example, it could run desalination plants to provide the fresh water that we’re running out of.
To be clear: Climate change remains an existential challenge. What’s new is that if you squint a little, it is now possible to see a path ahead in which we manage — barely — to avoid calamity.
Health tech has likewise made immense gains. Scientists are making significant progress on vaccines for malaria, reflecting what may be a new golden age for vaccine development. Immunotherapy is making progress against cancer. (Among other feats, it is keeping one of my friends alive.) A new gene-editing technique may be able to cure sickle cell anemia; Bill Gates argues in his annual letter that the same approach may eventually offer a cure for HIV/AIDS as well.
We haven’t even mentioned the progress in artificial intelligence, including ChatGPT. (No, it did not write this column.)
And of course, technology is not taking leaps just in research labs but is filtering down to improve individual lives. I’m writing this on the family farm in Oregon with the help of our new Starlink internet service that is beginning to empower rural America (and has been a game-changer for Ukrainians as they humble their Russian invaders).
It’s true that what may be the most important trend in my lifetime — historic progress against global poverty — has stalled because of COVID-19, climate change and the impact of the war in Ukraine on global food prices. But it has not collapsed.
“The pandemic dip was not that bad on many outcomes,” said Esther Duflo, an MIT professor and the youngest person to have won a Nobel in economic science. “It was much less of a cataclysm for Africa than for us.”
Indeed, World Bank researchers estimate that the number of people living in extreme poverty actually declined a hair in 2022, although the figure remains higher than on the eve of the pandemic. The number is about the same as it was in 2018 — and much better than in 2017 and previous years.
Remarkably, preliminary estimates suggest that global child mortality continued to fall during the pandemic. A child is now about half as likely to die by age 5 as in the year 2000, and one-quarter as likely to die as in 1970.
I don’t minimize the global humanitarian crisis, and we must do better. Children around the world are suffering malnutrition that permanently impairs their faculties. Young girls are being married off. Displaced
boys and girls are missing school.
But David Beasley, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, notes that although the world is facing “a perfect storm” of calamities, the world responded with an outpouring of assistance and an international push to allow exports of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. These measures have held off full-blown famine at least for the time being.
“Quite frankly,” he said, “it could have been so much worse.”
You may have winced when I wrote above that “this may still be the best time ever to be alive.” That’s deeply contrary to the public gloom. But would we prefer to live at some other time when children were more likely to die?
Max Roser of the indispensable website Our World in Data puts the situation exactly right: “The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time.”
So all the bad news is real, and I cover it the other 364 days of the year. But it’s also important to acknowledge the gains that our brains (and we journalists) are often oblivious to — if only to remind ourselves that progress is possible when we put our shoulder to it. Onward!
More uplift: Readers have donated more than $4 million so far to the nonprofits in my annual holiday giving guide. Thanks so much to all for bringing us closer to a better world. To join in and create some good news of your own, visit KristofImpact.org.
Contact Kristof at Facebook.com/Kristof, Twitter.com/ NickKristof or by mail at The New York Times, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10018.
SAN JUAN – “Un año más sin tragedias por proyectiles disparados al aire”, así lo afirmó el Dr. Israel Ayala Oliveras, director médico de la Administración de Servicios Médicos (ASEM), al revisar el informe de incidencias de la Sala de Emergencias de Centro Médico, durante la madrugada del domingo.
“Al igual que el año pasado, afortunadamente, podemos informar que no se reportaron a nuestra Sala de Emergencias tragedias en fin de año ocasionadas por las llamadas balas al aire. Hasta las 9:30 de la mañana de este primer día de 2023, nuestros reportes así lo confirman”, dijo Ayala Oliveras.
Sin embargo, hizo un desglose de otras estadísticas y precisó que “desde el 24 de diciembre hasta el día de hoy, se atendieron 42 personas por accidentes de auto, 21 por heridas de balas, 16 afectadas por accidentes en motoras y una por arma blanca”.
En cuanto a los casos por pirotecnia, Ayala Oliveras indicó que “se registran 6 heridos, pero estos comenzaron a reportarse mucho más temprano que en años anteriores, ya que el primer paciente se remonta al Día de Acción de Gracias”.
El galeno mostró satisfacción con la
reducción en las cifras de lesiones, heridas o muertes por balas perdidas, pero lamenta que no se elimine el uso de la pirotecnia que tanto daño puede causar en las personas que la manipulan sin las debidas medidas de precaución y sin pensar en el daño que puedan ocasionar
a personas encamadas, con afecciones cardíacas, que padecen de ansiedad o a esas que sencillamente decidieron despedir el año descansando en su hogar”.
“El hecho de que en la Sala de Emergencias de Centro Médico no se reporten casos por balas perdidas demuestra que la campaña de no tiros al aire ha funcionado. El mensaje ha llegado según hablan las estadísticas. Entre los años 1999 y 2011 los médicos de ASEM trataron a más de 60 personas por lesiones de balas perdidas y cinco de ellas, lamentablemente murieron”, agregó.
Ayala Oliveras finalmente destacó que “todavía resta por disfrutar las fiestas de Reyes y las octavitas, por lo que el mensaje sigue siendo prudencia y prevención sobre todo en las carreteras, ya que más del 50% de los accidentes de autos están relacionados con la acción de conducir luego de la ingesta de alcohol. Por favor, sean cuidadosos, si van a consumir bebidas alcohólicas pase la llave”.
POR CYBERNEWS
AN JUAN – Un doble asesinato fue reportado a eso de las 2:04 de la madrugada del lunes, en la avenida Kennedy, cerca de un concesionario de autos, en Santurce.
Según la información preliminar, se recibió una llamada a través del Sistema de Emergencias 9-1-1, sobre unos disparos en el mencionado lugar. Al llegar los agentes a la escena encontraron los cuerpos de dos hombres baleados, dentro de un vehículo.
Al momento, no han sido identificados y se investiga el móvil de estos hechos.
Personal de la División de Homicidios, del Cuerpo de Investigaciones Criminales de San Juan, investigan.
SAN JUAN – El informe preliminar de COVID-19 del Departamento de Salud (DS) reportó el viernes 5 muertos y 221 personas hospitalizadas.
El total de muertes atribuidas es de 5,525. Hay 201 adultos hospitalizados y 20 menores.
El monitoreo cubre el periodo del 13 al 27 de diciembre 2022.
La tasa de positividad está en 31.17 por ciento.
By KALIA RICHARDSON
Dionne Warwick refuses to stay put. At 82, the five-time Grammy-winning artist is making stops in Hawaii and Vancouver on her “One Last Time” tour — she won’t say whether it’s truly her last — tweeting (or “twoting,” as she calls it) to her more than half a million followers, and making appearances on “SNL” and on movie soundtracks like Jordan Peele’s “Nope.” When she retires, she said, she’ll move to Brazil.
“I will be laying in Bahia, where I want to spend the rest of my life, enjoying the sunshine, the music, the people and me,” Warwick said.
In the meantime, Warwick’s next venture is on-screen. In the documentary “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” (which premiered on CNN Jan. 1 and begins streaming on HBO Max thereafter), she, along with wellknown interviewees such as Bill Clinton, Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys, discusses her life and her 60-plus-year music career.
Directed by Dave Wooley and David Heilbroner, the film details moments from Warwick’s childhood, including singing in her grandfather’s church in Newark, New Jersey, and chronicles chart-topping hits such as “Walk On By” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” which were made with producing and songwriting duo Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Those songs challenged the racial barrier between rhythm and blues and pop. (In 1968, Warwick became the first African American woman to win a Grammy in the pop music category.)
As Warwick munched on cheese and crackers at the CNN offices in New York City, she talked about being a spokesperson for the Psychic Friends Network, her motivation to support AIDS research and how she met Snoop Dogg and Chance the Rapper. Following are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: The documentary is titled “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over.” What inspired the name?
A: “Don’t Make Me Over” was my first recording, my very first one, and the genesis of that was something I said to both Burt and Hal. I was promised a certain song, “Make it Easy on Yourself,” and they gave that song to Jerry Butler. I was on my way down to do a session with them and when I walked into the studio, I had to let them both know that I was not very happy about them giving my song away, first of all. That was something that they could never,
ever do. Don’t even try to change me or make me over. So David put pen to paper.
Q: The documentary discusses your upbringing. What was it like growing up in East Orange, New Jersey?
A: It was virtually the United Nations. We had every race, color, creed and religion on our street. We were friends, we walked to school together, I had dinner at their homes, they had dinner at my home. We played at the playground together. We were just kids and hung out with friends.
Q: How were you able to create music that appealed to all audiences during the 1950s and 1960s, when rhythm and blues and pop music was racially classified?
A: The fortunate thing is I could not be categorized. That was a joy. I look at — I still do this very day — and I continue to preach the fact that music is music.
I don’t look at myself as the person that threw the door open. I just paved the way to let people know, “Yeah, Gladys Knight deserved a Grammy, yeah, the Temptations deserved the Grammy, yeah, Diana Ross deserved it.” Of course! We’re singing music that all of you are listening to, so why are you going to put us in a little box? I ain’t going.
Q: By donating all the proceeds of the chart-topping song “That’s What Friends Are For,” you’ve helped raise millions for AIDS research. What led you to get involved with the cause and how does it feel to leave such
A: We were losing performers, we were losing dancers, we were losing hair people, we were losing wardrobe people, cameramen, lighting people.
I’ve lost two people in my group of people around me: my hairdresser and my valet both contracted AIDS. So, now, that’s too close. Let me find out what this is about. And I proceeded to get involved with WHO, World Health Organization, and we went to all the health departments in different countries to get a handle on not only what they were doing, but why they were not acknowledging that it’s happening in the country. I was able to help them bring their heads out of the sand and face reality.
Q: In the ’90s, you got involved in the Psychic Friends Network. What encouraged that decision?
A: It was during a period of time when my recordings were not being played on radio as much. It was a way to earn a very, very comfortable living. It paid very well — had to keep my lights on, too. So that’s how that all began.
I can’t nor would I ever think about taking it seriously. And anybody that does, you have to look at them with a jaundiced eye.
Q: You felt very strongly about gangster rap, and set up an early meeting with Snoop Dogg, Suge Knight and others to encourage them to reconsider their lyrics. How did that
A: I called a meeting with them, and I gave them a time to be at my home. I told them not one minute before and not one minute after 7 a.m., I want that doorbell to ring. And it did. We sat and talked for quite a few hours. I told them, “You think I’m part of the problem? Make me part of the solution. Tell me what it is.” I said, “I have no problem with you saying whatever you’re feeling; however, there’s a way to say it.”
Q: Have you reached out to any other rap artists recently?
A: Chance the Rapper, that was a funny thing as well. Why would you have to put “rapper” in your name when we all know you rap? Duh.
He was more surprised that I even knew who he was, and as a result we’ve become friends. He has my phone number, I have his and we do talk. We recorded together, a wonderful song and not one curse word — a very, very positive message. So it’s not like they can’t do it, and if they need to be led a little bit, hey, that must be my job to do.
Q: Amid the pandemic, you rose to Twitter royalty. What’s it like to be crowned the queen of Twitter?
A: They gave me the title. I didn’t take it. I didn’t give it to myself. They all decided I was the queen of Twitter. So yeah, OK, I’ll be your queen of Twitter. In fact, I started a new way of saying Twitter, I call it twoting.
Q: Twoting? Why twoting?
A: I didn’t want to say “tweet.”
Q: When can we expect the next tweet (or twote) from you?
A: I do it when I feel it. I also follow a lot of tweets that are going on, and when I find one that’s not too pleasing to me, you’ll hear from me.
Q: What do you think about the Whitney Houston biopic, “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody”?
A: I’m very protective of her, and I usually don’t talk about her. She’s at rest now, and I will let her do that. She’s at peace, thank God. He’s [Clive Davis, the record producer] assured me that it is about her music, about her legacy, what she was really all about. There’s no need for it to be anything other than that.
Q: What do you hope people will gain from the “Don’t Make Me Over” documentary?
A: I’m hoping that people will finally get to know me, and not think they know me. They’ll get to know Dionne. I’m as human as everybody else.
ous belting out come-hither lyrics about “those pleasures in the night,” and the group came out with a racy music video to match. The song spent 40 weeks on the Hot 100 chart.
Anita sang backup on other Pointer Sisters hits, with June in lead for “Jump (For My Love),” which won the duo or group pop performance Grammy in 1985, and Ruth led on “Automatic,” which won the vocal arrangement for two or more voices award at that year’s ceremony.
“That’s something I would always hate to see — somebody trying to out-sing the other person,” Anita said in a discussion of her career posted on YouTube in 2015. “Everybody did their best. I never felt like we were competing onstage.”
Anita Marie Pointer was born on Jan. 23, 1948, in Oakland, California. Her father, the Rev. Elton Pointer, and her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Silas Pointer, both ministered to a small congregation. The six Pointer children sang in choir throughout their childhoods, gaining vocal training that would help the girls harmonize when they formed their own group.
Elton and Sarah came from Arkansas, and Anita fell in love with her grandparents’ home in the town of Prescott, where she attended fifth, seventh and 10th grades. She attended a racially segregated school, was forced to sit in the balcony of the movie theater and once picked cotton for money.
By ALEX TRAUBAnita Pointer, the sweet and occasionally sultry lead vocalist on many hits of her family band the Pointer Sisters in the 1970s and ’80s, died Saturday at home in Beverly Hills, California. She was 74.
The cause was cancer, her publicist, Roger Neal, said.
The Pointer Sisters occupied a middle point in pop history between the doo-wop innocence of the Ronettes and the stilettoed girl power of Destiny’s Child.
Anita’s voice had a lot to do with that. She sang with the speed and flavor of molasses. Although she commanded the virtuosity to trill prettily, she tended to sing too softly to sound overpowering. In “Slow Hand,” a love song with a soft-focus music video that reached No. 2 on the pop charts in 1981, Anita cooed.
When she sang lead vocals, on that song and others, her sisters provided a melodic line on backup, and the women frequently harmonized, structuring their groovy ’70s sound along similar lines to a barbershop quartet.
The group started with four Pointer Sisters — Anita, Ruth, Bonnie and June — and became a trio when Bonnie left to pursue a solo career in 1977. Anita sang lead on all three of the group’s Top 40 hits in its original incarnation, including the breakout hit, “Yes We Can Can,” from its debut album, “The Pointer Sisters” (1973). It reached No. 11 on the charts that year.
Performing the song live, Anita sang through a toothy smile, with an earnest, imploring tone that might have been learned from hearing her father, a minister, preach.
Some of the Pointer Sisters’ early music, such as “How Long (Betcha’ Got A Chick On The Side)” (1975), could be fast-paced and funky, but the antique aspect of the group’s sound was deliberate. The Pointer women performed wearing secondhand clothes that could have been worn to church in the 1940s — and they sometimes even sourced their wardrobe from their mother’s church friends.
They won their first Grammy, unusually for a Black group of the time, in the best country vocal performance by a duo or group category, for the 1974 song “Fairytale,” written by Anita and Bonnie.
Working outside her family band in 1986, Anita achieved a rare crossover hit in a duet with country singer Earl Thomas Conley, “Too Many Times.” The two performed the song at an improbable venue for Conley: the R&B television show “Soul Train.”
The Pointer Sisters charted a new course when Bonnie left the group. Its 1978 rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s song “Fire,” which reached No. 2 on the charts, was transitional: old-fashioned honky-tonk piano lines, but with Anita as lead vocalist leaning into a huskier, sexier side of her low voice.
By 1982, the group had arrived at a largely new style with “I’m So Excited.” On lead vocals, Anita sounded joy-
She graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1965 and was hired as a legal secretary. In 1968, she saw Bonnie and June sing to a crowd in San Francisco. “I just lost it,” she told Collector’s Weekly in 2015. “I sat in that audience, and I cried, and I sang along. The next day, I quit my job. I said, ‘I’ve got to sing!’”
The sisters soon became a backup group for musicians in the San Francisco area like Taj Mahal. Once, they were warned about upstaging a musical act they were supposed to be supporting. They began recording their own music.
In addition to music, Anita amassed a notable collection of objects charting Black American history, including artifacts of slavery, segregation and racist caricature.
“This reminds me that everybody don’t love you and that you have to prove them wrong,” Pointer told Collector’s Weekly. “You’re not a buffoon. The artists tried to depict Black people in an insulting way, but I think big lips and big booties are beautiful.”
Pointer’s two marriages ended in divorce. Her daughter, Jada, from her first marriage, died of cancer in 2003. June died in 2006, and Bonnie died in 2020. Pointer is survived by her sister Ruth; her brothers, Aaron and Fritz; and a granddaughter.
As she aged, Pointer never fell out of love with her old music, blasting it in her car and singing along. The band kept performing well into the 21st century.
“It’s not a vulgar show, so you can bring your grandma and you can bring the kids,” Pointer told French outlet Metro News in 2007. “They’re not going to get a corset in their face.”
Nearly three years into the pandemic, COVID-19 remains stubbornly persistent. So, too, does misinformation about the virus.
As COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths rise in parts of the country, myths and misleading narratives continue to evolve and spread, exasperating overburdened doctors and evading content moderators.
What began in 2020 as rumors that cast doubt on the existence or seriousness of COVID quickly evolved into often outlandish claims about dangerous technology lurking in masks and the supposed miracle cures from unproven drugs, like ivermectin. Last year’s vaccine rollout fueled another wave of unfounded alarm. Now, in addition to all the claims still being bandied about, there are conspiracy theories about the long-term effects of the treatments, researchers say.
The ideas still thrive on social media platforms, and the constant barrage, now a yearslong accumulation, has made it increasingly difficult for accurate advice to break through, misinformation researchers say. That leaves people already suffering from pandemic fatigue to become further inured to COVID’s continuing dangers and susceptible to other harmful medical content.
“It’s easy to forget that health misinformation, including about COVID, can still contribute to people not getting vaccinated or creating stigmas,” said Megan Marrelli, editorial director of Meedan, a nonprofit focused on digital literacy and information access. “We know for a fact that health misinformation contributes to the spread of real-world disease.”
Twitter is of particular concern for researchers. The company recently gutted the teams responsible for keeping dangerous or inaccurate material in check on the platform, stopped enforcing its COVID misinformation policy and began basing some content moderation decisions on public polls posted by its new owner and chief executive, billionaire Elon Musk.
From Nov. 1 to Dec. 5, Australian
researchers collected more than half a million conspiratorial and misleading English-language tweets about COVID, using terms such as “deep state,” “hoax” and “bioweapon.” The tweets drew more than 1.6 million likes and 580,000 retweets.
The researchers said the volume of toxic material surged in late November with the release of a film that included baseless claims that COVID vaccines set off “the greatest orchestrated die-off in the history of the world.”
Naomi Smith, a sociologist at Federation University Australia who helped conduct the research with Timothy Graham, a digital media expert at Queensland University of Technology, said Twitter’s misinformation policies helped tamp down anti-vaccination content that had been common on the platform in 2015 and 2016. From January 2020 to September 2022, Twitter suspended more than 11,000 accounts over violations of its COVID misinformation policy.
Now, Smith said, the protective barriers are “falling over in real time, which is both interesting as an academic and absolutely terrifying.”
“Pre-COVID, people who believed in medical misinformation were generally just talking to each other, contained within their own little bubble, and you had to go and do a bit of work to find that bubble,” she said. “But now, you don’t have to do any work to find that information — it is presented in your feed with any other types of information.”
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment. Other major social platforms, including TikTok and YouTube, said in recent weeks that they remained committed to combating COVID misinformation.
YouTube prohibits content — including videos, comments and links — about vaccines and COVID-19 that contradicts recommendations from the local health authorities or the World Health Organization. Facebook’s policy on COVID content is more than 4,500 words long. TikTok said it had removed more than 250,000 videos for COVID misinformation and worked with partners such
as its content advisory council to develop its policies and enforcement strategies. (Musk disbanded Twitter’s advisory council last month.)
But the platforms have struggled to enforce their COVID rules.
Newsguard, an organization that tracks online misinformation, found this fall that typing “covid vaccine” into TikTok caused it to suggest searches for “covid vaccine injury” and “covid vaccine warning,” while the same query on Google led to recommendations for “walk-in covid vaccine” and “types of covid vaccines.” One search on TikTok for “mRNA vaccine” brought up five videos containing false claims within the first 10 results, according to researchers. TikTok said in a statement that its community guidelines “make clear that we do not allow harmful misinformation, including medical misinformation, and we will remove it from the platform.”
Some efforts to slow the spread of misinformation about the virus have bumped up against First Amendment concerns.
A law that California passed several months ago, and that is set to take effect this month, would punish doctors for
spreading false information about COVID vaccines. It already faces legal challenges from plaintiffs who describe the regulation as an unconstitutional infringement of free speech. Tech companies including Meta, Google and Twitter have faced lawsuits this year from people who were barred over COVID misinformation and claim that the companies overreached in their content moderation efforts, while other suits have accused the platforms of not doing enough to rein in misleading narratives about the pandemic.
Dr. Graham Walker, an emergency physician in San Francisco, said the rumors spreading online about the pandemic drove him and many of his colleagues to social media to try to correct inaccuracies. He has posted several Twitter threads with more than a hundred evidence-packed tweets trying to debunk misinformation about the coronavirus.
But this year, he said he felt increasingly defeated by the onslaught of toxic content about a variety of medical issues. He left Twitter after the company abandoned its COVID misinformation policy.
“I began to think that this was not a winning battle,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like a fair fight.”
The winter storm that ravaged much of the United States and Canada through Christmas was expected to be bad, and it was. Forecasters billed it as a “once in a generation” event even before ice began coating the steep streets of Seattle, white-out conditions spread from the Plains to the Midwest and more than 4 feet of snow was dumped on Buffalo, New York, in a storm that has killed more than three dozen people.
The links between climate change and much extreme weather are becoming increasingly clear. In a warming planet, heat waves are hotter, droughts are prolonged, summer downpours are more severe.
But when it comes to extreme winter weather like the recent storm, the links are less clear, and often the subject of vigorous scientific debate.
Winters, like the other seasons, have been getting warmer in the United States and elsewhere. An analysis by Climate Central, an independent research and communications group, found that winter temperatures in the United States have increased by more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit (a little less than 2 degrees Celsius) over the past half-century. In most places, winter is the fastest-warming season, and the warming is most pronounced in northern areas like the Great Lakes and the Northeast.
Those are average temperatures, however. Cold snaps still occur, and the one that began a few days before Christmas was extreme.
Meteorologists say it was caused by the polar vortex, a mass of cold Arctic air that moved southward into Canada and the United States. That air had become very cold sitting over the North Pole at a time of year when no sunlight reaches the region and the Arctic Ocean is frozen over.
When it reached into Canada and the United States, the cold air, intruding between masses of warmer air, caused temperatures and air pressure to plunge drastically. The falling temperatures triggered a deep freeze in many locations, and the pressure changes generated strong winds.
The winds combined with the clash of air masses into what meteorologists call a bomb cyclone, a rotating, fierce storm that can bring heavy snow or rain and cause tidal surges in coastal areas.
What causes the polar vortex to make southward excursions like this, however, is hotly debated.
Some scientists say that rapid warming of the Arctic — it has warmed nearly four times faster than other regions — is responsible. As the Arctic warms, they say, the temperature difference between the pole and the
tropics lessens. That leads to weakening of the high-altitude winds called the polar jet stream. which becomes more sinuous, or wavier, and allows the polar vortex to spread southward.
But many scientists say that while there is some evidence for the idea that Arctic warming weakens the jet stream, there is less to support the concept that this makes for a wavier pattern that allows for the polar vortex to wander. And at least one study has found that a short-term trend of a wavier jet stream and polar vortex excursions in the 1990s and 2000s, which prompted the development of the idea that Arctic warming affected the polar vortex, has not continued.
Research on the subject is continuing. “We’ve figured out a few strands of this question,” said Steve Vavrus, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin who was an author of a 2020 paper that reviewed current
understanding of the subject in a paper several years ago. “I think we’ll continue to do so in coming years as more and more people research it.”
Outside of the Arctic, warmer winters have many effects that are more certain. Higher winter temperatures in the Western United States, for example, have increased the survivability of tree-destroying insects like pine beetles, contributing to large scale die-offs in forests. Warming also means more precipitation falls as rain, rather than snow, reducing winter snowpack that in many areas is critical for water supplies.
When it is cold enough for snow rather than rain, however — as it was in many places during the recent storm — more snow can fall. That’s because air can hold more moisture when it’s warmer. It’s the cold-weather version of why rainfall is becoming more extreme in many parts of the world.
While it’s difficult to know whether this storm, overall, was snowier than it might have been without human-caused climate change, in some areas snow totals were off the charts. Buffalo received more than 22 inches of snow Friday, a record, the local National Weather Service office said.
Buffalo is in a part of the country that’s subject to “lake effect” snow, which happens when cold, dry air blows across water (in Buffalo’s case, Lake Erie), picking up moisture that is then dumped as snow when it reaches land. Lake-effect snow occurs when the water is unfrozen. And, generally, the greater the temperature difference between the air and water, the greater the effect.
Lake-effect snow is expected to increase as the planet warms, because lakes will be warmer in winter and will remain unfrozen for longer. At some point, however, average winter temperatures in some areas could rise to the point where snow will diminish and be replaced by lake-effect rain.
STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
Defendants
Civil Action No.: 3:16-cv-02478PAD. COLLECTION OF MONIES AND FORECLOSURE COMPLAINT. NOTICE OF SALE.
To: CARMEN MARÍA SUÁREZ
GENERAL PUBLIC.
WHEREAS: Judgment was entered in favor of plaintiff to recover from defendants the principal sum of $138,060.89, plus the annual interest rate convened of 5.060% per annum until the debt is paid in full. The defendant Carmen María Suárez Aristud a/k/a Carmen M. Suárez Aristud a/k/a Carmen María Suárez to pay Finance of America Reverse, LLC., all advances made under the mortgage note including but not limited to insurance premiums, taxes and inspections as well as 10% ($22,200.00) of the original principal amount to cover costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees guaranteed under the mortgage obligation. The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by interested parties at the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150, Federal Office Building, 150 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. WHEREAS: Pursuant to the terms of the aforementioned Judgment, Order of Execution, and the Writ of Execution thereof, the undersigned Special Master was ordered to sell at public auction for U.S. currency in cash or certified check without appraisement or right of redemption to the highest bidder and at the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 – Federal Office Building, 150 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property
URBANA: Solar marcado con el número FF veintidós del Plano de Inscripción del Proyecto
de Viviendas a Bajo Costo denominado B.V.C. cincuenta y dos, radicado en el Barrio Martín González y Hoyo Mulas del término municipal de Carolina, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de doscientos noventa y ocho metros cuadrados con cincuenta y siete centésimas de otro, en lindes: por el NORTE, con el solar FF veintiuno; por el SUR, con el solar FF veintitrés; por el ESTE, con terrenos propiedad de la Corporación de Renovación Urbana y Vivienda de Puerto Rico; y por el OESTE, con la Calle número doce.”
Property Number 31,199 filed at page 203 of volume 776 of Carolina, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section II of Carolina. The mortgage deed is recorded at page 132 of volume 1,508 of Carolina, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section II of Carolina. WHEREAS: This property is subject to the following liens: Senior Liens: None. Junior Liens: Reverse mortgage securing a note in favor of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, or its order, in the original principal amount of $222,000.00, due on August 1, 2087 pursuant to deed number 50, issued in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 27, 2013, before notary David Garcia Medina, and recorded, at page 134 of volume 1,508 of Carolina, property number 31,199, 5th inscription. Other Liens: None. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed upon, including but not limited to any property tax, liens, (express, tacit, implied or legal) shall continue in effect it being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation. THEREFORE, the FIRST PUBLIC SALE shall be held on the 17TH DAY JANUARY OF 2023, AT: 9:30 AM. The minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $222,000.00. In the event said first auction does not produce a bidder and the property is not adjudicated, a SECOND PUBLIC AUCTION shall be held on the the 24TH DAY JANUARY OF 2023, AT: 9:30 AM, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum $148,000.00, which is two-thirds of the amount of the minimum bid for the first public sale. If a second auction does not result in the adjudication and sale of the property, a
THIRD PUBLIC AUCTION will be held on the the 31ST DAY JANUARY OF 2023, AT: 9:30 AM, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $111,000.00, which is one-half of the minimum bid in the first public sale. The Special Master shall not accept in payment of the property to be sold anything but United States currency or certified checks, except in case the property is sold and adjudicated to the plaintiff, in which case the amount of the bid made by said plaintiff shall be credited and deducted from its credit; said plaintiff being bound to pay in cash or certified check only any excess of its bid over the secured indebtedness that remains unsatisfied. WHEREAS: Said sale to be made by the Special Master subject to confirmation by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of conveyance and possession to the property will be executed and delivered only after such confirmation. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued cancelling all junior liens. For further particulars, reference is made to the judgment entered by the Court in this case, which can be examined in the Office of Clerk of the United States District Court, District of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 19th day of October 2022. PEDRO A. VÉLEZ-BAERGA, SPECIAL MASTER.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAGUAS LUIS ÁNGEL ROLÓN
Civil Núm.: CG2022CV03437.
Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S.
dre de la parte peticionaria, estuvo ocupando el referido bien inmueble hasta el momento de su fallecimiento. El causante
RIVERA REYES, SUB-SECRETARIA.
POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal por la parte peticionaria, una petición de expediente de dominio solicitando la inscripción del inmueble que se describe en dicha petición a nombre de dicha peticionaria.
El Sr. Rafael Rolón García, pa-
Rafael Rolón García obtuvo la posesión de dicho terreno por cesión o donación de su madre, Isabel García García, quien lo adquirió desde hace muchos años pero no cuenta con documento alguno que acredite dicha cesión. Antes de éste fallecer, el Sr. Rolón le cedió en vida al peticionario todo derecho sobre la propiedad inmueble antes descrita. Sin embargo, desde que ocurrió dicha cesión el peticionario ha estado poseyendo el inmueble como dueño por más de 30 años. La descripción exacta del bien inmueble objeto del procedimiento es el siguiente: RÚSTICA: Solar radicado en la Carretera #734 KM 4.0, sito en el barrio Arenas del término municipal de Cidra, Puerto Rico, identificado en el plano de mensura con el número Lote 1A con una cabida superficial de 1127.4047 metros cuadrados, equivalentes a 0.2868 cuerdas. En lindes al Norte, en 6.3137 metros con terrenos de Nicanor Izona; al Sur en 22.1902 metros con Rosa M. Rolón Meléndez; al Este en 27.2632 metros con Marisol Rolón González y en 27.2632 metros con Luis Antonio Rolón González y al Oeste, en 70.0016 metros con Antulio Aponte. Se le notifica que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https//unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaria del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Cidra y enviando copia a la representación legal de la parte peticionaria: LCDO. VICTOR M. RIVERA TORRES, con dirección en la Avenida Fernández Juncos 1420, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00909, teléfono 787-727-5710, fax: 787268-1835. Se le advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria general en tres (3) ocasiones dentro del término de veinte (20) días, a fin de que cualquier persona interesada pueda comparecer ante el Tribunal, dentro del término de veinte (20) días a contar de la fecha de la última publicación del edicto, a fin de alegar lo que al derecho de estos convenga. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en Caguas, Puerto Rico, a 30 de noviembre de 2022.
LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. GLORISSETTE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAGUAS LUIS ANTONIO ROLÓN GONZÁLEZ
Peticionaria EX-PARTE
Civil Núm.: CG2022CV03469. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S.
POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal por la parte peticionaria, una petición de expediente de dominio solicitando la inscripción del inmueble que se describe en dicha petición a nombre de dicha peticionaria. El Sr. Guillermo Rolón García, padre de la parte peticionaria, estuvo ocupando el referido bien inmueble hasta el momento de su fallecimiento. El causante Guillermo Rolón García obtuvo la posesión de dicho terreno por cesión o donación de su madre, Isabel García García, quien lo adquirió desde hace muchos años pero no cuenta con documento alguno que acredite dicha cesión. Antes de éste fallecer, el Sr. Rolón le cedió en vida al peticionario todo derecho sobre la propiedad inmueble antes descrita. Sin embargo, desde que ocurrió dicha cesión la peticionaria ha estado poseyendo el inmueble como dueña por más de 30 años. La descripción exacta del bien inmueble objeto del procedimiento es el siguiente: RÚSTICA: Solar radicado en la Carretera #734 KM 4.0, sito en el barrio Arenas del término municipal de Cidra, Puerto Rico, identificado en el plano de mensura con el número LOTE 6C, con una cabida superficial de 949.3418 metros cuadrados, equivalentes a 0.2415 cuerdas. En lindes al Norte, en 33.0666 metros con terrenos de Marisol Rolón González; al Sur en 20.2959 metros con Iglesia Católica y en 11.3417 metros con Suzette A. Rolón Cruz; al Este en 31.5623 metros con Sucn. de Luis Rolón García y al Oeste, en 27.2635 metros con Luis A. Rolón Meléndez.
Se le notifica que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaria del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Cidra y enviando copia a la representación legal de la parte peticionaria: LCDO. VICTOR M. RIVERA TORRES, con dirección en la Avenida Fernández Juncos 1420, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00909, teléfono 787-727-5710, fax: 787268-1835. Se le advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria general en tres (3) ocasiones dentro del término de veinte (20) días, a fin de que cualquier persona interesada pueda comparecer ante el Tribunal, dentro del término de veinte (20) días a contar de la fecha de la última publicación del edicto, a fin de alegar lo que al derecho de estos convenga. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en Caguas, Puerto Rico, a 30 de noviembre de 2022.
LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. GLORISSETTE RIVERA REYES, SUB-SECRETARIA.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAGUAS
Peticionaria EX-PARTE Civil Núm.: CD2022CV00162. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S.
POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal por la parte peticionaria, una petición de expediente de dominio solicitando la inscripción del inmueble que se describe más adelante a nombre de dicha peticionaria. El Sr. Guillermo Rolón García, padre de la parte peticionaria, estuvo ocupando el referido bien inmueble hasta el momento de
su fallecimiento. El causante Guillermo Rolón García obtuvo la posesión de dicho terreno por cesión o donación de su madre, Isabel García García, quien lo adquirió desde hace muchos años pero no cuenta con documento alguno que acredite dicha cesión. Antes de éste fallecer, el Sr. Rolón le cedió en vida a la peticionaria todo derecho sobre la propiedad inmueble antes descrita.
Sin embargo, desde que ocurrió dicha cesión la peticionaria ha estado poseyendo el inmueble como dueña por más de 30 años. La descripción exacta del bien inmueble objeto del procedimiento es el siguiente: RÚSTICA: Solar radicado en la Carretera #734 KM 4.0, sito en el barrio Arenas del término municipal de Cidra, Puerto Rico, identificado en el plano de mensura con el número Lote 6B, con una cabida superficial de 537.5538 metros cuadrados, equivalentes a 0.1368 cuerdas. En lindes al Norte, en 11.3417 metros con terrenos de Luis Antonio Rolón González; al Sur en 25.7300 metros con Felicita González Vázquez; al Este en 29.0809 metros con la Sucesión de Luis Rolón García y al Oeste, en 31.7615 metros con templo de la Iglesia Católica. Se le notifica que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaria del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Cidra y enviando copia a la representación legal de la parte peticionaria: LCDO.
VICTOR M. RIVERA TORRES, con dirección en la Avenida Fernández Juncos 1420, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00909, teléfono 787-727-5710, fax: 787268-1835. Se le advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria general en tres (3) ocasiones dentro del término de veinte (20) días, a fin de que cualquier persona interesada pueda comparecer ante el Tribunal, dentro del término de veinte (20) días a contar de la fecha de la última publicación del edicto, a fin de alegar lo que al derecho de estos convenga. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en Cidra, Puerto Rico, a 30 de noviembre de 2022. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. GLORISSETTE RIVERA REYES, SUB-SECRETARIA.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAGUAS
Peticionaria EX-PARTE
Civil Núm.: CG2022CV03461. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S.
POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal por la parte peticionaria, una petición de expediente de dominio solicitando la inscripción del inmueble que se describe en dicha petición a nombre de dicha peticionaria. El Sr. Guillermo
Rolón García, padre de la parte peticionaria, estuvo ocupando el referido bien inmueble hasta el momento de su fallecimiento. El causante Guillermo Rolón García obtuvo la posesión de dicho terreno por cesión o donación de su madre, Isabel García García, quien lo adquirió desde hace muchos años pero no cuenta con documento alguno que acredite dicha cesión. Antes de éste fallecer, el Sr. Rolón le cedió en vida a la peticionaria todo derecho sobre la propiedad inmueble antes descrita. Sin embargo, desde que ocurrió dicha cesión la peticionaria ha estado poseyendo el inmueble como dueña por más de 30 años. La descripción exacta del bien inmueble objeto del procedimiento es el siguiente: RÚSTICA: Solar radicado en la Carretera #734 KM 4.0, sito en el barrio Arenas del término municipal de Cidra, Puerto Rico, identificado en el plano de mensura con el número Lote 6G con una cabida superficial de 950.2222 metros cuadrados, equivalentes a 0.2418 cuerdas. En lindes al Norte, en 34.9842 metros con terrenos de Nicanor Izona; al Sur en 33.0666 metros con Luis Antonio Rolón González; al Este en 28.7092 metros con la Sucn. De Luis Rolón García y al Oeste, en 27.2632 metros con Luis A. Rolón Meléndez. Se le notifica que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Adminis-
A: CUALQUIER PERSONA QUE PUDIESE TENER INTERÉS Y TODA PERSONA A QUIEN PUDIERA PERJUDICAR LA
TODA
dictada y notificada en este caso el 8 de abril de 2016, notificada el 14 de abril de 2016 y extendida el 8 de diciembre de 2022, en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $82,571.71 por concepto de principal; cargos por demora los cuales al igual que los intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda reclamada en este pleito, y una partida para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado por la cantidad de $8,257.17; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente. (“Sentencia”). La adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo de la adjudicación, en efectivo (moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América), giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del alguacil del Tribunal. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a efecto el día 13 DE FEBRERO DE 2023
A LAS 10:00 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 $82,571.71. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 27 DE FEBRERO DE 2023 A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $55,047.80, 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 6 DE MARZO DE 2023 A LAS 10:00
DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $41,285.85, 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 16 de diciembre de 2022.
Maribel Lanzar Velázquez, Alguacil Placa #735, División De Subastas, Tribunal De Primera Instancia, Sala Superior De Bayamón. ***
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMON SALA SUPERIOR.
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO DEMANDANTE vs. CARLOS SANTANA NEGRON, MILDRED TORO MARTINEZ T/C/C MILDRED H. TORO MARTINEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES
COMPUESTA POR AMBOS DEMANDADOS CIVIL NUM.: BY2022CV04269.
SOBRE: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA “IN REM” (VÍA ORDINARIA). ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, El Presidente de los Estados Unidos El Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico.
A la parte cu-demandada: CARLOS SANTANA NEGRÓN, POR SÍ Y
COMO REPRESENTANTE:
DE LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA CON LA SRA. MILDRED TORO MARTÍNEZ T/C/C MILDRED H. TORO MARTÍNEZ, a sus últimas direcciones conocidas: (a) URB. COVADONGA 2C-23 CALLE 3 TOA BAJA, PR 00949; (b) PO BOX 9269 BAYAMON, PR 00960.
Por la presente se Ie(s) notifica que se ha radicado en la Secretaria de este Tribunal una Demanda en Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca en su contra, en la cual se alega entre otras cosas que la parte demandada adeuda a la parte demandante por concepto de hipoteca la suma de S8,376.68 por concepto de principal, desde el 1ro de febrero de 2022, más intereses al tipo pactado de 7.00% anual que continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la obligación. Además, la parte demandada adeuda a la parte demandante los cargos por demora equivalentes a 4.00% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha de vencimiento; los créditos accesorios y adelantos hechos en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca; y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado equivalentes a $6,386.00. Además la parte demandada se comprometió a pagar una suma equivalente a $6,386.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca y una suma equivalente a $6,386.00 para cubrir intereses en adición a los garantizados por ley y cualquiera otros adelantos que se hagan en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca número 94. otorgada en Bayamón, Puerto Rico. el día 29 de septiembre de 1993, ante el notario José Carlos García Selva, de la finca número 14,272, inscrita al Folio 273 del Torno 236 de Toa Baja, Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección Segunda. Por razón de dicho incumplimiento, y al amparo del derecho que le confiere el Pagaré. el demandante ha declarado tales sumas vencidas, líquidas y exigibles en su totalidad. Este Tribunal ha ordenado que se le(s) cite a usted(es) por edicto que se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general. Por tratarse de una obligación hipotecaria y pudiendo usted tener interés en este caso o quedar afectando por el remedio solicitado. se le emplaza por este edicto que se publicará una vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de Puerto Rico. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva
a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/,umaci, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del tribunal y notifique copia de la Contestación de la Demanda a las oficinas de CARDONA & MALDONADO LAW OFF ICES, P.S.C. ATENCION al Ledo. 0uncan Maldonado Ejarque, P.O. Box 366221, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-6221; Tel (787) 622-7000, Fax (787) 6257001, Abogado de la Parte Demandante. Dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, apercibiéndole que de no hacerlo así dentro del término Indicado, el Tribunal podrá anotar su Rebeldía y dictar Sentencia, concediéndose el remedio solicitado sin mas citarle(s) ni oirle(s). EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y con el Sello del Tribunal. DADA hoy 16 de septiembre de 2022, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico. LCDA.
LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Sec Regional. Amalyn Figueroa Nieves, Secretarla Auxiliar del Tribunal.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA
CASITAS BLANCAS, LLC Demandante Vs. ALEX GONZALEZ ALMEYDA YSU ESPOSA CAROLYN APONTE SALGADO Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS
Demandados Civil Núm.: CA2020CV00712. (403). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA). EDICTO DE SUBASTA.
Al: PÚBLICO EN GENERAL.
A: ALEX GONZALEZ ALMEYDA Y SU ESPOSA CAROLYN APONTE SALGADO Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS.
Yo, MANUEL VILLAFAÑE BLANCO, 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 7 DE FEBRERO DE 2023 A LAS 2:00 DE LA TARDE en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera
Instancia, Sala Superior de Carolina, Carolina, 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 Carolina 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 14 DE FEBRERO DE 2023, A LAS 2:00 DE LA TARDE y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 22 DE FEBRERO DE 2023, A LAS 2:00 DE LA TARDE en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado. La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue: URBANA: Solar con el número Treinta (30) de la Manzana número Ciento Noventa y Uno (191) de la URBANIZACIÓN VILLA CAROLINA, Quinta Sección, radicado en el Barrio Hoyo Mulas del término municipal de Carolina, Puerto Rico, de TRESCIENTOS VEINTICUATRO PUNTO CERO CERO (324.00) METROS CUADRADOS. En lindes por el NORTE, con el solar número Veintinueve (29), distancia de veinticuatro punto cero cero (24.00) metros; por el SUR, con el solar número Treinta y Uno (31), distancia de veinticuatro punto cero cero (24.00) metros; por el ESTE, con el solar número Ocho (8), distancia de trece punto quinientos (13.500) metros; y por el OESTE, con la Calle número Quinientos Veintidós (522), distancia de trece punto quinientos (13.500) metros. Contiene una casa de concreto para una familia. La escritura de hipoteca se encuentra inscrita al folio 100 del tomo 1379 de Carolina, Sección Segunda, finca número 33,864, inscripción novena. Modificada la hipoteca de la inscripción 9na., se amplía en la suma de $7,689.14 para un nuevo principal de $139,266.14, con intereses al 4 ½% anual, vencedero el día 1ro. de febrero de 2044, con un último pago de $27,853.23, según la escritura número 56, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 28 de febrero de 2014, ante la Notario Público Nay Del Carmen Rodríguez González, inscrita al folio 136 del tomo 1515 de Carolina, Sección Segunda, finca 33,864, inscripción 10ma. La dirección física de la propiedad antes descrita es: Urbanización Villa Carolina, Quinta Sección,
191-30, Calle 522, Carolina, Puerto Rico. La subasta se llevará a efecto para satisfacer a la parte demandante la suma de $102,894.16 de principal, intereses 4 ½% anual, desde el día 1ro. de agosto de 2018, hasta su completo pago, más la cantidad de $13,157.70, estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más recargos acumulados, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta para el inmueble será la suma de $131,577.00 y de ser necesaria una segunda subasta, la cantidad mínima será equivalente a 2/3 partes de aquella, o sea, la suma de $87,718.00 y de ser necesaria una tercera subasta, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado, es decir, la suma de $65,788.50. 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, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad a ser vendida en pública subasta se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en Carolina, Puerto Rico, a 12 de diciembre de 2022. MANUEL VILLAFAÑE BLANCO #830, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO JESÚS M. BURGOS
TRATO, INCUMPLIMIENTO, DAÑOS Y PERJUICIOS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PR. A: ADOLFO
1252 QUEENS HARBOR BLVD. JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA 3225.
Vs SOSA CABAN, BENNY
Caso: ACD2016-0140. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO JOHN DOE, JANE DOE, JOHN ROE Y JANE ROE DIRECCIÓN:
Demandantes V. ADOLFO CRISCUOLO
POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que la demandante ha radicado una Demanda sobre Nulidad de Contrato, Incumplimiento, Daños y Perjuicios. Habiéndose ordenado la publicación de un Emplazamiento por Edicto para emplazarlo a usted, durante el término que establece la Ley, en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico. POR ESTE MEDIO, se le emplaza por Edicto y requiere a usted, la parte demandada para que notifique a la LCDA. JOSEPHINE M. RODRÍGUEZ RÍOS, RUA 15736, a su dirección PO BOX 889, FAJARDO, PR 00738, Tel. (787) 860-0875, y/o a su email: josephine.rodriguez@gmail. com, con copia de su contestación a las alegaciones de la Demanda en este caso dentro de los treinta (30), contados desde el siguiente día a la fecha de la publicación de este Emplazamiento por Edicto, usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente, sin más escucharle, ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO Ml FIRMA, y el sello del Tribunal en Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hoy 21 de diciembre de 2022. WANDA I. SEGUÍ REYES, SECRETARIA INTERINA. KATHERINE ROBLES TORRES. SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
Demandados Civil Núm.: CU2022CV00029. Sobre: NULIDAD DE CON-
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE AGUADILLA - SUPERIOR
EL SECRETARIO(A) QUE SUSCRIBE LE NOTIFICA A USTED QUE EL 15 DE NOVIEMBRE DE 2022, 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 28 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2022. LIC. APONTE LÓPEZ, GABRIEL IVÁN. GAPONTE_27@YAHOO.COM. LIC. ASENCIO GUIDO, FRANCES L. FRANCES.ASENCIO@ GMLAW.COM. LIC. RAMOS PADRÓ, LIZZIE MARIE. LIZZIERAMOS@HOTMAIL. COM. LIC. SÁEZ MARRERO, ANDRÉS. PRSERVICE@ TMPPLLC.COM. EN AGUADILLA, PUERTO RICO, A 28 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2022. SARAHÍ REYES PÉREZ, SECRET RIA. ZUHEILY GONZÁLEZ AVILéS, SECRETARIa AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO
AYALA; MARILY COLÓN APONTE, AMBOS POR SÍ Y EN REPRESENTACIÓN DE LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS
PÉREZ, WILMA M. VALLE FERRER, AMBOS POR SÍ
Y EN REPRESENTACIÓN DE LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS
EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 27 de diciembre de 2022, 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 28 de diciembre de 2022. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 28 de diciembre de 2022. LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA. MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE AGUADILLA 607-609 CONDADO ST., LLC.
Demandante V. SUCESIÓN DE AMEDE CHARDÓN VÁZQUEZ, COMPUESTA POR FREDERIC CHARDÓN DUBOS, FULANO DE TAL, FULANA DE TAL, SUTANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL; SUCESIÓN DE YVELINE DUBOS NOCCIOLINI, COMPUESTA POR FREDERIC CHARDÓN DUBOS, KRISTIANNE CHARDÓN QUIÑONES, FREDERIC E. CHARDÓN QUIÑONES, MÍA SARA CHARDÓN QUIÑONES, REBECA SÁNCHEZ DE LARACUENTE
Demandado
Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV00712.
Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.
ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. DE AMÉRICA, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
A: SUCESIÓN DE AMEDE CHARDÓN VÁZQUEZ, COMPUESTA POR
FREDERIC CHARDÓN DUBOS, FULANO DE TAL, FULANA DE TAL, SUTANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL; SUCESIÓN DE YVELINE DUBOS NOCCIOLINI, COMPUESTA POR FREDERIC CHARDÓN DUBOS, KRISTIANNE CHARDÓN QUIÑONES, FREDERIC E. CHARDÓN
QUIÑONES Y REBECA SÁNCHEZ DE LARACUENTE. Quedan emplazados y notificados que en este Tribunal se ha radicado una Segunda Demanda Enmendada sobre cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que la parte demandada SUCESIÓN DE AMEDE CHARDÓN VÁZQUEZ, compuesta por FREDERIC CHARDÓN DUBOS, FULANO DE TAL, FULANA DE TAL, SUTANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL; SUCESIÓN DE YVELINE DUBOS NOCCIOLINI, compuesta por FREDERIC CHARDÓN DUBOS, KRISTIANNE CHARDÓN QUIÑONES, FREDERIC E. CHARDÓN QUIÑONES, MÍA SARA CHARDÓN QUIÑONES, REBECA SÁNCHEZ DE LARACUENTE, le adeudan solidariamente a 607-609 Condado St., LLC., la suma total de $25,054.12, por concepto de gastos comunes de mantenimiento adeudados a la fecha de radicación, las cantidades que se acumulen por concepto de mensualidades de gastos comunes, intereses, penalidades y recargos que se continúen acumulando, más las costas, gastos y una suma razonable por honorarios de abogado. Se les advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que, si no comparecen a contestar dicha Segunda Demanda Enmendada dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del Edicto, a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin más citarles ni oírles. La abogada de la parte demandante es la Lcda. Ana Deseda Belaval, cuya dirección física y postal es: Cond. El Centro I, Suite 801, 500 Muñoz Rivera Ave., San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918; cuyo número de teléfono es (787) 946-5268, y su correo electrónico es: anadeseda@bellverlaw.com. Expedido
bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, hoy día 29 de diciembre de 2022. SARAHÍ REYES PÉREZ, SECRETARIA. ZUHEILY GONZÁLEZ AVILÉS, SUBSECRETARIA.
“Blue Sky Towers, LLC would like to place on notice the proposed acquisition of an existing rooftop telecommunication installation consisting of a multiple existing 20-foot mast known as Villa Palmeras located at 18° 26’ 35.84054” north latitude and -66° 2’ 51.81340” west longitude at the approximate vicinity of at Gilberto Monroi Avenue Corner Prieto Street, Santurce Ward, San Juan Puerto Rico (address is approximation). If you have any concerns regarding historic properties that may be affected by this proposed undertaking, please contact: Miles Walz-Salvador, Lotis Environmental, LLC, at NEPA.
NHPA@TheLotisGroup. com or 6465 Transit Road - Suite 21, East Amherst, NY 14051-2232 or (716) 276-8707. In your response, please include the proposed undertaking’s location and a list of the historic resources that you believe to be affected along with their respective addresses or approximate locations.”
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante Vs LA SUCESIÓN DE REYNALDO TORRES CINTRÓN T/C/C
REINALDO TORRES CINTRÓN COMPUESTA POR LIZBETH CINTRÓN, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS,
AMÉRICA REPRESENTADO POR EL SECRETARIO DE LA VIVIENDA Y DESARROLLO URBANO (HUD)
Demandado Civil Núm.: CG2022CV00534.
Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO, EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
T/C/C
REINALDO TORRES CINTRÓN.
(Nombre de las partes a las que se les notifica la sentencia por edicto)
EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 4 de agosto de 2022, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 23 de diciembre de 2022. En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 23 de diciembre de 2022. Lisilda Martínez Agosto, Secretaria. Glorimar Rivera Rivera, Secretaria Auxiliar.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SAN JUAN JULIO E. ROSADO SÁNCHEZ
DE LOURDES PHILIPPI DE LA PEÑA Demandante V. BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO COMO CUSTODIO DE LOS ARCHIVOS DE DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION; JOHN DOE & RICHARD ROE Demandados Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV10815. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE, personas desconocidas que se designan con estos nombres ficticios, que puedan ser tenedor o tenedores, o puedan tener
algún interés en el pagaré hipotecario a que se hace referencia más adelante en el presente edicto, que se publicará una sola vez. Se les notifica que en la Demanda radicada en el caso de epígrafe se alega que el 12 de marzo de 1998, se otorgó un pagaré a favor de Doral Mortgage Corp., o a su orden, por la suma de $231,850.00 de principal, con intereses al 7.25% anual, con vencimiento el 1 de abril de 2038, ante el Notario Y aritza Deya Meléndez. En garantía del pagaré antes descrito se otorgó la escritura de hipoteca número 86, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 12 de marzo de 1998, ante el Notario Yaritza Deya Meléndez, inscrita al folio 101 vuelto tomo 1351 de Río Piedras Norte, finca 197-B, inscripción 8, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección II. El inmueble gravado mediante la hipoteca antes descrita es la finca número 197-B inscrita al folio 227 del tomo 190 de Río Piedras Norte, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección II. La obligación evidenciada por el pagaré antes descrito fue saldada en su totalidad. Dicho gravamen no ha podido ser cancelado por haberse extraviado el original del pagaré. El original del pagaré antes descrito no ha podido ser localizado, a pesar de las gestiones realizadas. Doral Mortgage Corp. es el acreedor que consta en el Registro de la Propiedad. Doral Mortgage Corporation t/c/c Doral Bank fue último tenedor conocido del pagaré antes descrito. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de
su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.
LCDO. JAVIER MONTALVO CINTRÓN RUA NÚM. 17682
DELGADO & FERNÁNDEZ, LLC PO Box 11750, Fernández Juncos Station San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750, Tel. (787) 274-1414 / Fax (787) 764-8241 E-mail: jmontalvo@ delgadofernandez.com Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 19 de diciembre de 2022. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria Regional. María I. Ríos López, Sub-Secretaria.
“Blue Sky Towers, LLC would like to place on notice the proposed acquisition of an existing rooftop telecommunication installation consisting of a multiple existing 15-foot masts known as Carrazo located at 18° 21’ 27.0174” north latitude and -66° 6’ 39.42” west longitude at the approximate vicinity of at Calle Carrazo Esquina George L. Cortton, Pueblo Ward, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico (address is approximation). If you have any concerns regarding historic properties that may be affected by this proposed undertaking, please contact: Miles Walz-Salvador, Lotis Environmental, LLC, at NEPA.NHPA@TheLotisGroup.com or 6465 Transit Road - Suite 21, East Amherst, NY 140512232 or (716) 276-8707. In your response, please include the proposed undertaking’s location and a list of the historic resources that you believe to be affected along with their respective addresses or approximate locations.”
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA.
Demandante v. DENISE
BERDECIA ORTIZ
Demandados CIVIL NÚM: FCD2016-1365. SOBRE: EJECUCION DE GARANTIAS (IN REM). EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.
El Alguacil del Tribunal que suscribe anuncia y hace constar: A. Que en cumplimiento del Man-
damiento que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Puerto Rico, Sala de Carolina, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor de contado y en moneda de curso legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América y cuyo pago se efectuará en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, todo derecho, título o interés que tenga la Parte Demandada en el bien inmueble que se describe a continuación: URBANA: PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL: Apartamento identificado con el número treinta y trescero cinco (3305), Modelo “Typical”, localizado en el tercer piso del Edificio número tres (3) del Condominio “Terrazas de Parque Escorial”, a su vez localizado en el Barrio San Antón del término municipal de Carolina, Puerto Rico. Tiene una cabida superficial total de mil cuatrocientos setenta y tres punto setenta y dos (1,473.72) pies cuadrados, equivalentes a ciento treinta y seis punto noventa y uno (136.91) metros cuadrados. Colinda por el NORTE, en una distancia de cincuenta pies ocho pulgadas (50’ 8”), equivalentes a quince punto cuarenta y cuatro (15.44) metros lineales, con el apartamento número treinta y dos cero seis (3206); por el SUR, en tres distancias, una de diecinueve pies dos pulgadas (19’ 2”), equivalentes a cinco punto ochenta y cuatro (5.84) metros lineales, con área común, otra de veinte pies dos pulgadas (20’ 2”), equivalentes a seis punto quince (6.15) metros lineales, con el apartamento número treinta y tres cero seis (3306) y la otra de diez pies cero pulgadas (10’,0”), equivalentes a tres punto cero cinco (3.05) metros lineales, con elementos exteriores; por el ESTE, en una distancia de treinta y tres pies once pulgadas (33’ 11’), equivalentes a diez punto treinta y cuatro (10.34) metros lineales, con elementos exteriores; y por el OESTE, en dos distancias, una de veinticinco pies seis pulgadas (25’ 6”), equivalentes a siete punto setenta y siete (7.77) metros lineales, con elementos exteriores y la otra de ocho pies cinco pulgadas (8’ 5”), equivalentes a dos punto cincuenta y siete (2.57) metros lineales, con área común. Contiene cocina, dos baños, sala-comedor, tres dormitorios, dos closets, un walk-in-closet, linen-closet, foyer (vestíbulo) y balcón. Su puerta principal de acceso se encuentra en su colindancia Sur. Le corresponde en porciento de participación en los elementos comunes generales el 0.42% y en los elementos comunes limitados le corresponde el 2.33%. Le pertenece además el uso y disfrute de dos
áreas para estacionamiento identificadas con los números ciento sesenta y cinco (165) y ciento sesenta y seis (166). Dirección Física: 3305 Terrazas de Parque Escorial, Carolina, PR 00987. Finca 58,513, inscrita al folio 91 del tomo 1,412 de Carolina, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Primera de Carolina. B. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado están de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante las horas laborables bajo el epígrafe de este caso. C. 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 ejecutante, continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematente los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad 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. D. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para satisfacer a la parte demandante el importe de la sentencia que ha obtenido ascendente a la suma de $212,556.09 por concepto de principal, más la cantidad de $7,335.74, que incluye intereses, cargos por demora y otros cargos, que se acumulan diariamente hasta su total y completo pago, más la suma de 10% del principal, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, pactados con en el pagaré y en la escritura de Hipoteca de la parte demandante pactados en el pagaré y en el contrato de hipoteca. La primera subasta se celebrará el día 6 de marzo de 2023 a las 10:30 de la mañana, en la Oficina del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Carolina, por el tipo mínimo de $224,850.20. De declararse desierta dicha subasta se celebrará una segunda subasta el día 13 de marzo de 2023 a las 10:30 de la mañana en el mismo lugar antes mencionado. El precio para la segunda subasta lo será 2/3 partes del precio mínimo de la primera, o sea, $149,900.13. De declararse desierta dicha segunda subasta, se celebrará una tercera subasta el día 20 de marzo de 2023 a las 10:30 de la mañana en el mismo lugar antes mencionado. El precio para la tercera subasta lo será 1/2 del precio mínimo de la primera, o sea, $112,425.10. Y PARA QUE ASÍ
CONSTE, y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general y por un término de catorce (14) días en los sitios públicos conforme a la ley, expido la presente bajo mi firma y sello de este tribunal, hoy 22 de diciembre de 2022 en Carolina, Puerto Rico.
SAMUEL GONZALEZ ISAAC, ALGUACIL.ESTADOS UNIDOS DE
A: LIZBETH CINTRÓN, FULANO Y MENGANO
Y MARÍA
Around the world, fans have mourned the loss of Pelé, whose unrivaled mastery of the beautiful game catapulted him to a level of celebrity attained by few athletes.
Yet in Santos, Brazil, where Pelé shot to stardom and spent much of his soccer career, his death hit like nowhere else, the loss more personal and intimate.
He arrived in the port city south of Sao Paulo as a scrawny teenager in the 1950s, and in some ways never left. For some, he was a neighbor or a friend who, even after rising to global celebrity, always stopped to chat near the corner of Vila Belmiro, as the stadium for Santos FC, where Pelé began his rise, is popularly known.
For those who never met him, his soul seems to permeate the place, representing a unifying spirit in Brazil despite, or maybe because of, inequity.
With his funeral set for Monday in Santos, fans flocked to sites around the city to remember Pelé’s legacy, on and off the field, and to bid farewell.
Marcos Martins (Civil engineer, 48)
I was born here — I’ve always been from Santos. My uncle was also a football player for Santos. He was Santos’s 10th top scorer, so he was on the team with Pelé, he played ball with Pelé.
My uncle always told many stories about him. When Pelé arrived in Vila Belmiro, he was already 28 years old; Pelé was just 17.
It practically raised the bar for football in Brazil. With the arrival of Pelé, everything changed.
He turned Brazil, and also Santos, into a global football reference. Santos is a small city, but it had a football team that was equivalent to, if not better than, some European teams.
And Pelé learned to play the guitar with my uncle. My uncle taught him. My uncle liked to play the guitar. And Pelé liked music, too.
Fernando Perez Jr. (Lawyer, 65) Hold on, I need a minute. It’s really
emotional. It’s really hard.
I’ve seen him play here. I saw his farewell game in 1974. But I also saw him play in 1968, in 1970. I was about 13 or 14 years old when I used to watch him play.
All my brothers were Corinthians [a rival team]. I was born here, but they came from Sao Paulo. So my brothers and my father hated Pelé because he would always destroy their team. He would wipe them out. And I had to run away from home to listen to the games, to listen to Pelé play.
Pelé raised the self-esteem of the Brazilian people. Brazil is a country that suffers a lot. And Pelé gave us that dignity. He made us feel like we can be big, too. And it went beyond football. It’s this sense of “I am, and I can be.”
Manuel Messias dos Santos (Retired dock worker, 83)
I met Pelé when I was in the military, at the time when he was serving as a soldier. His team in the barracks used to win a lot.
Then when I worked as a warehouse clerk in the Gonzaga neighborhood, where he hung out a lot, he was always on the sidewalk, talking to
someone, talking to someone else. He was very much like us. He was a man of the people. He spoke to everyone. Everyone. With children, with old people, with whoever. He talked to everybody — he was a popular man.
Teófilo de Freitas (Retired city hall worker, 68)
Here at Santos, I’ve been a member since 1975. I’ve been rooting for the team since I was a kid. Inside the stadium, I even played ball with Pelé. It was during a Santos training session in 1972.
All Brazilians like football, so Pelé is an idol for us. He is the idol of football. So for us, it’s heartbreaking — it’s very sad to see him go. Of course, we are all going to die one day. But this is a loss that brings deep sadness to Brazil.
He was a one-of-a-kind person, he was an extraordinary player. Pelé made so many people happy. He was a football genius.
Onofra Alves Costa Rovai (Retired seamstress, 91)
I’ve been here since 1949. I came here from the countryside. I came to Santos. And right away, I came to live in front of the stadium. I’m a die-hard Santos fan!
From my house, I could see the field. So we used to watch the games from my living room. When he played, the stadium was always packed. Everyone wanted to see him play.
He had something different about him. When he got the ball, he ran and ran. He played football with his heart.
I already met him. He used to stop by here all the time, to say hello. My mother adored him — he always talked to my mother here at the front door.
Mario Mazieri (Retired banker, 66)
I came from the countryside. I moved here when I was 14 because of Santos.
In the 1960s, when I still lived on the farm, my brothers and I would listen to the Santos game on the radio. There wasn’t any television then, just the radio. So we listened to the games, to the plays that Pelé made, to his goals.
And I decided that I needed to see this with my own eyes. When I arrived in Vila Belmiro for the first time, I was shaking head to toe.
I’m always in this bar here. It’s all “Santista” here. We used to see Pelé around here, too. One day, right over there, I got to shake his hand. It was 2012.
Luiz Fernando Tomasinho (Air-conditioner mechanic, 31)
Santos was always my team, and it was my dad’s team. I moved here two years ago because of Santos.
Life was hard for many people when I was growing up. And watching Santos brought so much pleasure to the community.
My first football shirt was Pelé, No. 10. I was 7 years old. And with my kids, it’s the same thing. They’re both 7. And I already got them their shirts.
I took them to the stadium today, so they could pay their respects. It’s really sad — it’s heartbreaking.
I never got to see Pelé play. I only saw the photos and the videos. He had this magic, he was different from everyone else.
The kids these days, they do the same thing; they watch his plays on YouTube, and they fall in love with the sport. His legacy is huge.
With just two weeks left in the season, it’s time to put up or shut up. Some teams were ready Sunday; others were not. The disappointing Tampa Bay Buccaneers rose to the challenge, coming back to beat the Carolina Panthers and wrest the division title from them. The New York Jets and Washington Commanders, by contrast, lost games that dashed their playoff chances.
The Jets complete their second-half implosion.
It’s not an NFL season without one team crashing and burning over the second half of the year. Last year, it was the Baltimore Ravens, who started 8-3 before dropping their final six games to fall out of playoff contention. This year it’s the New York Jets, a team with an electric defense and skill players whose problems at quarterback eventually caught up with them.
The Jets’ year can be split at their Week 10 bye. Before the break, the Jets were 6-3. Two of their three losses came with Joe Flacco starting at quarterback while Zach Wilson recovered from a preseason knee injury, and the third was a one-score loss to Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. It was clear the Jets were winning in spite of their quarterback play, but things were working, and they had put themselves in decent position in the AFC playoff race. Surely they wouldn’t throw it away, right?
As we know now, they would. Wilson played the worst game of his career coming out of the bye week, in a 10-3 loss to the Patriots, and was immediately benched, due in equal parts to his poor play and his mishandling of the postgame news conference. Replacement quarterback Mike White led the Jets to a win the following week, but the team lost its next two games before White went down with cracked ribs.
White was back on Sunday, but he isn’t the answer for the Jets, and their loss to the Seattle Seahawks showed that. White wins almost exclusively as an in-structure rhythm thrower, looking at the presnap picture and assuming how the coverage will play out to quickly get from one read to the next. That’s great if you can be Drew Brees and adapt as a game goes on, but White is not that caliber of processor, so he eventually lands in a place where his habits and game play become predictable with enough film out there. The Seahawks
took full advantage of that, driving on everything White tried to throw. White completed only half of his passes and threw two interceptions and zero touchdowns.
And that’s the difference a quarterback makes in the NFL. The Jets have a Top 10 roster outside of quarterback, but when you include the most important position, the whole operation crumbles.
Around the NFL
Giants 38, Colts 10: The Jeff Saturdayled Indianapolis Colts are barely a real football team at this point. That sounds mean, but the Colts were blown out by a New York Giants team notorious for playing close games. Daniel Jones played one of his best games of the year, leading the Giants to their first playoff berth since 2016.
Chiefs 27, Broncos 24: Andy Reid almost entirely refused to run the ball, calling just 12 handoffs compared with more than 40 dropbacks for Patrick Mahomes in the passing game. Mahomes is the best player in the sport, so, of course, he handled the volume well and still sliced up the Broncos.
Patriots 23, Dolphins 21: Miami just can’t finish a game this season with the quarterback who started it. Teddy Bridgewater, filling in for Tua Tagovailoa, left late in the third quarter after a failed tackle on a pick-6 he threw to Patriots safety Kyle Dugger. Skylar Thompson replaced him
on the following drive. The Dolphins were leading by 4 until the pick-6, and then everything unraveled quickly, giving the Patriots a win despite a pretty uninspiring performance from their offense.
Steelers 16, Ravens 13: Somehow, some way, coach Mike Tomlin again has the Pittsburgh Steelers alive with playoff hopes in the final week of the season. Tomlin may have himself a quarterback too. Rookie Kenny Pickett finished off a mostly nondescript performance with a stellar winning touchdown drive.
Buccaneers 30, Panthers 24: The Panthers were the better team for three quarters and change. Sam Darnold played one of his best games of the season, finding three touchdowns with beautiful ball placement. But that wasn’t enough to win the game and take the division with Tom Brady and Mike Evans relentlessly targeting Carolina downfield.
Falcons 20, Cardinals 19: Atlanta quarterback Desmond Ridder has gotten better little by little over his three starts, and that’s really all the Falcons could have hoped for to end this season. Although explosive plays were hard to come by, Ridder got the ball out quickly and picked up efficient gains.
Lions 41, Bears 10: This was a real game for one quarter. Justin Fields ran for more than 100 yards in the first 15 minutes of play, literally carrying the Bears to 10
points. That was all Fields and the Bears had in the tank, though. From that point on, the Lions’ pass rush terrorized Fields, while their offense rained down points on Chicago’s young defense.
Saints 20, Eagles 10: Philadelphia missed Jalen Hurts. Backup quarterback Gardner Minshew wasn’t terrible for most of the game — he did well to feed his two star receivers and keep the offense on track — but the explosive plays and rushing value usually provided by Hurts just weren’t there.
Browns 24, Commanders 10: The Commanders’ dice roll at quarterback was bad. Carson Wentz threw two interceptions in the first half and did little to make up for them. For the Browns, all it took was a steady serving of Nick Chubb carries and occasionally successful shot plays in the passing game to outscore the Commanders and effectively ruin their opponents’ postseason chances.
Jaguars 31, Texans 3: Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence threw no touchdowns and one interception, and it didn’t matter whatsoever. Lawrence was lethally efficient outside of the interception, setting up a number of drives in which the Jaguars finished things off on the ground.
49ers 37, Raiders 34 (OT): Just as everyone expected, Brock Purdy and Jarrett Stidham went blow for blow in a shootout. Stidham was refreshing for the Las Vegas Raiders, showing more aggression and carefree play than Derek Carr had of late. That, of course, led to a couple of game-changing interceptions in the fourth-quarter and overtime, but that aggression and looseness were what had the Raiders in the game anyway, so you live with it. It’s more shocking that the San Francisco 49ers would allow such a performance out of any quarterback, much less Stidham.
Packers 41, Vikings 17: The Packers scored 41 points, but it was a win for defense and special teams. Not only did Keisean Nixon score a touchdown on a 105-yard kick return, but safety Adrian Amos returned one of Kirk Cousins’ three interceptions for a pick-6.
Chargers 31, Rams 10: A Week 17 Battle for Los Angeles sounded much better before the season. What we got in actuality was a surging Chargers team beating up a Rams team looking longingly toward their offseason travel plans.
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
If you’re shopping in the sales, today’s bend of nebulous aspects suggests checking you really are getting a deal. Even if someone in the know insists it’s a bargain, do your own research. At least be sure to keep receipts and paperwork so you can take it back. Plus, the Sun’s angle with Chiron, hints at an opportunity to make peace with someone you may have fallen out with, Aries.
Just because someone says something is true, doesn’t mean it is. It might be wise to check any information, as with Neptune ties showing, even trusted friends can get things wrong. This also applies to anything you read online or any schemes that imply instant success. On the plus side, your creative and romantic options are enhanced, so something good could emerge from this.
It’s a lively yet potentially fulfilling day, in which If someone shares something in confidence, then keep it to yourself, even though you see little harm in telling others. The Moon and Mercury’s link to Neptune, suggests secrets can slip out of the bag which could reflect poorly on you, even if it does happen by accident. If this is someone you’re keen to stay on good terms with, then it would be very unwise to jeopardize this bond.
Need to discuss something important? Don’t let yourself be persuaded into backing down. If you know the outcome you want, then stick with it, even if others aren’t shy about showing their disapproval. A nebulous link could inspire you to use a little charm, but any solutions or compromises need to be aligned with your ideas and principles. Integrity rules at this time.
Go easy around finances, as you might be drawn into a scheme or to purchasing something that could see you losing more than you stand to gain, Leo. You are usually very astute, but on this occasion, you may slip up if it seems especially alluring. Ask questions, even those that might seem a tad embarrassing or obvious, as you’ll then know the state of play and what to do next.
A romance may seem to have wings and be perfect for you, but if you sense an undercurrent then trust your instincts. Today’s ethereal line-up can be bewitching, and you might fail to notice some obvious flaws. A little detachment could assist you with seeing the reality of this potential bond, and from there to make an informed decision. Take it a step at a time and see how it goes.
It may be the start of the week, but with the Moon in a private zone, you might welcome some alone time to get your bearings Libra. If there is a lot going on and you’re getting in a muddle, then this can be crucial to getting your priorities in order and enjoying a more successful week. Half an hour may be all you need, and you’ll be confident about your intentions going forward.
You may be keen to help someone out, but are your motives totally pure, Scorpio? Is there a chance that you might be hoping for something in return, or that this person will take more notice of you in the future? If you give because you genuinely want to, then they could sense this, and your efforts will be reciprocated. If you do want something from them, why not ask for it!
The Moon in down-to-earth Taurus, encourages you to be realistic about your chances of success. With Neptune in the mix, you could dream of achieving more than is possible or imagine something working out perfectly, even if the chances are slim. It will likely not be as bad as expected, but not as brilliant as you would like, but you can work with this and still succeed.
The emphasis on your sign is encouraging, although with Mercury rewinding, you’ll need to allow more time for things to come together. And with aquatic Neptune in the picture, it helps to check the facts, times of meetings and other key information. It would be a shame to miss out on an opportunity just because you wrote it down wrong Capricorn, or someone made a mistake.
The focus on a quiet zone can be a call to take life easier. While you may have a lot to contend with, cooking yourself a wholesome meal, enjoying a relaxing bath or relishing the simple pleasures of life, can recharge your system. New springs of energy could inspire fresh ideas and insights that might help you resolve any awkward issues or current concerns, Aquarius.
As Mercury retro and the Moon align with Neptune, take whatever you hear with a pinch of salt, Pisces. You’ll need to do your own digging if you’re going to find out the truth. It’s also possible you’ll take something the wrong way or mishear it, which could also cause issues. But your creative side will be in full bloom, so using this time to make beautiful things may be healing.
