Monday Jan 8, 2024 by The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

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Red Sea Attacks Leave Shipping Companies with Difficult Choices

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Photo by JUICE on Unsplash

For Now, ‘a Low Priority’

Electrical System Reliability Cited by Low-Income Customers as Barrier to EV Adoption P5

Villafañe Welcomes Rosselló Nevares’ Endorsement at Town Hall on ‘Core Issues’ for PR in DC

NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 16

González Colón: Where Are the Plans for Earthquake Reconstruction?

2 Monday, January 8, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

GOOD MORNING 3

January 8, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star, the only paper with News Service in English in Puerto Rico, publishes 7 days a week, with a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday edition, along with a Weekend Edition to cover Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Villafañe welcomes Rosselló Nevares’ endorsement, participation in conversation on ‘core issues’ for PR in DC

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n an announced appearance, former governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares participated Sunday, along with Sen. William Villafañe Ramos in a public conversation in Guaynabo called “Let’s Go for Equality,” where “core issues for Puerto Rico in Washington” were discussed. Villafañe, a candidate for resident commissioner for the New Progressive Party (NPP), opened his initial statements to the press by expressing his pleasure at having Rosselló Nevares’ participation. “Always a governor, a friend and today an elected official as a congressional delegate who is doing excellent work for free for the well-being of the Puerto Rican people,” Villafañe said. The senator stated that the conversation was aimed at discussing a topic that is “fundamental for Puerto Rico, achieving decolonization once and for all through a process that leads toward fair, dignified and equal treatment for all Puerto Ricans, which undoubtedly is statehood.” The former governor said he was “happy to be in Puerto Rico, and happy that my friend and brother William Villafañe has decided to take up the aspiration of being the next resident commissioner of Puerto Rico.” Rosselló Nevares said he was there to convey the efforts they are making as a congressional delegation, but also to support Villafañe’s candidacy, ensuring that “apart from the friendship” that unites them, he is a “person who creates bridges and does not seek destruction.” Rosselló Nevares added that “when you go to Washington as a [resident] commissioner, the best tool you have is to create relationships, and William Villafañe has that ability.” He went on to highlight Villafañe’s roles within the party as president of the New Progressive Youth, NPP secretary, government secretary, director of the political campaign platform and now as senator. The former governor said the functions Villafañe has performed have prepared him for the new challenge. “He has prepared his entire life and his entire career with the aspiration and love he has for Puerto Rico and the quest for equality, and this moment has taken him to that crossroads where decisions are being made in Washington,” Rosselló Nevares said. He added that Many Puerto Rican citizens inside and outside the island “are going to fight and produce results” in the U.S. capital. “What we need is that great helping hand, and I predict that from 2025 onwards we will have the last resident commissioner of Puerto Rico,” Rosselló Nevares said. To questions from the press, the former governor reaffirmed his support for the candidacy of Pedro Pierluisi

Former governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares participated Sunday in Guaynabo along with Sen. William Villafañe Ramos in a public conversation about the “core issues for Puerto Rico in Washington” as he endorsed Villafañe’s candidacy for resident commissioner. (Unidos con Pierluisi 2024/Luis López on Facebook) Urrutia for the governorship and the ticket with Villafañe, and denied that his endorsements had been carried out under any negotiation beyond the fight for statehood. “That is the only negotiation and it is the best hope for Puerto Ricans,” he said. In his statements, Rosselló stressed that although Villafañe knows the Washington framework and has “been fighting” on issues of SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare and other issues, it must be recognized that the “biggest impediment that limits us from being able to achieve all of those aspirations is that Puerto Rico continues to be a colony and is not an equal state of the nation.” Meléndez Ortiz gains Mundo’s endorsement in his resident commissioner bid Meanwhile on Sunday, Pierluisi’s campaign director, Edwin Mundo, endorsed the candidacy of NPP Rep. José Enrique “Quiquito” Meléndez Ortiz for resident commissioner. In his remarks, Meléndez Ortiz thanked his friend Mundo for his trust and support “in our fight to defend our people and statehood from the federal capital.” “Edwin has earned the respect and admiration, not only of our party, but also of all Puerto Ricans, including the political opposition, for his ability to successfully handle political and electoral matters, and for that I thank him for his trust and receive his endorsement with great humility and commitment,” Meléndez Ortiz said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

Legislature begins yearly session with busy agenda By THE STAR STAFF

he island Legislature starts its first and only yearly session today with a full calendar of measures slated for approval. Among the significant number of measures the House of Representatives will evaluate is House Bill 68, which would amend a 2001 law that allows a person with a terminal disease to decide on its treatment. Article 6 of Act 160-2001 establishes that the guidelines for living wills are going to be executable once the declarant is diagnosed with a terminal health condition or is in a vegetative state. However, in a 2010 case, Luis Lozada Flecha v. Roberto Tirado Arrow, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court ruled that Article 6 was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court was faced with a controversy related to the living will of a person who, due to her religious beliefs, decided to reject blood transfusions under any circumstances and without subjection to any health condition. The Supreme Court determined that the statute limits the validity of a citizen’s expressed will and subjects its effectiveness only to circumstances with a particular health diagnosis. Therefore, the high court concluded, a limitation of this nature infringes upon the constitutional right of an individual to make decisions regarding medical treatment. The House is also expected to approve House Bill 1190 to amend the Condominium Law, which would exclude water

Senate President José Luis Dalmau Santiago service as one of the services that a condominium’s board of directors can cut off for lack of payment of special fees or fines. House Bill 1310, another measure the House will evaluate, seeks to exempt doctors, nurses and teachers from having to do jury duty. Meanwhile, House Bill 1617 would transfer control of Mercedita Airport in Ponce to the Ponce Port Authority. Currently, the entity is under the power of the Puerto Rico Ports Authority.

For years, several southern towns have said they want to control and operate Mercedita Airport to help boost the region’s economy. Another bill would declare the Poblado de Boquerón a special tourism zone to allow for its marketing as such, and another measure would transfer a portion of the room tax revenue to the municipalities so they can engage in broadening the visitor economy. Last week, Senate President José Luis Dalmau Santiago told reporters at La Fortaleza that he will focus on getting a balanced budget approved for the next fiscal year, with some economic development and health measures. He also urged Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia to submit the nominations for several government positions, such as the leadership posts of the Office of the Women’s Advocate, the Consumer Affairs Department (DACO) and the Office of Innovation and Technology Services (PRITS). “It has been over two years since we have had a dedicated Women’s Advocate,” Dalmau Santiago said. “Last year, around this date, a prosecutor was appointed that the New Progressive Party (NPP) delegation itself rejected, and the entire last year passed without that position being filled. Others, such as the DACO secretariat and the PRITS Office, have not had an executive director in the entire four-year period.” Because 2024 is an election year, there is only one legislative session instead of two.

PDP members file complaint to disqualify conservative Bayamón candidate By THE STAR STAFF

hree Popular Democratic Party (PDP) members have filed a complaint with the party seeking to disqualify Wilfredo Díaz Rosado, a Bayamón District Senate candidate, arguing he does not represent the political party’s values.

The calls for his disqualification came after certain homophobic remarks Díaz Rosado made against Alexa, a homeless transgender woman who was killed four years ago as part of a hate crime, appeared on social media. Díaz Rosado, who describes himself as a conservative candidate, posted a photo of Alexa and warned that she was a danger to children after

the transgender woman tried to use a women’s restroom at a McDonalds. PDP President Jesús Manuel Ortiz González recently distanced himself from Díaz Rosado. Over the weekend, former Sen. Margarita Ostolaza, Gretchen Coll, and Tirzha Alcaide filed a complaint asking the PDP to disqualify Díaz Rosado. They argued that his positions go against the values of the party. They said they objected to his opposition to gender equality, his position on the immigration crisis in the United States, his skepticism regarding the idea of climate change and his opposition to COVID-19 vaccines. They also argued that his remarks on social media helped spread misinformation. Díaz Rosado allegedly also said he voted for Sen. Joanne Rodríguez Veve of the conservative Dignity Project. In social media, Díaz Rosado is a follower of President Donald Trump and has said the 2020 presidential elections, which gave President Joe Biden a victory, were fraudulent. He also said he supports the constitutional right to bear arms and the permanent union with the United States, although not statehood. Díaz Rosado also has made favorable remarks about El Salvador President Nayib Bukele,

who has imprisoned more than 30,000 gang members without due process, and libertarian Argentina President Javier Milei, who recently called for the privatization of more than 40 government agencies. The PDP governing board is slated to meet today (Monday).

Wilfredo Díaz Rosado

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

Electric system reliability cited by low-income customers as barrier to EV adoption By THE STAR STAFF

ost low-income customers in Puerto Rico are not interested or have not considered buying an electric vehicle (EV) and cited electric system reliability as a reason for not buying an EV, according to surveys conducted by LUMA Energy. The results are contained in a customer outreach memorandum LUMA Energy submitted to the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) on Jan. 2 that contained the results of two surveys. The first consisted of interviews with community leaders engaged with low-income communities. The second consisted of online EV customer surveys conducted by JD Power and Associates that included low-income customers to better understand EV adoption barriers. A total number of 4,269 respondents participated in the survey in 2022, and 1,873 customers participated in the survey in 2023. LUMA Energy, the private operator of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s energy transmission and distribution system, noted that only 1% of the surveyed low-income customers own a fully electric vehicle and about 0.2% own a plug-in hybrid vehicle. About 41% said they have not considered buying an electric vehicle and 38% said they have no interest in owning an EV. Only 1.7%

According to a survey conducted by JD Power and Associates for LUMA Energy, only 1% of the low-income customers surveyed own a fully electric vehicle and about 0.2% own a plug-in hybrid vehicle. (Photo by Michael Fousert on Unsplash) said they plan on getting an EV for their next vehicle. About 23% of the low-income people surveyed said electric system reliability was a big concern in their reluctance to buy an EV, 19% cited the prices of electric vehicles and 17% cited the price of electricity rates. About 3% cited the availability of public charging stations and 25% said they did not know enough to decide about buying an EV.

The survey showed education on EVs was needed among low-income customers. Seventy-four percent said they have heard about electric vehicles but did not know much about them, while 19% said they knew quite a lot about electric vehicles and only 7% said they knew a lot about them. During the separate interviews with the community leaders, some responded that their communities have competing priorities

such as conventional public transportation accessibility, housing, food and health needs. “Transportation electrification appears to be a low priority for the low-income community,” the LUMA report said. Based on the information from the two studies, LUMA said future studies should focus on identifying the timing of adequate economic incentives for the low-income community to facilitate the purchase of an electric vehicle. LUMA also said in the report that it has initiated talks with “the first transportation company in Puerto Rico to incorporate electric vehicles into its fleet through a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.”The company added 25 electric buses to its fleet and is working to expand its electric bus inventory.The company, which was not named, said its services directly impact low-income communities. The studies were the result of a PREB order issued to LUMA in 2022 to evaluate EV adoption in Puerto Rico. The PREB asked, among other things, that the private operator focus on low-income customers and develop a plan that considers the unique mobility challenges of low- and moderate-income households, ensuring that the benefits of clean transportation are broadly shared. The PREB also indicated that LUMA should develop an understanding of what low-income customers want and need from transportation electrification.

Lawmaker files resolution to regulate electric vehicle charging stations By THE STAR STAFF

fter a conversation with the acting Consumer Affairs (DACO) secretary Lisoannette González, New Progressive Party Representative Víctor Parés Otero on Sunday announced the filing of a resolution to order the agency to create a regulation on the marketing, sale, distribution and dispatch of electric charging to vehicles at charging stations in Puerto Rico. “There is no doubt that the future lies in electric vehicles. Essential to this are the electric charging stations that are being developed in various parts of the island …,” Parés Otero said. “However, at this time, the agency that regulates the processes of the sale and dispatch of gasoline, DACO, lacks the legal authority to do the same with these recharging stations. That is why we are filing a resolution to order the development of a new regulation which will be the basis for the regulation of these charging stations.” According to the parameters of Law 81-2014, in addition to establishing a complete exemption in the payment of taxes to all electric vehicles, the law eliminates all types of obstacles to the establishment of the necessary infrastructure for the installation and use of vehicle charging stations powered mostly by

electricity. However, the San Juan District 4 representative said, can finally make the regulation to guarantee the rights of the law focuses on stations located in horizontal housing com- consumers in these stations.” plexes (condominiums) and not on electric charging stations. The Highways and Transportation Authority (ACT by its Spanish acronym) began the process of creating new charging stations on state highways PR-2, PR-22 and PR-52 as part of a first phase of a project that seeks to establish a network of charging stations throughout the island. “According to the data available by the ACT, the Department of Transportation and Public Works and the Department of Treasury, in Puerto Rico there are currently between 2,500 and 4,000 electric vehicles traveling on the roadways, a figure that will increase exponentially in the coming months,” Parés Otero said. “That is why the creation of this network is imperative, as is the regulatory framework for it. That is why we discussed the matter with the secretary of DACO and after that conversation, we are going to file the resolution that empowers that agency to make the regulation for this nascent industry.” “Let’s remember that these stations have so-called ‘superchargers,’ which means that in approximately 15 minutes electric cars are charged,” the legislator added. “The regulatory structure has to be on a par with the creation of the charging stations. We understand that DACO, through this resolution, Rep. Víctor Parés Otero

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

González Colón: Where are the plans for earthquake reconstruction? By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

esident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón on Sunday demanded concrete plans and explanations in the face of the extreme delay with which reconstruction on the island is being attended to, and characterized as a mockery the fact that only 2.5% of the projects in the areas affected by the earthquakes have been completed, according to the Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience (COR3) itself, on the fourth anniversary of the earthquakes that struck the south and southwest of the island. “Signs and advertising don’t put up [cement] blocks, or [rebar] rods, much less do the work,” González Colón said in a post on social media. “The fact that, after four years, only 40 of 1,657 earthquake reconstruction projects have been completed, or 2.5%, demonstrates a lack of planning, execution, and most importantly, a sense of urgency in public management in favor of our people and the most vulnerable affected by natural disasters.” “The municipalities of the south reported the greatest population decline because the insecurity of the infrastructure, which also includes public schools, was unsustainable for residents,” the resident commissioner added. “You have to understand that more than six years have passed since Maria and four years since the earthquakes and that only 2.5% of the projects that have to do with the effects of the tremors have been completed, which is unacceptable in any scenario.” González Colón went on to say that “[t] his is in addition to the fact that last October several media outlets reported that $13.8 million, allocated more than three years ago for the installation of temporary rail cars at 121 schools in the South and Southwest that were affected by the earthquakes, were at risk of being lost.” “According to a media outlet with access to a letter sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the Department of Education, on July 26 of this year, it was indicated that ‘two years later, the agency [COR3] had not submitted details on the scope of work (SOW) of the project, including the temporary or modular units that are needed in each of the campuses or the schedule to complete each stage,’” the resident commissioner and New Progressive Party gubernatorial hopeful said. González Colón, who said she has continued to monitor both federal agencies and local entities in the disbursement and use of

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón the billions of dollars in federal funds that she secured for the reconstruction of the island, again pointed out her concern about the risk that the money will be lost due to its lack of use and will be reassigned to other projects or that the dates of use will expire, as FEMA stated in the letter it sent to COR3 on July 26, 2023 on the issue of schools in the island’s south and southwest. “We can understand that reconstruction is a complex process due to the meticulousness that must be applied, the work and the requirements to access the funds; however, six and four years after the natural disasters that impacted the island, we continue to see time and time again that things do not happen as the people expect and the government bureaucracy does not facilitate the processes,” she said. The municipal administrator of Guánica, Omar Pacheco, concurred with González Colón. On Saturday, Pacheco demanded that the central government distribute funds effectively and exercise greater agility in the process of evaluating claims to FEMA and COR3. The Guánica official who is also a Popular Democratic Party candidate for the House of Representatives for District 21, said it is vital and imperative to promote the recovery of Guánica, Yauco, Las Marías, Lajas and Sabana Grande. Those municipalities were especially hard-hit in a territorial strip that is currently seismically active. “According to [COR3], there are 1,617

pending projects, the vast majority in planning and design,” Pacheco said. “The slowness in the implementation of this recovery work, when we have thousands of families still without a safe roof, is inhumane and unacceptable. Citizens require strong action and, above all, progress in the implementation of projects across the region.” Pacheco claimed that the government has to ensure that the work progresses in a timely manner by eliminating obstacles that threaten the stability of thousands of Puerto Rican families. “The mayors and their teams have shown remarkable determination and responsiveness in the face of adversity. But at the central level, bureaucratic barriers to project implementation must be removed,” he said. “Each affected family has already experienced the pain of destruction, heartbreak, sadness and the torment of seeing in ruins what they achieved with great effort for many years. It’s not fair that they also have to be victims of a deficient government aid system.” COR3 Executive Director Manuel A. Laboy Rivera responded later on Sunday, offering an update on the progress of reconstruction projects as a result of the earthquakes for which FEMA has obligated over $913 million. Some $428 million of that sum has been reimbursed. “COR3 has been assisting government agencies, municipalities and nonprofit entities so that they can carry out emergency and permanent works due to past earth-

quakes,” Laboy Rivera said. “Certainly, the first two years had many challenges that have been overcome, including the fact that we are managing multiple disasters such as hurricanes Irma and Maria, the COVID-19 pandemic and most recently, Hurricane Fiona. However, we see greater progress and traction over the past two years due to the initiatives we have implemented in favor of their projects. For example, of three permanent works underway, today we have some 284 facilities with obligations amounting to $105.3 million that are in the stage of acquisition of design, design or acquisition of construction or construction due to the earthquakes.” He gave as an example the municipality of Ponce, which completed the reconstruction of Francisco “Paquito” Montaner Stadium, following an allocation of some $4.5 million from FEMA. Meanwhile, Guayanilla will begin to rebuild several recreational facilities, such as Julio Rojas Reyes playground, Luis “Pegui” Mercado Stadium, Lucas Sievens athletic track, and the training pool, with an obligation amounting to $7.6 million. In Guánica, meanwhile, $4.1 million was obligated for a project at the mayor’s office, whose demolition has been completed and its design is in process, the COR3 chief said. During February, the demolition process for the reconstruction of the Roberto Alberdeston baseball stadium should begin, through a FEMA investment of around $2.6 million, Laboy Rivera said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

On Jan. 6 anniversary, Trump repeats lie that 2020 election was stolen By KELLEN BROWNING and MICHAEL GOLD

hree years to the day that supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory, Trump said yet again that the mob had been acting “peacefully and patriotically.” He called for the release of people imprisoned for their actions that day, and he criticized the congressional committee that investigated the attack as “fake.” Speaking to crowds of several hundred people at two events Saturday in Iowa, Trump, who faces criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, made only passing references to the riot, focusing much of his speeches instead on criticizing Biden’s policies. But at his second event, Trump — who has repeatedly referred to the people serving sentences in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as “hostages” — called on Biden to free them. More than 1,200 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, 170 have been convicted of crimes at trial and more than 700 have pleaded guilty. “Release the J6 hostages, Joe,” Trump said in Clinton, Iowa. “Release them, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe.” Trump’s speeches Saturday came a day after Biden forcefully condemned the former president as “pro-insurrectionist” and a perilous threat to democracy. Trump offered only minimal response to those denunciations.

Attendees wait in a line before entering a campaign event for former President Donald Trump during in Clinton Iowa, on Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024. In a two-hour speech in Newton, Iowa, the former president said those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, had acted “peacefully and patriotically.” (Doug Mills/The New York Times) At his first event, in Newton, Trump called Biden’s speech “ridiculous” and argued that the president was overly focused on the Jan. 6 attack in order to divert attention from his record. “That’s going to be their case,” Trump said later in the day. “Because he can’t say anything good.” Throughout both speeches, Trump repeatedly invoked the lie at the heart of the riot: that the 2020 election was

stolen from him. And, as he frequently has in recent months, Trump sought to deflect accusations that he and his policies are anti-democratic by pointing his finger at Biden. “He’s a threat to democracy because he’s incompetent,” Trump said in Newton, even as he accused Biden of being the mastermind behind the criminal charges against him. There is no evidence that Biden has meddled in any of the four criminal cases against Trump, which span federal and state courts. “He’s corrupt. He’s incompetent. He has no idea,” Trump said of Biden. “He weaponized the DOJ and the FBI.” Many of those in attendance in Newton, and at a rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, on Friday, said they supported mild punishment for anyone who had, in fact, committed a crime on Jan. 6. But they added that the severity of the event had been overstated and that the investigations into the riot had no merit. “You do the crime, you do the time. But just being there is not a crime,” Bruce Fedders, 67, said in Sioux Center, adding, “Jan. 6 — I won’t even use ‘insurrection.’” Gary Leffler, a Trump caucus captain and former candidate for the House of Representatives, said he had marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, although he had not gone inside the building. “There was no feeling from anyone that was there that this was an insurrection,” Leffler, 62, said in Newton. “That’s a pile of horse manure.”

Biden to deliver State of the Union address on March 7 By ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS

resident Joe Biden will deliver his third State of the Union address March 7, an opportunity to detail his vision of the nation amid a presidential campaign that the White House has described as a test of democracy. In a letter Saturday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson officially invited Biden to deliver the constitutionally mandated speech to a joint session of Congress during “this moment of great challenge for our country.” “Looking forward to it, Mr. Speaker,” Biden said in a Saturday afternoon post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. March is unusually late for a State of the Union address, which is typically broadcast nationwide; Biden’s last one fell on Feb. 7. A press officer for Johnson did not respond to a query about the reason for the timing. The speech will come at a delicate time for Biden, in the thick of primaries that could effectively see former President Donald Trump established as the nominee. The date assigned by Johnson also falls after a pair of deadlines on Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 to pass packages that would fund the federal government for the rest of fiscal year 2024 and prevent a shutdown. Congressional negotiators have yet to agree on even the most basic details of a budget — although leaders have signaled they are optimistic about being able to

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pa., Friday, Jan. 5, 2024. President Biden will deliver his third State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, an opportunity to detail his vision of the nation amid a presidential campaign that the White House has described as a test of democracy. (Pete Marovich/The New York Times) agree on its overall size, at least, in the coming days. Johnson is facing pressure from hard-line members of his party who have threatened to block bills to fund the federal government unless the Biden administration sharply cracks down on migration across the U.S.-Mexico border — an issue that is one of the more glaring crises facing the White House. The invitation also comes amid high-stakes nego-

tiations among the White House and Democrats and Republicans in Congress over aid for Ukraine and Israel that has become a signature piece of Biden’s foreign policy agenda. Republicans have also refused to approve the foreign aid without immigration restrictions. Biden last month accused Republicans of holding the military aid “hostage” to secure “an extreme Republican partisan agenda.” The speech will provide the president a moment to speak directly to Americans as he struggles to find an effective message that can turn around dismal polling, concerns about his age and lingering frustration with the economy. Despite solid economic data, a November New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in six battleground states found that 81% think the economy is only “fair” or “poor.” Biden’s aides have said they remain focused on articulating the benefits of billions of dollars of federal investment in infrastructure, clean energy and manufacturing, and on contrasting his agenda with that of Republicans. Some Democratic allies have, however, pushed the White House to more directly call out his most likely opponent. Biden seemed to do just that Friday during a speech outside Philadelphia, a day before the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters. “We must be clear,” Biden said. “Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

FAA orders airlines to ground some Boeing 737 Max 9 jets after midair emergency By MARK WALKER and NIRAJ CHOKSHI

he Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday ordered U.S. airlines to stop using some Boeing 737 Max 9 planes until they were inspected, less than a day after one of those planes lost a chunk of its body in midair, terrifying passengers until the plane landed safely. Alaska and United Airlines on Saturday began canceling dozens of flights after grounding their Max 9 fleets so the planes could undergo the federally mandated inspections. Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland, Oregon, on Friday, bound for Ontario, California, but was diverted back to Portland six minutes later, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website. Those on board the flight described an unnerving experience, with wind blowing through a gaping hole that showed the night sky and the city lights below. The plane landed about 20 minutes after it had taken off, and no one aboard was seriously injured. A passenger, Vi Nguyen of Portland, said that she woke up to a loud sound during the flight. “I open up my eyes and the first thing I see is the oxygen mask right in front of me,” said Nguyen, 22. “And I look to the left and the wall on the side of the plane is gone. “The first thing I thought was, ‘I’m going to die,’” she added. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to Portland to begin its investigation into the incident. While the FAA has yet to publicly discuss what caused the incident, it ordered airlines to inspect what it called a “mid cabin door plug.” Some of the Boeing 737 Max 9s are configured with fewer seats and, therefore, do not need all the exits originally designed for

Photo by John McArthur on Unsplash the plane. The unneeded doors are filled with a plug. The Alaska Air plane had two of those unneeded doors, located between the rear of the plane and the wing emergency exits, that were “plugged.” Forrest Gossett, a spokesperson for Spirit AeroSystems, said Saturday that his company installed door plugs on the Max 9s and that Spirit had installed the plug on the Alaska Air flight. The FAA’s order affects about 171 planes. The agency said that the required inspections should take four to eight hours per plane to complete. “Safety will continue to drive our decisionmaking,” the agency’s administrator, Mike Whitaker, said in a statement. The FAA is working with the NTSB. Boeing issued a statement shortly after the FAA’s grounding order. “Safety is our top priority and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our customers and their passengers,” Jessica Kowal, a spokesperson for Boeing, said in the statement. “We agree with and fully support the FAA’s decision to require immediate

inspections of 737-9 airplanes with the same configuration as the affected airplane.” Alaska Airlines confirmed in a statement Saturday afternoon that it had started inspecting the door plugs and had cleared 18 of its 65 Max 9s to return to service. The airline said it expected to complete the inspections in the next few days. As of midday Saturday, the airline had canceled about 100 flights, or 13% of those scheduled for the day, according to FlightAware. Dozens more flights were delayed. United Airlines operates more Max 9s than any other airline, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Of United’s 79 Max 9s in service, 33 have already been inspected, the airline said in a statement Saturday. The airline said the removal of the planes from service was expected to cause about 60 cancellations for the day. “We are working directly with impacted customers to find them alternative travel options,” the airline said in a statement. Dave Spero, the president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents more than 11,000 federal aviation workers including safety inspectors, said Saturday that aviation safety experts from his union would be on the ground with the NTSB helping to determine how the plug covering the unneeded door was blown out of the plane. “From our perspective, there is no acceptable type of situation where this kind of thing should happen; this sort of risk shouldn’t be introduced,” Spero said. “They need to find out how it happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” The plane was just certified in November, according to the FAA registry of aircraft. It entered commercial service that month and has since logged 145 flights, according to Flightradar24,

another flight tracking site. Evan Smith, 72, a lawyer who was returning to his home in Murrieta, California, after visiting his daughter and son-in-law who live in Portland, said he heard a loud “bang” and saw some “dusky, smoky stuff” swirling around the cabin. Smith said his experience as a military police officer taught him that it was important to keep a cool head in these situations. Plus, he said: “The plane was stable. It wasn’t shaking. It wasn’t making any weird maneuvers. It was just flying steady.” He added, “I was sure the aircraft was fine and we were going to get down OK.” Passengers were swarming Alaska Airlines’ phone lines Saturday to rebook canceled flights and determine whether upcoming flights would be affected by the grounding. Customer service hold times, passengers were saying on social media, exceeded seven hours. Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, a union that represents flight attendants at Alaska, United and other airlines, said in a statement Saturday that she welcomed the inspections required by the FAA. “This is a critical move to ensure the safety of all crew and passengers, as well as confidence in aviation safety,” she said. “Lives must come first always.” The Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents pilots at Alaska, United and other airlines, echoed that sentiment in a statement Saturday, saying that it applauded the FAA for ordering the grounding to ensure the safety of crews and the flying public. Boeing’s Max aircraft have a troubled history. After two crashes of Max 8 jets killed hundreds of people within several months in 2018 and 2019, the Max was grounded around the world.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

Clashing over Jan. 6, Trump and Biden show reality is at stake in 2024 By MICHAEL C. BENDER, LISA LERER and MICHAEL GOLD

arely in American politics has a leading presidential candidate made such grave accusations about a rival: warning that he is willing to violate the Constitution, claiming that he is eager to persecute political rivals and calling him a dire threat to democracy. Those arguments have come from President Joe Biden’s speeches, including his forceful address last Friday as he hammered away at his predecessor. But they are also now being brazenly wielded by Donald Trump, the only president to try to overthrow an American election. Three years after the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump and his campaign are engaged in an audacious attempt to paint Biden as the true menace to the nation’s foundational underpinnings. Trump’s strategy aims to upend a world in which he has publicly called for suspending the Constitution, vowed to turn political opponents into legal targets and suggested that the nation’s top military general should be executed. The result has been a salvo of recriminations from the top candidates in each party, including competing events to mark Saturday’s third anniversary of the attack on the Capitol. The eagerness from each man to paint the other as an imminent threat signals that their potential rematch this year will be framed as nothing short of a cataclysmic battle for the future of democracy — even as Trump tries to twist the very idea to suit his own ends. “Donald Trump’s campaign is about him — not America, not you,” Biden said Friday, speaking near Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. “Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.” On Friday evening, at his own rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, Trump fired back, calling Biden’s remarks “pathetic fearmongering” and again accusing him, without any evidence, of wielding federal law enforcement to attack his political opponents. “They’ve weaponized government, and he’s saying I’m a threat to democracy,” Trump said incredulously. The early maneuvering by Biden and Trump points to an election that will be fought on extraordinary ground. While the economy, abortion rights and the ages of the candidates are all expected to be central campaign issues, both men argue that what is fundamentally at

Supporters at Donald Trump’s campaign event in Mason City, Iowa, on Friday, Jan. 5, 2024. At campaign rallies, Trump has referred to the Jan. 6 attacks as “a beautiful day” and said the roughly 1,240 people arrested so far in connection with the riot were “hostages,” not prisoners. (Doug Mills/ The New York Times) stake is whether the country’s nearly 250-yearold system of government endures. Biden traveled near the historical site — where George Washington burnished his leadership credentials during the Revolutionary War — to highlight the nation’s long tradition of a peaceful transfer of power, which Washington set in motion by voluntarily stepping down from office. The Biden campaign’s aim was to contrast that choice with the actions of Trump, who has continued to falsely dispute the results of the 2020 race. The president’s team described the Friday speech as the first in a series of campaign events that would cast the coming election as a fight for the survival of democracy itself. As Biden heads into the final year of his term, his worries that Trump could stoke more political violence have helped persuade him to make the strength of American democracy the fundamental question of his reelection, according to a longtime aide. The stakes are especially personal for Trump, given the 91 felony charges against him, many of them stemming from his attempt to cling to power. He often defines threats to democracy as any circumstance that could imperil his path to the presidency and has assigned blame to Biden and his allies without evidence. “They’re willing to violate the U.S. Constitution at levels never seen before in order to win,” Trump said during a rally last month in New Hampshire. “And remember this: Joe Biden is a threat to democracy. He’s a threat.” In an email to supporters Dec. 14, Trump

falsely claimed that Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the federal prosecution of the former president, “was given one order from his boss — try, convict, and sentence Donald Trump to jail before the November 2024 election.” Smith is responsible for investigating attempts to interfere with the 2020 election. “You too could be jailed for life as an innocent man,” Trump warned supporters in a fundraising appeal Dec. 20. In his attacks on Biden, the former president has often pointed to the moves by the Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine secretary of state to block Trump from the primary ballot in those states by citing a constitutional provision that prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. Trump has pointed out that such efforts to remove him from the ballot have been pushed in part by Democrats, but he rarely mentions that both decisions have been put on hold pending legal appeals — a sign of democratic institutions at work, not being undermined. At campaign rallies, Trump has referred to the Jan. 6 attacks as “a beautiful day” and said the roughly 1,240 people arrested so far in connection with the riot were “hostages,” not prisoners. Nearly 900 have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial. A memo Jan. 2 from Trump’s top campaign advisers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, made it clear that the former president’s strategy would define his election bid. “Please make no mistake,” they wrote. “Joe Biden and his allies are a real and compelling threat to our democracy. In fact, in a way never seen before in our history, they are waging a war against it.” As president, Trump complained about the unruliness of House Democrats while leading a White House often consumed by chaos. He was impeached the first time after asking Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, to dig up dirt on Biden and his son — even as Trump accused the Biden family of unethical behavior in the Eastern European country. More recently, Trump’s campaign has projected the words “BIDEN ATTACKS DEMOCRACY” onto screens at his rallies, and his team hands out matching signs to the crowd. “It is classic Trump to try and deflect from his own misconduct,” Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, told reporters before Biden’s speech Friday. “The reality is, the people of Pennsylvania have shown through multiple cycles, in 2020 and 2022, that they see through that.” Polling has suggested that voters still

prioritize issues like the economy over concerns about democracy. But Biden’s aides say their campaign data shows that his supporters are concerned about the risk of political violence and that Jan. 6 remains a resonant moment for the Democratic coalition. While Democratic voters appear wary of Biden’s age and relatively unenthusiastic about his candidacy, they are firmly united by the idea that Trump has broken the public trust. In a New York Times/Siena College poll last month, 93% of likely Democratic voters said they believed Trump had committed serious federal crimes, while 87% of Democrats said Trump had been charged mostly because prosecutors believed he committed crimes — not because of political motivations. Both figures outpaced the 79% of Democrats who said they approved of Biden’s performance as president. Focusing on democracy “is the most salient way to capture the violence and extremism that MAGA represents,” said Navin Nayak, a Democratic strategist and the president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “It animates that the threat is still real and there is a future threat of violence.” Republicans feel far differently. In the same survey, 69% of likely Republican voters said Trump had not committed serious federal crimes, and 84% said the charges were mostly motivated by politics. “I think it’s all trumped up; they’re just doing it to spite him,” Terry Remillard, 62, said at Trump’s rally Friday in Sioux Center, Iowa. “There’s no truth to any of those charges.” One of the biggest questions for 2024 is whether moderate and independent voters in the general election buy the version of democracy that Trump is trying to sell them. In 2022, the former president faced a resounding rejection from voters when he helped make his false election claims one of the top issues in the midterm elections. Losses by his hand-picked candidates prevented Republicans from winning the Senate majority, Trump-backed candidates lost key races for governor in battleground states, and candidates he endorsed in competitive House races were defeated. In the Times/Siena poll, majorities of likely independent voters said that Trump’s felony charges were not politically motivated, that the former president had committed serious federal crimes and that he had knowingly made false claims that the election was stolen. Still, Biden’s lead against Trump among all likely voters — 2 percentage points — was well within the poll’s margin of error.

10 Monday, January 8, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

Red Sea attacks leave shipping companies with difficult choices By PETER EAVIS and KEITH BRADSHER

he shipping companies that move goods on one of the world’s busiest trade routes for factories, stores, car dealerships and other businesses face an excruciating decision. They can send their vessels through the Red Sea if they are willing to risk attacks by the Houthi militia in Yemen and to bear the cost of sharply higher insurance premiums. Or they can sail an extra 4,000 miles around Africa, adding 10 days in each direction and burning considerably more fuel. Neither option is appealing, and both raise costs — expenses that analysts said could ultimately be borne by consumers through higher prices on the goods they buy. “We are beginning to see the weaponization of the global supply chains,” said Marco Forgione, director general of the Institute of Export and International Trade, which supports British corporate efforts to expand in overseas markets. In recent months, global supply chains had finally recovered after three years of disruptions caused by the pandemic and even a brief blockage of the Suez Canal, which lies at the northwestern end of the Red Sea and handles some 12% of global trade. Freight rates had fallen steeply, and the long delays that had bedeviled retailers in the United States and Europe had been resolved. So far, the problems in the Red Sea have not disrupted global supply chains to the same extent that the pandemic did. “But we are heading in that direction,” Forgione said. The Houthi attacks have continued even after a U.S.led force was assembled in the Red Sea to prevent them. Already, some companies, including Ikea and Next, the British retailer, have said that avoiding the Suez Canal and taking the long route around Africa could delay the arrival of products. A crucial question will be how the container shipping industry handles the annual surge of exports that typically occurs before China’s factories are idled for weeks at Lunar New Year, which is next month. Difficulties vary considerably by types of vessel. Oil tankers have been little affected and are continuing to use the Red Sea, as the Houthis appear to have shown little interest in them. By contrast, the number of specialized car-carrying ships using the Red Sea more than halved last month from December 2022, to just 42 trips, and only one has transited the sea so far this year, said Daniel Nash, head of vehicle carriers at VesselsValue, a London shipping data firm. The first vessel attacked by Houthi gunmen in recent weeks was a car carrier, the Galaxy Leader, which was hijacked Nov. 19 while returning to Asia for another load of several thousand cars. The 25-member crew, mainly Filipinos, was also kidnapped and still does not seem to have been released. Longer voyages around Africa for car-carrying vessels traveling to Europe from Asia are particularly disruptive

Photo by Kinsey W on Unsplash right now for the global auto industry. Chinese automakers have been rapidly increasing exports to Europe, especially of electric cars. Even before the Red Sea troubles, daily charter rates for transoceanic car carriers had skyrocketed to $105,000, from $16,000 two years ago. The Red Sea disruption comes as the Panama Canal, which has low water levels caused by drought, has slashed the number of vessels that can pass through. That had forced many ships to choose a longer route to the United States via the Suez Canal. Websites that track shipping still show scores of vessels in the Red Sea, which connects the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. But the largest companies have reduced their presence significantly or entirely. MSC, the largest container shipping company, said in mid-December that it was avoiding the Red Sea. Maersk, the second biggest, temporarily halted transits of the Red Sea then, returned to the area in late December and pulled back again this week after one of its vessels, the Maersk Hangzhou, was attacked. CMA CGM, the French shipping company, said in statement that some of its vessels had traveled through the Red Sea and that it was planning for a gradual increase of passages through the Suez Canal. “We are monitoring the situation constantly, and we stand ready to promptly reassess and adjust our plans as needed,” it added. Cosco, the Chinese giant, did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Hapag-Lloyd, which has a fleet of more than 250 container ships and is based in Ham-

burg, Germany, said the company planned to go around Africa until Jan. 9 and then assess the situation. An analysis provided by Flexport, a logistics technology company, showed that as of Thursday, 389 container vessels, accounting for more than onefifth of global container capacity, had already diverted from the Suez Canal or was in the process of doing so. “It’s about risk assessment and protecting life and property and cargo,” said Nathan Strang, director of ocean freight at Flexport. “If you can avoid a situation that is putting you at existential risk by just avoiding it, go for it.” Ships carrying large numbers of containers can shoulder the added costs of going around Africa, but, Strang said, the longer passage could destroy the economics of vessels carrying 5,000 or fewer containers. The quickest route to ports on the U.S. East Coast from China is through the Panama Canal. But shipping companies that avoided that canal because of the drought must now sail for even longer as they detour around the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape journey takes 10 days longer, or some 40% more, than traveling through the Panama Canal, Flexport calculates. The cost of transporting a container to an East Coast port from China has soared to around $3,900 from $2,300 before the Red Sea attacks, says Zvi Schreiber, the CEO of Freightos, a digital shipping marketplace. When the shipping logjam was at its worst during the pandemic, the cost could be more than $20,000. Insurance costs, usually no more than 0.2% of the value of a vessel per journey, jumped to 0.7% for ships planning to enter the Red Sea, said Forgione of the trade institute. “That’s a very significant increase,” he said. Schreiber said that he expected shipping companies to be able to handle the current disruption because, after buying more ships in recent years, they had plenty of spare capacity to deal with longer travel times. “Although the shock is big and will probably end up being bigger,” he said, “the network is coping with it.” And Christian Roeloffs, co-CEO of Container xChange, an online container logistics platform, said in an email that the current supply chain disruptions from China appeared “relatively modest” compared with what happened when the country imposed lockdowns during the pandemic.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

11 Stocks

High market hopes raise stakes as US stocks face inflation data, earnings I

nvestors’ hopes are running high to start 2024, which could set up U.S. stocks for a rocky stretch if some expectations are not met. Despite a shaky start to the year, the S&P 500 stands only around 2% below a fresh record high. Most investors have maintained a rosy view on everything from the U.S. economy and corporate profits to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy trajectory. For example, the narrative of resilient growth and gradually cooling inflation that helped boost the S&P 500 to a 24% gain last year has become the consensus view among investors. The latest BofA Global Research survey, released last month, showed 66% of fund managers believed the economy will achieve a soft landing in 2024. Only 15% of fund managers expected a recession in the next 12 months, BofA’s data showed, a sharp contrast from a year earlier, when 68% of investors expected a recession. Bets on easier monetary policy have gone hand-in-hand with the soft-landing outlook. Futures tied to the Fed’s policy rates show investors pricing in around 140 basis points of interest rate cuts this year, nearly twice what the central bank itself has projected. Not surprisingly, many investors have a positive outlook on stocks. Bullish sentiment rose to 48.6% in the latest week -- a notch down from its recent peak in December, but well above the historic average of 37.5%, the American Association of Individual Investors survey showed. Those views have been shaped in large part by tangible evidence of cooling inflation, a comparatively strong economy and the Fed’s own guidance, after policymakers surprised markets with a dovish pivot last month. With stocks near historical highs and at elevated valuations, however, some investors worry the market’s sunny outlook leaves more room for disappointment if any of those scenarios do not materialize. “Anything that throws off the current economic narrative or market narrative – the risk of that disappointment flowing through to prices in equities is higher,” said Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management. One test of investors’ optimism comes with next week’s consumer price data, which could show whether recent bets on ebbing inflation have been premature. Expectations for a cooling economy that could set the stage for Fed rate cuts took a hit on Friday, after jobs data showed employers hired more workers than expected in December while raising wages at a solid clip. The S&P 500 fell 1.54% this week, the biggest weekly decline since late October. Major banks including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup kick off earnings season next week, testing elevated expectations for corporate profits. Analysts expect S&P 500 earnings to rise by 11% in 2024 after increasing just 3% in 2023, according to LSEG data. Pressure to meet higher earnings targets may be more intense than a year ago, as the market’s overall valuation has climbed. The S&P 500 trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 19.5 compared with about 17 times at the start of 2023, LSEG Datastream data showed. “We don’t expect multiples to expand significantly from here

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because valuations are stretched a bit, so it’s going to come down to where the earnings come in,” said James Ragan, director of wealth management research at D.A. Davidson. Ragan puts fair value for the S&P 500 at 4,700, roughly where it is trading now. Looking further ahead, investors will parse the message from the Fed at the end of its Jan. 30-31 policy meeting. Markets expect the central bank to leave rates unchanged this month, and bets on a cut at the March meeting have been pared back.

Futures markets on Friday priced a roughly 62% chance that the Fed cuts rates by 25 basis points in March, from around 73% a week ago, CME’s FedWatch Tool showed. Still, stocks have historically responded well to rate cuts. Over the past 12 easing cycles since 1970, the S&P 500 has tended to rally for the six or seven months after the first rate cut with an average gain of about 12%, according to Ned Davis Research. Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services, said in a recent note that the bar for positive surprises has risen and he expects a “digestion period” for the market after its strong run. He still believes, however, that stocks are likely to rise in 2024. “Stick with the underlying positive market trend and be prepared to use pullbacks as opportunities,” Lerner said.

12 Monday, January 8, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

Ukraine’s Patriot defenses at work: Shuddering booms and bursts of light By MARC SANTORA

he first warning was a blip, a small anomaly picked up by radar scanning the skies over Ukraine. Within seconds, it became clear that the blip was a Russian ballistic missile streaking in Kyiv’s direction at several times the speed of sound. It was just before 4 a.m. on Dec. 11, and there was no time to sound air-raid alarms in the country’s capital. While millions of civilians slept, Ukrainian forces fired off several U.S.-supplied Patriot missiles as the deadly battle in the sky commenced. Missile-on-missile battles like this play out in a matter of minutes, said a Ukrainian major, Volodymyr, commander of a Patriot air-defense battery who insisted that only his first name be used because of the sensitivity of his unit’s operations. From a mobile control room near Kyiv, his team tracked the salvo of incoming Russian missiles as the Patriot’s algorithms calculated their speed, altitude and intended course. With shuddering booms and bursts of light, its interceptor missiles knocked down one Russian missile after another. “Given that the Patriot is one of the few systems that can effectively shoot down ballistic missiles, and ballistic missiles cause the most casualties, I think the number of lives saved during the war is in the thousands,” Volodymyr said. That night was a success, but more recent missile barrages have done more damage as Russia steps up its assaults, searching for new combinations of weapons and trajectories to evade Ukrainian defenses. Those attacks have underscored even more acutely Ukraine’s urgent need for air defense. On Dec. 29, Russia fired more than 120 missiles at cities across Ukraine, killing at least 44 people, including 30 in Kyiv. On New Year’s Eve, Ukraine’s forces said they had shot down 87 of 90 drones aimed at targets around the country. And on Tuesday, according to the Ukrainian military, Russia fired at least 99 missiles and 35 drones at Kyiv and other cities, killing at least five people and injuring

Major Volodymyr, the commander of a Ukrainian Patriot air defense battery who did not want his face or last name revealed, in Kyiv on Dec. 8, 2023. The Patriot air defense systems have probably saved thousands of lives. If U.S. military support stops, bombardments by Russia could become even more deadly. (Brendan Hoffman/The New York Times) dozens. In aerial assaults in just that five-day span, United Nations observers documented 90 civilian deaths, including two children, and 421 civilian injuries. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Russia had fired more than 500 missiles and drones at targets across the country in that time. “There is no reason to believe that the enemy will stop here,” Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top commander, said on social media after Tuesday’s attack. “Therefore, we need more systems and munitions for them.” But White House and Pentagon officials have warned that the United States will soon be unable to keep Ukraine’s Patriot batteries supplied with interceptor missiles, which can cost $2 million to $4 million apiece. Since the start of the war in February 2022, Russia has directed more than 3,800 drones and 7,400 missiles at Ukrainian towns and cities. At the same time, Ukraine has become a testing ground for an array of air-defense systems, according to the Ukrainian military. They range in sophistication from truck-mounted Stingers and short-range anti-aircraft guns, such as German-made

Gepards, to complex systems with longer ranges, such as the French-designed SAMP/T, which can hit a target 60 miles away. There is also the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, which is jointly produced by the United States and Norway. Only the Patriots are designed to counter ballistic missiles, and from the moment the first Patriot battery entered the combat space, they reshaped the battle for the skies. But surface-to-air missiles, including Patriot missiles, are not perfect and have been known to misfire and fail. Volodymyr, 32, was manning a Soviet-era S-300 system when Russia launched its invasion nearly two years ago. Yet although Ukrainian air-defense teams managed to keep Russian fighter jets from gaining dominance in the air and put up an agile defense against cruise missiles, they had nothing designed to shoot down ballistic missiles. As Russian strikes ravaged critical infrastructure across Ukraine, officials contemplated evacuating Kyiv that November, and the U.S. Congress approved the first Patriot battery for Ukraine a month later. Volodymyr was part of a team dis-

patched to Fort Sill, a former frontier cavalry post in southwestern Oklahoma, for a 10-week course on how to operate and maintain the system. “We quickly found a common language with the Americans,” he said in a recent interview. “We are constantly in touch with them. If something happens, they worry, write, congratulate us.” After two further weeks of training in Poland, he traveled to Ukraine with the first Patriot system. Within days, his team was put to the test in combat. On May 4, Russian forces fired a hypersonic missile at Kyiv. And although Russian President Vladimir Putin had deemed the weapon “unbeatable,” a Patriot interceptor missile shot it down. “It was quite unexpected,” Volodymyr said. “We had just arrived from training and did not fully understand what exactly we had destroyed.” “Later, when we found out, our confidence in the equipment that our partners provided us grew,” he said. In May and June, during some of the most complex attacks involving drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles, Ukraine’s two Patriot batteries shot down all 34 ballistic missiles that Russia had fired at Kyiv, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washingtonbased research organization. “There were days when the guys barely had time to reload the launchers,” Volodymyr said. The protection provided by the Patriots is limited, like a blanket that covers only a fraction of a bed. “We were able to defend Kyiv, but at the same time, Odesa was being destroyed,” Volodymyr said. Ukrainian commanders are now trying to plan for a future without knowing what weapons they may have at their disposal. “We managed to create a shield over the state thanks to our foreign partners,” Volodymyr said. “But if our foreign partners turn their backs on us, we will return to the beginning of the war, when people simply did not come out of their shelters and the Russians tried to turn our cities into complete ruins.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

Russian attacks kill 11 civilians near eastern front, Ukraine says By CONSTANT MEHÉUT

krainian officials said Saturday that Russian missile strikes on a city and a village close to the eastern front line had killed at least 11 people, including five children, and wounded 10. Vadym Filashkin, governor of the Ukrainian-controlled areas of the Donetsk region, said the Russian military hit the area with a barrage of missiles Saturday evening, smashing private houses and trapping residents under the rubble. The Russian government did not immediately comment on the reports. “The enemy is cynically targeting civilians, trying to bring as much grief to our land as possible,” he wrote in a post on social media, which included images of rescuers searching through the smoldering wreckage of houses in the dark of the night. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said in a statement that rescue operations were underway. “The Russian strike quite simply targeted ordinary, private homes,” Zelenskyy said. The Saturday strike, which could not be independently confirmed, was reported as Russia and Ukraine have been locked in an escalating cycle of air assaults in recent days. Moscow, in particular, has struck Ukrainian territory with some of the largest attacks since the war began nearly two years ago, killing 90 civilians and injuring more than 400

over five days, according to the United Nations. Ukraine, in apparent retaliation, has targeted the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, with attacks that Russian authorities said have left at least 24 dead and wounded 100. Russia’s claims could not be independently verified. Ukrainian officials said Saturday’s attack involved S-300 missiles, which are surface-to-air missiles normally used to target aircraft but which Russia has increasingly repurposed to strike ground targets. The two locations that were reported struck Saturday — the city of Pokrovsk and the village of Myrnohrad — lie about 25 miles from some of the spots on the eastern front line with the fiercest fighting, including Avdiivka, a city that Russian forces have fiercely attacked for months. It was not the first time that Pokrovsk, a logistical hub for the Ukrainian army, has been reported hit. In August, two Russian missiles hit the city center 37 minutes apart and in nearly the same location, in what appeared to be a “double tap” attack intended to kill rescuers responding to the first strike. The strikes killed nine people and injured 82. Before the war, Pokrovsk’s population was about 50,000. It fell to about 30,000 in spring 2022, when many people fled west to escape Russia’s invasion. But by

Destruction along a street in the frontline town of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Jan. 5, 2024. (Finbarr O’Reilly/The New York Times) last spring, it had risen back to 57,000 as residents, eager to go home as the war dragged on, returned. Others from surrounding hot spots such as Avdiivka also relocated to Pokrovsk. It is unclear whether some people have fled again as the fighting has gotten closer and more intense in recent months. Since the fall, Moscow has launched a series of assaults all along the

eastern front, pushing to encircle the city of Avdiivka, a linchpin of Ukrainian defenses in the Donetsk region, and apparently seizing control of Marinka, about 25 miles southeast of Pokrovsk, last week. Russia’s offensive has come at a high cost in casualties for both sides, and the cities targeted by Russian assaults often have been reduced to rubble because of relentless shelling.

Woman rescued from rubble in Japan five days after deadly quake By MOTOKO RICH and MIHARU NISHIYAMA

olice and other rescue workers pulled a woman in her 90s out from under a collapsed house Saturday in western Japan, five days after a powerful earthquake struck the region, killing more than 126 people. Few details were available, but video footage showed a fleet of rescuers surrounding the site in Suzu, one of the hardest-hit villages. According to the Metropolitan Police Department cited

by the Yomiuri newspaper, the woman appeared to be suffering from hypothermia but was responsive. The woman, who was not identified, had been trapped underground beneath the first floor of a two-story house. She was rescued about 8:20 p.m. and taken to the hospital, according to officials in the crisis management office of Ishikawa prefecture, where Suzu is located. According to Ishikawa officials, the fire brigade and an attending doctor said the woman had suffered injuries

to her legs. NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, reported that she was able to speak Sunday morning. The window for finding earthquake survivors is typically three days, experts say, though it is possible to survive longer, depending on factors like temperature, access to water or food, and how the victim is trapped. Since Monday’s earthquake, which registered at a magnitude of 7.6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, the death toll has steadily risen as more bodies have been discovered beneath

collapsed or burned buildings. Rescuers are still racing to find those unaccounted for in rainy conditions, with forecasts for snow looming along the Noto Peninsula. At least 222 people are still missing. On Tuesday, a coast guard plane on its way to deliver supplies to the region collided with a Japan Airlines jet on a runway in Tokyo. Five of the six people on board the coast guard craft died in the crash, while all the passengers and crew on the other plane escaped their burning jet without major injury.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

As Gaza losses mount under strikes, dignified burials are another casualty By RAJA ABDULRAHIM

or four days, Kareem Sabawi’s body lay wrapped in a blanket in a cold, empty apartment as his family sheltered nearby. He was killed during intense Israeli bombardment near his family home, his father and mother said, and in the days that followed, it was too dangerous to step outside and lay their 10-year-old child to rest. His family called the Palestine Red Crescent for help. But it was the early days of Israel’s ground invasion in the northern Gaza Strip, and forces were blocking streets with tanks and gunfire, preventing rescue workers from reaching those killed by Israeli airstrikes. Each day, the father, Hazem Sabawi, suffered a double torment — mourning his son and unable to afford him the final dignity of a proper burial. “After the fourth day, I said that’s it. Either I will be buried with him, or I won’t bury him at all,” he said, recounting how he laid his son under a guava tree behind a neighbor’s apartment building. “Every human has the right to be buried,” Sabawi said. It has been 13 weeks since Israel’s war in Gaza began after the attack on Israel by Hamas, which killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. Since then, the living in Gaza have been forced to inter their dead hurriedly and without ceremony or last rites, lest they risk the same fate as their loved ones. More than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Civilians are being killed at a pace with few precedents in this century. The conflict has turned Gaza into a “graveyard for thousands of children,” the United Nations said. “The situation has gotten to the point where we say: The lucky are those who have someone to bury them when they die,” said Dr. Mohammad Abu Moussa, a radiologist at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. Traditionally, Palestinians honor their dead with public funeral processions and mourning tents erected on streets for three days to receive those who want to offer condolences. But the war has made those traditions impossible to uphold. Instead, the dead have been buried

in mass graves, hospital courtyards and backyard gardens, often without headstones, their names scrawled on white burial shrouds or body bags. Funeral prayers are said quickly — if at all — in hospital hallways or outside morgues. Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent, said the violence often made it impossible for rescuers to reach attack sites or recover bodies. Some families have been trapped inside their homes for days with the corpses of their loved ones, she said. Gaza health officials estimate that about 7,000 people in Gaza are missing, most presumed dead under the enormous destruction from Israel’s onslaught. On some homes, people have spray-painted the names of those believed to be buried under the rubble. As nearly 2 million civilians have been displaced and made dangerous treks on foot to southern Gaza — passing Israeli forces with guns trained on them — some have described seeing dozens of bodies along the way, bloated and decomposing. They have told The New York Times that Israeli soldiers would not allow them to even cover, much less bury, the dead. The Israeli military said it had prevented people from approaching bodies “for operational reasons” and also to determine whether any of the dead might be Israeli hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza on Oct. 7. For Sabawi, burying Kareem was the least he could do for a son he felt he was unable to protect. He and his wife said an Israeli airstrike hit near their home in early November when their family was preparing lunch with what little flour and rations they had. Sabawi was thrown in the air, and when he hit the floor, the kitchen door fell on him. When he got up, he saw Kareem bleeding profusely from his head. Sabawi said he scooped him up, even though his arm was injured, and the family ran to a neighbor’s apartment. Kareem was still breathing as his panicked father administered CPR. It was too late. Neighbors took the family in and brought a blanket to wrap Kareem’s body, Sabawi said. He waited four days, fearing they might be killed by an airstrike or Israeli soldier if they went outside to bury him. On the fifth day, Sa-

Khaled Joudeh searches for his killed family members, including his baby sister, Misq, at a hospital morgue in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Oct. 22, 2023. Civilians in Gaza are being killed at a pace with few precedents in this century and the conflict, the United Nations said, has turned Gaza into a graveyard for children. (Samar Abu Elouf/ The New York Times) bawi and a neighbor said the Muslim proclamation of faith before leaving the apartment. In the garden behind the building, they dug a shallow grave and laid Kareem in it, covering him with dirt, and rushed back inside. “The next day, I went back down to put more dirt over the grave,” Sabawi said. On the tree, he hung a makeshift headstone and placed a brick at the top. “Every time there was an opportunity, I went down to put more dirt so it would become a proper grave.” His wife, Suha Sabawi, 32, said she knew that not all parents in Gaza got the opportunity for such bittersweet closure. “Lots of people said to me, ‘Thank God you were able to bury your son,’ because lots of people can’t bury their children,” she said. Ahmed Alhattab, a father of four, said a rocket struck his apartment building on the night of Nov. 7 in Gaza City. There were 32 family members inside, 19 of them children. Palestinian news media reported the strike at the time, putting the initial death toll at 10. Alhattab and three of his sons escaped from the rubble, but one had a skull fracture and was bleeding. Alhattab handed his two uninjured sons — ages 5 and 9 — to neighbors and carried his wounded 7-year-old, Yahya, until he

found an ambulance to take him to a hospital. For three days, Alhattab said, he stayed at the hospital as his son underwent surgery. The hospital was nearing collapse as airstrikes and clashes raged nearby. He was told his son was unlikely to survive. As relatives prepared to flee, he said, he made the heart-wrenching decision to leave Yahya behind to take his other sons south, where he hoped they would be safer. Four days later, he heard from a friend that his son had died in the hospital, where he was buried along with other patients who died. “The burial was temporary,” Alhattab said, “and I don’t know what happened with his body.” Medical workers have told the Times they have sometimes had to dig graves in hospital courtyards. When staff members were forced by the Israeli military to evacuate, they said, they had to leave many bodies behind. Now in southern Gaza, Alhattab says he wants to go home to recover his family’s bodies.\ “When we bury the dead, we honor them,” he said. “And it calms one’s heart a little bit. You know where they are buried.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

This election year is unlike any other By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

t the outset of this election year, with Donald Trump leading the race to be the Republican presidential nominee, Americans should pause to consider what a second Trump term would mean for our country and the world and to weigh the serious responsibility this election places on their shoulders. By now, most American voters should have no illusions about who Trump is. During his many years as a real estate developer and a television personality, then as president and as a dominant figure in the Republican Party, Trump demonstrated a character and temperament that render him utterly unfit for high office. As president, he wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever — encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law and the Constitution, applauding dictators — and are escalating as he tries to regain power. He plots retribution, intent on eluding the institutional, legal and bureaucratic restraints that put limits on him in his first term. Our purpose at the start of the new year, therefore, is to sound a warning. Trump’s four years in the White House did lasting damage to the presidency and to the nation. He deepened existing divisions among Americans, leaving the country dangerously

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polarized; he so demeaned public discourse that many Americans have become inured to lies, insults and personal attacks at the highest levels of leadership. His contempt for the rule of law raised concerns about the long-term stability of American democracy, and his absence of a moral compass threatened to corrode the ideals of national service. The Republic weathered Trump’s presidency for a variety of reasons: his lack of prepared agenda, the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efforts of appointees who tried to temper his most dangerous or unreasonable demands. Most important, it survived because of the people and institutions in his administration and in the Republican Party who proved strong enough to stand up to his efforts to undermine the peaceful transfer of power. It is instructive in the aftermath of that administration to listen to the judgments of some of these officials on the president they served. John Kelly, a chief of staff to Trump, called him the “most flawed person I’ve ever met,” someone who could not understand why Americans admired those who sacrificed their lives in combat. Bill Barr, who served as attorney general, and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary, both said Trump repeatedly put his own interests over those of the country. Even the most loyal and conservative of them all, Vice President Mike Pence, who made the stand that helped provoke Trump and his followers to insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, saw through the man: “On that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution,” he said. There will not be people like these in the White House should Trump be reelected. The former president has no interest in being restrained, and he has surrounded himself with people who want to institutionalize the MAGA doctrine. According to reporting by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan, Trump and his ideological allies have been planning for a second Trump term for many months already. Under the name Project 2025, one coalition of right-wing organizations has produced a thick handbook and recruited thousands of potential appointees in preparation for an all-out assault on the structures of American government and the democratic institutions that acted as checks on Trump’s power. The project ties in with plans from Trump and his supporters to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers so they can be fired if they do not buy fully into the Trump agenda. He also plans to strip the Justice Department of its independence in order to use it to wreak vengeance on those who, in his view, failed to concoct a victory for him in the 2020 election or otherwise didn’t support his unconstitutional demands. There is more, including threats by Trump to find ways to use federal troops against those who might protest his policies and practices. These ambitions demonstrate that the years out of office and the mounting legal challenges he faces have only sharpened his worst instincts. Trump was impeached twice as president and since leaving office has been charged in four criminal cases — two related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, one over hush

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash money paid to a porn star and another for hoarding classified documents after he left office and impeding the government’s efforts to retrieve them. No other sitting or former president has ever been indicted on criminal charges. Not only has Trump shown no remorse for these actions, he has given no sign that he understands these indictments to be anything but a political crusade meant to undermine him. He continues to claim that the Jan. 6 insurrection has been misrepresented. “There was love and unity,” he said in an interview in August. And he has suggested that, if reelected, he could use his presidential powers to pardon himself. Trump’s forays into foreign affairs remain dangerously misguided and incoherent. During his presidency, he displayed consistent admiration for autocratic leaders — including Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un — and contempt for our democratic allies. While in the White House, he repeatedly threatened to leave NATO, an alliance critical to the stability of Europe that he sees only as a drain on American resources; now his campaign website says, without elaborating, that he plans to “finish” the process of “fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.” He has announced his intention to abandon Ukraine, leaving it and its neighbors vulnerable to further Russian aggression. Encouraged by an American president, leaders who rule with an iron fist in Hungary, Israel, India and elsewhere would face far less moral or democratic pressure. Trump has made clear his conviction that only “losers” accept legal, institutional or even constitutional constraints. He has promised vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin” and threatened with execution. This is particularly disturbing at a time of heightened concern about political violence, with threats increasing against elected officials of both parties. Reelecting Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to reengage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate — as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals — the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November.

16 Monday, January 8, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

Salud abre nuevos centros de recertificación de Medicaid POR EL STAR STAFF

AN JUAN – Enfocados en facilitarle a los ciudadanos el proceso de renovación de cubierta médica que ofrece el programa Medicaid, el Departamento de Salud (DS), abre las puertas de nuevos centros de recertificación. Estos espacios proporcionarán un mayor alcance a los participantes del programa y los ciudadanos que se cualifiquen para recibir estos beneficios, y la oportunidad de contar con la asistencia del personal laboral para llevar a cabo el proceso. “Estos nuevos centros forman parte de un proceso ordenado que hemos establecido, de conformidad con los estándares y requerimientos de los centros de servicios Medicare y Medicaid. El objetivo es brindar apoyo a los beneficiarios, de forma personal, para garantizar un proceso de recertificación más ágil y ampliar la accesibilidad de participantes potenciales al mismo”, manifestó el secretario de Salud, Carlos Mellado López. El titular de Salud reiteró su llamado a los ciudadanos, a que reactiven su cubierta médica para que puedan continuar recibiendo los beneficios de servicios médicos, medicamentos y tratamientos, y evitar quedarse sin esta cobertura que le proporciona el programa Medicaid. La disponibilidad de estas nuevas instalaciones de Medicaid forma parte de la campaña de alcance poblacional, que el Departamento de Salud inició en agosto de 2023 para ampliar su oferta de acceso a los formularios que precisan cumplimentar los ciudadanos, la radicación de los documentos requeridos y a ser atendidos en el proceso. Este proyecto, que consta de varias etapas, está dirigido a crear conciencia ciudadana sobre la importancia de que realicen la renovación de cubierta médica, ya que la misma no se otorga de forma automática, y que para ello deben seguir el proceso establecido. La primera fase consistió en la creación de Centros de Apoyo Fijos en centros comerciales para orientación a la población, sobre todo lo relacionado con la recertificación de elegibilidad de los participantes del

programa Medicaid. Los mismos están ubicados en Plaza las Américas, Plaza del Caribe y Mayagüez Mall y operan de conformidad con el horario regular de estos establecimientos, incluyendo los horarios extendidos. La segunda fase impactará los residenciales públicos y las comunidades rurales y comenzará entre la tercera y cuarta semana de enero de 2024. En esta etapa se establecerán centros fijos en los residenciales Luis Llorens Torres, Santa Rita de Casia, Francisco Figueroa, Enrique Zorrilla, Manuel Roman Adames, Calendario Torres, Las Palmas, Villa Universitaria, Padre Nazario, Villa Real. Se proporcionará apoyo en la recertificación de los pacientes hábiles en dichos residenciales. En las zonas rurales, representantes del Programa Medicaid orientarán a los ciudadanos, casa por casa, sobre el proceso de recertificación. La tercera fase estará dirigida a las organizaciones de base comunitaria y fe, e Iniciará la segunda semana de febrero de 2024. En esta etapa, se realizan actividades puntuales con cada organización. La recertificación es un proceso de revisión o actualización de evidencias, de beneficiarios que cuentan con el Plan Vital y Medicare Platino. Para completar la solicitud de recertificación, estos deben presentar documentos requeridos, tales como: identificación con foto, factura o correspondencia que evidencie la dirección residencial, certificado de ciudadanía americana (o, en su lugar, certificado de nacimiento, pasaporte, tarjeta de residencia, conocida como “green card”), número de seguro social de todos los miembros del núcleo familiar, evidencia de ingresos y recursos, y seguro o plan médico, o ambos,

si aplica. En Puerto Rico, el Programa Medicaid cuenta con 1,573,264 beneficiarios, de los cuales ya se han recertificado 479, 932, por lo que 458, 880 aún no han realizado este proceso. Si estos últimos no se recertifican, sus beneficios médicos se verán afectados, ya que no tendrán continuidad, lo que pone en riesgo su salud y vida. La fecha límite para la renovación de su cubierta médica es el 30 de abril de 2024, por lo que se les insta a que realicen su recertificación con prontitud. Completa tu recertificación y no te quedes sin cubierta médica. Visita los centros de renovación o comunícate al centro de llamadas del Programa Medicaid para hacer una cita, al 787-641-4224.

Fiesta de Reyes… los niños y el natalicio de Mons. Antulio Parrilla POR CYBERNEWS

AGUAS – Niños, jóvenes y adultos de la Parroquia San Pablo Apóstol de Caguas se integraron para orar, conocer y celebrar el 105 aniversario del natalicio y vida del obispo Antulio Parrilla, en el marco de la fiesta nacional de los Tres Santos Reyes. “Hemos mantenido la celebración del natalicio de nuestro querido monseñor Parrilla, no solo por su calidad de vida y ministerio, sino también para que los niños y jóvenes conozcan la vida otro pastor con

“olor a oveja”, conciencia de la pastoral social de la Iglesia puertorriqueña”, aseguró el padre Pedro Ortiz, quien se ha mantenido promoviendo la vida y obra del fenecido obispo. “La conmemoración del obispo Parrilla concede la oportunidad para profundizar la fe de la Iglesia al celebrar también el 60 aniversario de la fundación de la Diócesis de Caguas en la que él inició su episcopado”, añadió. La actividad sociocultural y litúrgica este año fue coordinada por la comisión de catequistas de la Pa-

rroquia San Pablo Apóstol de Caguas.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

A reinvented ‘True Detective’ plays it cool By ALEXIS SOLOSKI

here were times, a year ago, in Iceland, on a glacier, in the dark, in temperatures well below freezing, when Issa López thought to herself: “Who wrote this? What is wrong with this person?” López, the showrunner and director of Season Four of the HBO anthology series “True Detective,” had only herself to blame. This shivery “True Detective,” subtitled “Night Country,” premieres Jan. 14. Set in Ennis, a fictional town in northwest Alaska, it stars Jodie Foster as the chief of police and Kali Reis as an intimidating state trooper. Opening just as the area descends into months of unrelieved darkness, the six-episode season has an icy milieu and a female gaze forcefully distinct from the show’s past outings. Created by Nic Pizzolatto, “True Detective” debuted nearly a decade ago as a bayou noir starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Sultry, macho and spanning two timelines set 17 years apart, it entwined a familiar serial killer investigation with sweaty philosophy and intimations of the supernatural. Though that first season had its critics, it made for essential, much debated viewing. The second season, set in an unglamorous Southern California exurb and starring Colin Farrell, Taylor Kitsch, Rachel McAdams and Vince Vaughn, made a smaller, grimmer splash, as did the third season, which starred Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff and relocated the action to the Ozarks. That third season, which premiered in January 2019, attracted significantly fewer viewers. That might have meant the end of “True Detective.” But HBO believed the franchise could continue. The network began to search for a new showrunner for Season Four, preferably a woman of color. (Earlier seasons skewed overwhelmingly male and largely white, in front of the camera and behind it.) Among the potential candidates was López, a Mexican filmmaker who had written and directed a roster of Spanish-language features, including “Tigers Are Not Afraid,” a movie about missing and murdered women and children that mingled crime, fantasy and horror. That film impressed Francesca Orsi, HBO’s head of drama. The essence of “True Detective,” Orsi said by phone in a recent interview, “is the way in which the horror genre is encap-

Jodie Foster, who stars in Season 4 of “True Detective,”in Los Angeles, Dec. 13, 2023. sulated within the detective noir narrative.” Confident that López could accomplish this, Orsi invited her to pitch a new season. López had spent nearly two decades pitching American networks and studios. She understood that network interest was no guarantee that a project would be made. And she knew that when it came to English-language work, she would be considered a risk, untried. So she decided there was no harm in dreaming big. And dark. And cold. “You write the impossible,” López said during a video call last month. “You write what you want to see.” Though López grew up in more temperate climates, she is a fan of the John Carpenter horror movie “The Thing,” set in Antarctica, and of the Alaskan vampire comic book “30 Days of Night.” Assuming the project would never be greenlighted, she wrote what she wanted to see: an “existential whodunit,” as she put it, set in Alaska’s farthest, iciest reaches. To her surprise and mild dismay, HBO said yes. “It was so much fun to dream that world,” López said. “Except then I had to go there and shoot it.” This season — the first without Pizzolatto, though he retains an executive producer credit — can be seen as a photo ne-

gative of the first. It is chilly rather than steamy, shadowed rather than sunlit, tundra dry instead of humid. Despite occasional flashbacks, it restricts itself to a single timeline. In the first season, women appeared mostly as beleaguered wives or prostitutes. Here the gaze and the detectives are defiantly female. Orsi sometimes doubted the wisdom of having handed a marquee franchise to someone with little television experience, but López’s choices and attitude reassured her. “Every step of the way, I was taken aback by how confident she consistently was about what we were asking of her,” Orsi said. That confidence also inspired Foster, who hadn’t done substantive television work since her breakthrough role in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver.” “I read the script and I was like, this is beautiful,” said Foster, sitting beside López. “There was so much that I was curious about and that I wanted to learn from. Then I met Issa and that really nailed it. I could tell that she had a collaborative spirit.” The initial episode finds Foster’s Liz Danvers called into investigate the sudden disappearance of the employees of an Arctic research station. (These men are later found naked and frozen into a single block of human ice. Call it a cold case.) The mystery reunites her with Reis’ Evangeline Navarro. Former colleagues, they fell out years ago, in the wake of a gruesome domestic violence case. In the initial drafts, López wrote Navarro as Latina. But after researching the region, López decided that the character should have Native ancestry, specifically Iñupiaq. Foster asked for other changes. She felt that Danvers, a somewhat blinkered white woman whom she nicknamed “Alaska Karen,” should be aged up and that she should cede the story’s center to Navarro. As Alaska lacked the infrastructure for a six-month shoot, the production had to make do with an area outside of Reykjavik, Iceland, and some computer-generated caribou and polar bears. The shoot was, Foster said, an intimate experience, with the dark and the frigid mitigated by the camaraderie and the beauty of the Northern Lights. Perhaps that beauty softened some of the script’s elements. There is no shortage of existential horror, but the show entertains the possibility of justice and the notion that if other people are the source of most suffering, they can also provide comfort. All these months later, López can look back on the experience warmly. “I learned to love the ice and the cold air, and now I miss it,” she said. “I would love to go back there for a vacation. Never to shoot again, though.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

David Soul, a star of the hit cop show ‘Starsky & Hutch,’ dies at 80 By ALEX WILLIAMS

avid Soul, the doleful-eyed blond actor and singer who rose to fame portraying half of a cagey crime-fighting duo on the hit 1970s television show “Starsky & Hutch” and scored a No. 1 hit single in 1977 with “Don’t Give Up on Us,” died Thursday. He was 80. His death was confirmed in a statement by his wife, Helen Snell, who did not specify a cause or say where he died. He had been living in Britain since 1995 and became a British citizen in 2004. A Chicago-born son of a Lutheran minister, Soul had spent nearly a decade appearing on television shows like “Star Trek” and “I Dream of Jeannie”; he also had a regular role on the ABC Western comedy series “Here Come the Brides” before he won his careerdefining role of Detective Ken Hutchinson, known as Hutch, also on ABC. The part would make him a regular presence in American living rooms, as well as a recognized heartthrob, from 1975 to 1979. As Hutch, Soul played the coolheaded Midwestern sidekick to Detective Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser), a savvy Brooklynite given to wearing chunky cardigan sweaters. The two tooled around the fictional Southern California burg of Bay City in a red Ford Gran Torino emblazoned with a giant Nikeesque swoosh running down each side as they cracked open cases with the help of their streetwise informant, Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas). Soul had first caught the eye of the show’s creators with an icy performance as a vigilante motorcycle cop in “Magnum Force” (1973), the first of several sequels to the hit 1971 Clint Eastwood film “Dirty Harry.” But he initially had misgivings about the Hutch character, seeing him as nothing more than “bland white-bread,” as he said in the 2004 television

documentary “He’s Starsky, I’m Hutch.” “I didn’t like him,” he said. “I wanted to play Starsky.” Even as old-school tough guys with badges, the characters stood out on the 1970s cop show landscape by sharing an on-screen emotional intimacy that was striking for its day. While being interviewed by talk show host Merv Griffin, who pointed out that TV Guide had singled out “Starsky & Hutch” as television’s most violent show, Soul responded, “My opinion of the show is that it’s a love story. It’s a love story between two men who happen to be cops.” In an interview for The New York Post’s Page Six feature in 2021, Glaser said that he and Soul had kidded about the show’s homoerotic undertones “all the time.” With his place in the pop culture firmament cemented, Soul was able to make good on his long-simmering ambitions to be a pop star. In 1977, the year after releasing his debut album, he shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the lachrymose ballad “Don’t Give Up on Us.” Many years later, Owen Wilson, as Hutch, parodied the song in none-too-loving fashion in a 2004 feature-film comedy version of the show, which also starred Ben Stiller as Starsky and Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear. Soul, who often said that music was his priority over acting, released five albums in his career and notched four Top 10 hits in Britain in the 1970s, including “Don’t Give Up on Us,” which climbed to No. 1; “Silver Lady,” which also went to No. 1, although it reached only No. 52 in the United States; and “Going in With My Eyes Open” — No. 2 in Britain and No. 54 on the American chart. He became enough of a singing sensation that, in reviewing a 1977 concert of his at Radio City Music Hall, Robert Palmer of The New York Times described “camera-wielding teenage girls charging the stage, the flicker of

David Soul, left, and Paul Michael Glaser in “Starsky & Hutch” in 1975 (Wikipedia)

hundreds of exploding flash cubes and a continual squealing.” Soul was born David Richard Solberg on Aug. 28, 1943, to Richard Solberg, a professor of political science and history as well as a theologian, and June (Nelson) Solberg, a teacher. In David’s youth, the family lived in Cold War-era Berlin as well as in South Dakota. He aspired to be a diplomat or a minister before turning his sights on a show business career. In his late teens, he learned that his girlfriend, Mim, was pregnant; under parental pressure, they married. Later, when he was 22, he found his wife with another man, a friend of his, and left her and their young son, Kristofer, to chase his dreams of stardom in New York. Once there, he whittled his surname down to Soul and, looking for a gimmick to boost his singing career, bought a $1 ski mask and rebranded himself as a mystery-shrouded pop crooner who never showed his face. After appearances on Merv Griffin’s •Venta • Instalación y Servicio show, he secured a deal with MGM Records and reSU CENTRO DE PIEZAS PARA PUERTAS leased a single, “The Covered Man,” in 1966. Y PORTONES ELÉCTRICOS Once he tried to make it Contamos con la línea más completa de Operadores without the mask, however, Industriales, Comerciales y Residenciales. APROVECHA his career faltered. Broke, Ventas al por mayor y al detal. LOS ESPECIALES DE NUESTRO Soul started selling himself 30 ANIVERSARIO sexually. “I was green,” he Ave. Muñoz Marín C-12 • Urb Caguax • Caguas, P.R. • www.lacasadelosportones.com said in the documentary. “I was a kind of ‘Midnight

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Cowboy,’” a reference to the Oscar-winning 1969 film starring Jon Voight as a Texas dreamer turned Times Square hustler. Discouraged by the fizzling of his music career, Soul shifted to acting, breaking into Hollywood with an appearance on “Flipper,” the series centered on a pet dolphin. Once he made it big with “Starsky & Hutch,” he said, he spiraled into alcoholism before rediscovering religion in the 1980s. He met Snell, a public relations executive, in 2002, and they married in 2010. It was his fifth marriage. He had five sons and a daughter. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

PHOTO CAPTION: David Soul in 2013 (Wikipedia)

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

36 hours in Córdoba, Spain By ANDREW FERREN

he winds of innovation are again rustling the orange trees shading the lanes and plazas in Córdoba, a city in the Andalusia region of southern Spain. Visitors can trace Córdoba’s history from its Roman ruins, to the Moorish architecture left by five centuries of Muslim rule (when the city was one of Europe’s largest and most cosmopolitan capitals), to its later churches and Christian palaces. While many day-trippers move on before nightfall, today’s Córdoba rewards a few days’ exploration: not only to enjoy its monuments (the city has four UNESCO designations), but to see how young artists and chefs are mining the city’s rich multicultural past. In winter there are fewer crowds and milder temperatures, and Córdoba is now even easier (and cheaper) to get to, with a new high-speed rail operator, Iryo, competing for fares with the rail company Renfe. ITINERARY Friday 3 p.m. | Pass under arches No visitor should skip the MezquitaCatedral de Córdoba, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its blending of Muslim and Christian architecture, and its seemingly infinite forest of columns (some 850) and red-and-white horseshoe arches. Go at lunchtime (Spaniards eat late) on Friday when there may be fewer people. Construction of the mosque, once the world’s second largest, began around 786, recycling materials from the Visigoth Basilica of San Vicente, which it replaced. The mosque became a cathedral when the Christians conquered the city in 1236, and a massive chapel with soaring ceilings combining Gothic and Renaissance styles was inserted in 1523. (Tickets, 13 euros, about $14, plus 3 euros for the bell tower. Purchase tickets online to avoid lining up.) 4:30 p.m. | Explore a castle If you didn’t climb the 191 steps of the mosque-cathedral’s bell tower, the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, the 14th-century castle next door, has shorter towers with similar views above the city’s red-tile roofs. Built on the site of a Roman

fortress on the river Guadalquivir, the Alcázar was a Spanish royal residence and, later, a military installation and a prison. A statue amid the garden’s cypresses and fountains commemorates a meeting between Christopher Columbus and King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, whom Columbus persuaded over several years to fund his plan to reach Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic. Parts of the Alcázar are being restored, but visitors can see the gardens as well as galleries with large sections of Roman mosaic floors discovered around town and now hung like pictures on the walls. (Tickets 5 euros; credit card only.) 6:30 p.m. | Sip an aperitivio Having knocked off Córdoba’s two biggest monuments before dinner on Friday (and before the weekend crowds appear), restore yourself with an aperitivio at Restaurante Almudaina, a local favorite. Enjoy crisply fried ham croquetas (15 euros) and a glass of sherry (3.50 euros) in a two-story atrium dripping with vines that feels like an indoor garden, or at the charmingly compact, tile-encrusted bar. Or, if weather permits, take a seat on the terrace, where you can watch the lights come on to illuminate the Alcázar and other historic buildings as night falls. 9:30 p.m. | Dine like a local On a street lined with restaurants in the modern Moreras neighborhood, Terra Olea stands out. From a tiny open kitchen, chef Paco Villar turns out gorgeous and intensely flavorful dishes that highlight ingredients from Córdoba province. There are tender leeks sautéed in sheep’s butter with black garlic or cheeks of acornfed Iberian pigs with foie gras in a lush sauce spiked with local Pedro Ximénez wine. A selection of desserts arrives on a platter shaped like a map of the province, with the position of each morsel marking where its ingredients hail from. With just six tables and a 14-course menu costing a mere 48 euros (a vegetarian version is available for the same price), Terra Olea is worth a taxi ride to the edge of town. Advance booking recommended. Saturday 9:30 a.m. | Cross a stone bridge Walk across the Guadalquivir on

Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its blending of Muslim and Christian architecture, and its seemingly infinite forest of columns, in Córdoba, Spain, Dec. 12, 2023. (Laura Leon/The New York Times) the honey-colored stone Roman Bridge with its rhythmic repetition of arches. It’s been heavily restored and rebuilt, especially in the eighth century. Across the bridge is a fortified tower, Torre de la Calahorra, which houses a small museum about Córdoba’s multicultural golden age with an engaging audio guide and models of buildings, like the Alhambra palace in Granada and a typical Córdoban patio house. It’s worth the admission (4.5 euros) just for the rooftop’s view across the river toward the mosque-cathedral and the city. Nearby is C3A (Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía; free), a contemporary arts center that opened in 2016. The current exhibition, “Remedios” (until March 31), explores individual, societal and environmental repair and healing, with works by Marina Abramovic, Olafur Eliasson, Jenny Holzer, Brad Kahlhamer and others. 12:30 p.m. | Stroll the quarter Among the city’s busiest districts, la Judería, or the Jewish quarter, is a maze of picturesque, whitewashed alleys and is home to the 14th century Córdoba Synagogue (free). It was repurposed after the 1492 expulsion of Jews, but still reveals the original layout and elements of its Mudéjar décor — a blend of Muslim and Christian design that is unique to the Iberian Peninsula. Around the corner is the tiny, luminous Chapel of San Bartolomé (2.50 euros), where Mudéjar tile mosaics and intricate plasterwork en-

hance a 14th century Christian temple. The neighborhood is also known for handicrafts, especially platerias (silversmiths) like Ana Martina, a family-owned jeweler known for delicate filigree work (earrings from about 38 euros). More diverse crafts are nearby in the Zoco Municipal de Artesanía, a market in a traditional patio bursting with flowers. 2 p.m. | Snack on tapas Get a taste of Córdoba by hopping around to three bars and cafes in the Judería. The tiny Bar Santos has the town’s most famous tortilla española, a 6-inch-thick omelet that looks almost like a wheel of cheese (tapa-size slices, 2.80 euros). Nearby, El Churrasco, with its wood-fired oven, has wafer-thin fried eggplant (9.80 euros) that comes with salmorejo, a thicker version of gazpacho, or a drizzle of honey. The bar at Casa Pepe de la Judería is packed with people enjoying mazamorra, an almond soup served here with cubes of sweet quince paste (12 euros), and other tapas. Instead of fighting the midday scrum, book a table on the patio or in the warren of pretty rooms

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Monday, January 8, 2024

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upstairs to eat wintry Andalusian fare like oxtail, roast pork or luscious tuna from the Strait of Gibraltar (lunch for two, about 80 euros). 4 p.m. | Pick a bite-size museum In a beautiful plaza perfumed with orange trees and jasmine, somewhat out of sight from the crowds swarming around the monuments along the riverbank, is the Museo Julio Romero de Torres (4.50 euros). Among Córdoba’s best-known painters, Romero de Torres, who died in 1930, is known for his powerful portraits of women, often staring intensely back at the observer. In front of the museum stands the Museo de Bellas Artes (1.50 euros), which highlights mostly Spanish artists from the Renaissance to the present. Or go back to the city’s earliest beginnings at the Archaeological Museum, just a short stroll away, where rows of seats from Córdoba’s ancient Roman theater now serve as display shelves for smaller sculptures like portrait busts. 6 p.m. | Visit a palace While day-trippers might see only the mosque-cathedral and the Judería, Córdoba’s real center for locals is around Plaza de las Tendillas, a large square full of shops and restaurants. (Although it feels like a new part of the city, Columbus lived nearby in the late 1480s.) Start your visit at Palacio de Viana, a 15th-century noble palace expanded and rebuilt over more than 500 years. It features 12 beautifully designed traditional patio gardens that function almost as outdoor rooms. The palace closes at 7 p.m., but is especially magical at twilight. Near the palace, El Cristo de los Faroles, a statue of Jesus surrounded by a cluster of elegant lanterns, also makes an evocative visit after dark. 9 p.m. | Enjoy Andalusian food When chef Paco Morales opened Noor in 2016, its concept seemed like a dare. A restaurant serving 10th century Andalusian dishes? (The chef’s commitment to historical accuracy meant no tomatoes, potatoes or peppers, which arrived from the Americas centuries later.) Fast forward to 2023 and the restaurant has just received its third Michelin star for its inventive time-capsule cuisine, which is now focused on the 17th century. The Moorish influence appears even in small ways — handpainted ceramics, embroidered details on the staff’s uniforms — while dishes like roast pigeon with tomatoes, paté and chiles or local oranges in orange-blossom syrup offer diners an only-in-Córdoba experience. Menus vary from 11 courses (145 euros) to 23 (245 euros), with wine pairings averaging 125 euros. 11:30 p.m. | Follow the bar vibe Plaza de la Corredera, a grand public square that offers wide-open space amid Córdoba’s zigzagging streets and lanes, is lined with compact bars and cafes whose seating spills outside. In the cooler months, stay warm by heading to a nearby string of indoor bars along the Calle Diario de Córdoba, a short stretch of a main road that winds down to the river. The dimly lit La Bohême feels like a cozy living room, while the neighboring Último Tango, though larger and darker, is still conducive to intimate conversation. Things get more boisterous a

A garden at Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, a 14thcentury castle that over the years has been a Royal residence, military installation and prison, from one of its towers, in Córdoba, Spain, Dec. 13, 2023. block north on Calle Alfaros, where El Automático draws the city’s art crowd. Finish at the brightly lit Casa Cuba, where live music might erupt on any given night and mojitos cost just 5 euros. Sunday 9 a.m. | Toast a Roman temple Taberna La Cuarta, a stylish Spanish bar and cafe that’s open from the early morning until after midnight, is one of the best places in Córdoba to grab a simple breakfast. Even better is that it places diners in front of the ruins of a Roman temple. With that view plus a cafe con leche (1.50 euros) and a toasted half baguette, topped with freshly grated tomato, jamón Ibérico and a drizzle of olive oil (3.50 euros), one gets a satisfying double dose of the city’s historic and culinary appeal. 11 a.m. | Soak Your Cares Away Among the great and enduring (or at least revitalized) traditions of both the Roman and Islamic cultures is the appreciation of thermal baths. The Caliphal Baths (3 euros), a small but informative underground museum, has recovered and re-created some of the chambers of the former royal hammam, explaining how central bathing was to local culture. A 10-minute walk away, pamper yourself like a caliph at Hammam Al Ándalus with 90-minute bathing sessions that can include various massage treatments (sessions start at 40 euros). Or head just 15 minutes outside the city to explore the 10th century archaeological remains of Medina Azahara (1.5 euros, plus 3 euros shuttle bus to the ruins), the sophisticated palace complex built by Abd al-Rahman III, the first caliph of Córdoba, when al-Andalus, the Arabic name that eventually evolved into Andalusia, rivaled the great courts of Damascus and Byzantium as the most powerful and prestigious of their era. — KEY STOPS La Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is an eighth-century mosque turned cathedral that is a grand example of Moorish architecture. Noor, a restaurant that just earned its third Michelin star, serves inventive dishes inspired by Córdoban history. Museo Julio Romero de Torres highlights the work of an early 20th century painter. Palacio de Viana, a 15th century palace, is emblematic of the city’s distinctive patio houses.

WHERE TO EAT Restaurante Almudaina, a tavern favored by locals, has a two-story atrium dripping with greenery. Terra Olea turns out elevated modern dishes with traditional Córdoban ingredients from a tiny open kitchen. Bar Santos is a classic tapas bar known for its Spanish tortilla, a thick potato omelet. La Bohême is a dimly lit bar offering tea and coffee as well as cocktails. Automático is a club favored by the city’s artistic set. Casa Cuba is a casual Cuban spot with cheap mojitos and a predilection for partying. Taberna La Cuarta is a stylish all-day cafe and bar with traditional Spanish fare and views of a Roman temple. WHERE TO STAY Balcon de Córdoba features 10 cozy rooms spread around three small patios just steps away from the mosque-cathedral, with a rooftop terrace and restaurant with staggering views of city monuments. In winter, rooms start at 195 euros (about $213). Hospes Palacio de Bailío, Córdoba’s first five-star hotel, features 53 rooms in part of a restored palace with pretty gardens and a pool far from the hubbub of the Judería and the mosque-cathedral. Rooms in winter start at about 150 euros. Hotel Viento 10 is a charming three-star hotel with eight modern rooms built around a 16th century colonnaded patio where breakfast is served; there’s also a spa with a sauna and a hot tub and a selection of massages. Rooms start at 70 euros; closed Jan. 7 to 31. For short-term rentals, the Centro neighborhood between Plaza de San Miguel and Palacio de Viana offers ready access to many sites, away from the thick of the tourists.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

Study aims to bring a tinier tyrannosaur back from oblivion By ASHER ELBEIN

t is only 23 inches long, but one tyrannosaur skull has been a bone of serious contention among paleontologists for decades. In 1988, a team of researchers named it Nanotyrannus lancensis, suggesting that it represented a distinct animal that lived in the shadow of Tyrannosaurus rex. In 1999, another group argued that the skull and similar specimens were T. rex as a teenager, before the species underwent an extraordinary growth spurt that preceded adulthood. For years, the teen T. rex hypothesis gained traction. “Most people bought into it, including me,” said Nick Longrich, a paleontologist with the University of Bath in England. But Longrich has changed his tune. In a study published last week in the journal Fossil Studies, he and colleagues argue that enough evidence exists to resurrect Nanotyrannus as its own species among the larger Tyrannosaur family. Based on anatomical features, they argue, it isn’t even particularly closely related to T. rex. Other experts say the study is unlikely to end the debate. “It’s sort of like Schrodinger’s dinosaur,” said Thomas Holtz, a paleontologist at the University of Maryland who was not involved with the paper. “This paper’s going to keep people talking about it, but it’s not going to really resolve it.” To make its case, Longrich’s team studied the original 23-inch skull and more recent finds named Jane and Petey, as well as a long-disputed tyrannosaur specimen, the “dueling dinosaurs.” All of these have been argued to represent adolescent T. rex, Longrich said. But his team said it found around 150 differences in their anatomy, including skull details; an extended, bladelike snout; and longer arms and claws than adult T. rex. He also said the specimens had features consistent with mature animals, not adolescents. The growth rings inside the bone from three specimens — including Jane and Petey — likewise suggest slowing growth rates. The animals were on track to weigh over 1 ton, rather than the T. rex, which was 4 to 5 tons, the research-

ers estimated. “We have three individuals, which basically rules out an individual variation or aberrant growth pattern,” Longrich said. “What we’re seeing is that the growth patterns are inconsistent with these animals being juveniles.” Where, then, are the actual juvenile T. rex? Longrich believes he’s found a fragment of one — a piece of skull from the University of California, Berkeley, collections described in the paper. “In every single feature it was T.rex,” he said. Other paleontologists are not ready to throw out the teenage T. rex hypothesis, and they raised strong objections to the paper. The specimens in question do show features in common with adult T. rex — among them the forehead, snout and braincase, said Thomas Carr, a paleontologist at Carthage College who first made the case that Nanotyrannus represented young T. rex. Moreover, he disagrees with the claim that they don’t fit the growth pattern in other tyrannosaur skulls. “With T. rex and tyrannosaurs in general, differences between juveniles and adults are quite extreme, and people are easily thrown,” Carr said. Holly Woodward, a paleontologist at Oklahoma State University who produced some of the growth data used by Longrich’s team, also disputed its conclusions. The spacing of the innermost growth rings in the bone tissue of nearly full grown adult T. rex suggest “lower growth rates at younger ages before the big growth spurt,” she said. Woodward added that the team’s choice of mathematical models risks producing a distorted picture that shows younger animals that are done growing, even if that isn’t the case. “I’m just not convinced that the growth curve arguments support that hypothesis,” she said. Longrich responded that teenage T. rex proponents haven’t proven their case either: “I’d throw it back in their camp and say, ‘Where is the evidence for your hypothesis?’” He explained that “for Nanotyrannus to turn into T. rex, this requires an extraordinary number of transformations.” No

In an image provided by Raul Martin, an artist’s reconstruction of an adult Nanotyrannus lancensis attacking a young Tyrannosaurus rex. New research is trying to remake the case that fossils known as Nanotyrannus were their own species, rather than a teenage Tyrannosaurus rex. (Raul Martin via The New York Times) other dinosaur develops like this, Longrich argues: Everything his team studied fits neatly into the Nanotyrannus form or the T. rex one. Credible paleontologists have historically argued both sides of the issue, Holtz said. Part of the issue is that most T. rex specimens are adults, with only a few subadults. Everyone acknowledges that gap; they simply disagree about its meaning. The discovery of either an older adult Nanotyrannus or a young T. rex distinct

from the Nanotyrannus form would help clarify things, Holtz said. So could forthcoming data about Jane and the “dueling dinosaurs” tyrannosaur. While the team’s paper provides interesting suggestions, Holtz said it isn’t enough for him to reject the hypothesis “that these are juvenile T.rex.” The argument continues. For an animal that may or may not have existed, Nanotyrannus is proving curiously difficult to kill.

22 Monday, January 8, 2024

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COVID has resurged, but scientists see a diminished threat By APOORVA MANDAVILLI

he holidays have come and gone, and once again Americans are riding a tide of respiratory ailments, including COVID-19. But so far, this winter’s COVID uptick seems less deadly than last year’s, and much less so than in 2022, when the omicron surge ground the nation to a halt. “We’re not seeing the signs that would make me think that we’re heading into another severe wave,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “So far, we’re in relatively good shape.” Still, there are few masks in sight, and just a fraction of the most vulnerable people have received the latest COVID shots, she noted. “It’s not too late,” Rivers added. “We have not even reached peak yet for COVID, and once you reach peak, you still have to get down the other side.” That leaves plenty of time for the vaccine to provide some protection. Federal officials are relying on limited data to measure this year’s spread. After the end of the public health emergency in May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped tracking the number of COVID infections. The agency now has only partial access to information from states about vaccination rates. But trends in wastewater data, positive tests, emergency department visits, hospitalization rates and deaths point to a rise in infections in all regions of the nation, according to the CDC. These patterns have prompted many hospitals to reinstate mask policies, after initially resisting a return to them this fall. As in previous years, the numbers have steadily been rising all winter, and are expected to increase further after holiday travel and get-togethers. Many of the infections are caused by a new variant, JN.1, which has rapidly spread across the world in recent weeks. “I think that there’s no doubt it’s helping drive, pretty substantially, this

A sign encouraging masking in San Jon, N.M., on Dec. 9, 2020. Covid is stillclaiming about 1,200 lives per week. But that number is about one-third the toll this time last year and one-eighth that in 2021. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times) winter wave,” said Katelyn Jetelina, a public health expert and author of a widely read newsletter, “Your Local Epidemiologist.” “Unfortunately, it’s coming at the same exact time as us opening up our social networks due to the holidays,” she said, “so there’s kind of a perfect storm going on right now.” Some scientists have pointed to rising levels of the virus in sewage samples as an indicator that infections are at least as high this year as they were at this time last year. But Rivers urged caution in interpreting wastewater data as a proxy for infections and said hospitalizations were a more reliable metric. In the week that ended on Dec. 23, hospitalizations rose by nearly 17% from the previous week. There were about 29,000 new hospital admissions, compared with 39,000 the same week last year and 61,000 in 2021. And weekly hospitalizations are increasing more slowly than in previous years, Rivers said. COVID is still claiming at least 1,200 lives per week. But that number is about one-third the toll this time last

year and one-eighth that in 2021. “We are in this pretty big infection surge right now, but what’s really interesting is how hugely hospitalizations have and continue to decouple from infections,” Jetelina said. She said she worried most about hospitals buckling under the weight of multiple epidemics at once. Even in years before the pandemic, outbreaks of just influenza and respiratory syncytial virus could strain hospitals; rising COVID rates now overlap both illnesses, adding to the burden. The CDC estimates that so far this season, there have been at least 7.1 million illnesses, 73,000 hospitalizations and 4,500 deaths from the flu. While COVID tends to be mild in children and young adults, influenza and RSV are most risky for young children and older adults. All three diseases are particularly dangerous for infants. Emergency department visits for COVID are highest among infants and older adults. While RSV has leveled off in some parts of the country, hospitalization rates remain high among young

children and older adults. The JN.1 variant accounts for nearly half of all COVID cases in the United States, nearly six times the prevalence just a month ago. The variant has one mutation that gives it a greater ability to sidestep immunity than its parent, BA.2.86, which was limited in its spread. JN.1 may in fact be less transmissible than previous variants. But its immune evasiveness, coupled with the disappearance of preventive measures including masks, may explain its exponential growth worldwide, said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician and postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. Still, JN.1 does not appear to cause more severe illness than previous variants, and the current vaccines, tests and treatments work well against all of the current variants. Experts urged all Americans — including those not at high risk of severe illness — to opt for vaccines against both COVID and flu, to use masks and air purifiers to prevent infections, to be tested and treated, and to stay home if they become ill. Even those who do not become severely sick run the risk of long-term complications with every new viral infection, researchers noted. “I’m not at high risk, to be honest — I’m young and vaccinated,” Rivers said. “But I continue to take precautions in my own life because I do not want to deal with that disruption, and the risk that I could develop a longerterm illness.” Experts also urged people who develop symptoms to take a test and ask for antiviral drugs — Tamiflu for influenza, Paxlovid for COVID — especially if they are at high risk of complications. Paxlovid is still available free of charge to most people, but many patients and even doctors avoid it out of a mistaken belief that it causes COVID symptoms to rebound, experts said. Recent studies did not find a relationship between antiviral drugs and symptom rebound.

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GITSIT SOLUTIONS, LLC Demandante V.

MARTA RODRÍGUEZ ORTIZ, POR SÍ Y EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA; LA SUCESIÓN DE JUAN BÁEZ DÁVILA COMPUESTA POR FULANO DE TALY FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

Demandados Civil Núm.: DO2022CV00154. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: La Parte Demandada, al (a la) Secretario(a) de Hacienda de Puerto Rico y al Público General:

Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Toa Alta, en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor en efectivo, cheque gerente, giro postal, cheque certificado en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América al nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Toa Alta, el 7 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número 88 del plano de inscripción del proyecto de solares denominado San Carlos, radicado en el Barrio Higuillar del término municipal de Dorado con una cabida superficial de 264.00 metros cuadrados, en lindes por el NORTE, con la Calle Número 1, distancia dc

12.00 metros; por cl SUR, Con el solar número 91, distancia de 12.00 metros; por el ESTE, con el solar número 87, distancia de 22.00 metros y por el OESTE, Con el solar número 89, distancia de 22.00 metros. Sobre el descrito solar enclave una estructura construida de hormigón armado, que consiste de tres cuartos dormitorios, sala, comedor, cocina, balcón y servicio sanitario, según consta de la inscripción 2a, inscrita al folio 178 vuelto del tomo 80 de Dorado. Inscrita al folio 179 del tomo 80 de Dorado, finca número 3485, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Cuarta de Bayamón. La hipoteca objeto de esta ejecución se encuentra inscrita al folio 171 del tomo 261 de Dorado, finca número 3485, inscripción 7ma. Propiedad localizada en: #88 Calle Principal, Com. San Carlos, Bo. Higuillar, Dorado, PR 00946. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución no está gravada por cargas posteriores o preferentes a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo mínimo de subasta la suma de $39,000.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Toa Alta, el 14 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $26,000.00 dos tercios (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $19,500.00 la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Toa Alta, el 21 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante,

Monday, January 8, 2024 el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $26,980.75 de principal; más intereses al tipo pactado de 6.996% anual desde el 28 de febrero de 2017, hasta el saldo total de la deuda; un balance diferido en la cantidad de $568.89 que no genera intereses, cargos por mora equivalentes a 5% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha vencimiento los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo de la deuda, los créditos accesorios y adelantos hechos en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca; más la suma de $3,900.00 por concepto de honorarios de abogado. Además de cualesquiera sumas de dinero por concepto de contribuciones, primas de seguro hipotecario y riesgo, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda, así como de cualesquiera otras cantidades pactadas cn la escritura de hipoteca. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, hoy día 15 de diciembre de 2023. ROSAMARIE MELÉNDEZ PEÑA, ALGUACIL DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, CENTRO JUDICIAL DE TOA ALTA, SALA SUPERIOR. ***

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

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BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

CARMEN MILAGROS MEDINA RODRIGUEZ, COMO MIEMBRO CON INTERES DE LA SUCN DE MARIA MARTELINA RODRIGUEZ LUCCA Y OTROS

23 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 27 de diciembre de 2023. En Ponce, Puerto Rico, el 27 de diciembre de 2023. CARMEN G. TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. EREINA AGRONT LEÓN, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

Demandado(a) Caso Núm.: PO2023CV01093. (Salón: 406 - Civil Superior). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO Y OTROS. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS, LEGAL NOTICE JCFORTUNO@FORTUNO-LAW. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO COM. A: BRENDA CORCHADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA T/C/C BRENDA SALA SUPERIOR DE CACORCHADO MEDINA GUAS

ción 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. Representa a la parte demandante, la representación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato: BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO FAS, C.S.P. LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS RÚA NÚM.: 11416 PO BOX 3908, GUAYNABO, PR 00970 TEL: 787-751-5290, FAX: 787-751-6155 E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com En Caguas, Puerto Rico a 3 de enero de 2024. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. SANDRA J. TRINIDAD CAÑUELAS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

T/C/C BRYAN CORCHADO ORIENTAL BANK MEDINA, JOSE Demandante Vs. CESPEDES T/C/C JOSE YASMIN MEJIAS CESPEDES MEDINA REYES T/C/C YAZMIN T/C/C JOE CESPEDES MEJIAS REYES; T/C/C JOE CESPEDES AUTORIDAD PARA EL MEDINA; NILSA FINANCIAMIENTO DE LA CESPEDES MEDINA VIVIENDA DE PUERTO LEGAL NOTICE T/C/C NILSA CESPEDES RICO COMO HEREDEROS ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO Demandados Civil Núm.: CG2023CV03842. DE PUERTO RICO DE PRICONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION DE ALICIA Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO MERA INSTANCIA REGION MEDINA RODRIGUEZ; Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTE- JUDICIAL DE AGUADILLA TRICA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR BUNAL SUPERIOR. FULANO DE TAL EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS JOSE ALBERTO Y SUTANA DE TAL DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENCORCHADO JUARBE; COMO HEREDEROS TE DE LOS EE. UU., EL ESET.ALS TADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE DESCONOCIDOS Demandante vs. P.R., SS. O TERCEROS CON WANDA IVETTE A: YASMIN MEJIAS INTERES DE LA RODRÍGUEZ ROBLEDO REYES T/C/C YAZMIN SUCESION DE MARIA Demandada MEJIAS REYES MARTELINA RODRIGUEZ CIVIL NÚM: ACD2017-0117. CONDOMINIO BALCONES SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO LUCCA T/C/C MARIA M. RODRIGUEZ LUCCA LAS CATALINAS, APTO. Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. T/C/C MARIA RODRIGUEZ 533, CAGUAS, PR 00725. AVISO DE PUBLICA SUBASDIRECCIÓN POSTAL: TA. El que suscribe, Alguacil LUCAS Y LA SUCESION Tribunal Superior de Puerto COND. BALCONES LAS del DE ALICIA MEDINA Rico, Sala de Aguadilla, me diCATALINAS 214 AVE. rijo al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL RODRIGUEZ. (Nombre de las partes que se le BOULEVARD CAGUAS, y les hago saber que en cumplinotifican la sentencia por edicto) PR 00725-5526; URB. miento con la Sentencia dictada EL SECRETARIO(A) que susel 5 de septiembre de 2018, la CARIBE GARDENS cribe le notifica a usted que el orden de Ejecución de SentenG-2 CALLE LIRIO 22 de diciembre de 2023, este cia del 3 de octubre de 2023 y el CAGUAS, PR 00725Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia Parcial o Resolución 3412 Y 8291 DAMES Sentencia del 3 de octubre de en este caso, que ha sido debiPOINT CROSSING 2023, procederé a vender el 29 damente registrada y archivada BLVD. NORTH APT. 4203 de febrero de 2024 a las 9:30 en autos donde podrá usted de a.m. en mi oficina, localizaJACKSONVILLE, FL enterarse detalladamente de da en el área del sótano al final 32277. 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

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POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días a partir de la publicación de este edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente direc-

del pasillo, del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Centro Judicial de Aguadilla, Aguadilla. Puerto Rico, al mejor postor en pago de contado y en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, cheque de gerente o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal; todo título, derecho o interés de la parte demandada sobre la siguiente propiedad:

RUSTICA: Parcela de terreno radicada en el Barrio Jobos de Isabela, Puerto Rico, identificada en el plano de segregación para inscripción como SOLAR DOS (2), con una cabida superficial de SETECIENTOS TREINTA Y TRES PUNTO NOVENTA Y UNO CUARENTA Y CUATRO METROS CUADRADOS (733.9144 M.c.); en lindes al NORTE, con calle de uso público: al SUR, con Miguel Ángel Acevedo Anazagasty; al ESTE, con remanente de la finca principal; y al OESTE, con el solar uno (1) a segregarse. Inscrita al Tomo Karibe de Isabela, Finca núm. 29,747, inscripción primera. Es segregación de la finca número 18,026, inscrita en el Registro de la Propiedad Sección de Aguadilla, al folio 70 del tomo 333 de Isabela. Aparece en el Catastro Digital del CRIM como parcela número 007-022-344-09. Hipoteca inscrita al Tomo Karibe de Isabela, Finca núm. 29747, inscripción cuarta. Dirección fisica de la Propiedad: Carretera 472, km. 3.4 Int. Calle Puerta Del Sol, Barrio Jobos, Isabela, P.R. El tipo mínimo de la PRIMERA subasta será de $114,500.00. De no comparecer postor alguno que se adjudique la primera subasta, se llevará a cabo una SEGUNDA subasta el día 7 de marzo de 2024 a las 9:30 de a.m. en la referida oficina, y el precio mínimo será la cantidad de $76,333.33, ósea, 2/3 partes del tipo mínimo de la primera subasta. De no comparecer postor alguno que se adjudique la segunda subasta, se llevará a cabo una TERCERA subasta el día 14 de marzo de 2024 a las 9:30 de a.m. en la referida oficina, y el precio mínimo será la mitad del precio de la primera subasta, o sea, $57,250.00. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad 2 de la cantidad adeudada si esta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor. Dicho remate se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a los demandantes, la suma de $114,500.00 de principal adeudado, más $114,500.00 de intereses sobre dicho principal al 10% anual, desde el día 6 de octubre de 2011 y hasta la fecha de su total pago, más la suma estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado equivalentes al 15% del principal, ósea, equivalentes a $17,175.00, más la suma de $261.72 por

las costas concedidas por el Tribunal de Apelaciones en el caso José A. Corchado Juarbe y otros vs. Wanda I. Rodríguez Robledo, KLAN201801250, más S11,500.00 de honorarios del depositario Carlos Soriano Ramos, más intereses provisto por la Regla 44.3 de las de Procedimiento Civil, a computarse dicho interés legal a partir de la fecha de la Sentencia y hasta que la misma sea satisfecha en su totalidad, más cualesquiera otros adelantos que se hagan en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca. Surge del Estudio de Titulo que sobre esta propiedad no pesan gravámenes posteriores a la hipoteca que por la presente se pretende ejecutar. Se les advierte a los interesados lo siguiente: (l) que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes a la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como los de subasta, estarán de disponibles para ser examinados en la Secretaria del Tribunal, bajo el número de epígrafe durante las horas laborables, y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general en Puerto Rico por espacio de dos semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana; y para su fijación en los sitios públicos requeridos por ley; (2) 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, continuaran subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate; y (3) que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores tal y como lo expresa la Ley Núm. 210 del 2015. Y para el conocimiento de los demandados, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, EXPIDO para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes, el presente Aviso de Pública Subasta, en Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, hoy dia 20 de diciembre de 2023. ESTEBAN ATILES FELICIANO, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNA DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, CENTRO JUDIC AL DE AGUADILLA SALA UPERIOR.

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

MARIA MERCEDES VALDEZ FERNANDEZ

24 Demandante vs.

Secretario del Departamento de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda de los Estados Unidos de America T/C/C SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL,

Demandados Civil Núm. SJ2023CV11426. SALA: Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. SS.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL, personas desconocidas que se designan con estos nombres ficticios, que pueden 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.

para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo de Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://www.poderjudicial.pr/ index.php/tribunal-electronico/ , salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Lcdo. Miguel A. Maza Pérez RUA NUM. 9549 HMB Law Group P.O. Box 364028 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-4028 Tel: 787-274-8383/ Fax: 787-281-6689 E-mail: mmaza@maza.net Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 14 de diciembre de 2023. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretario(a). Yadira Diaz Gonzalez, Secretario(a) de Sala.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

ción 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 02 de enero de 2024. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 02 de enero de 2024. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. VIVIAN J. SANABRIA ORLEGAL NOTICE TIZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DEL TRIBUNAL. DE PUERTO RICO TRIBULEGAL NOTICE NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BA- ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO YAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA BAYAMÓN BANCO POPULAR DE SALA DE COAMO

SUMAC notificará copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, el Lcdo. Kevin Sánchez Campanero cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección kevin.sanchez@orf-law. com, y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Coamo, Puerto Rico, hoy día 20 de octubre de 2023. En Coamo, Puerto Rico, el 23 de octubre de 2023. Elizabeth González Rivera, Secretaria. Marieli Rolón Rodríguez, Secretaria Auxiliar.

(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 29 de diciembre de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circula-

ubica y se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar radicado en la Urbanización Luquillo Mar, situada en los Barrios Sabana y Mata de Plátano del término municipal de Luquillo, Puerto Rico, que se describe en el Plano de Inscripción de la Urbanización con el número cuarenticinco del Bloque DD, con un área de cuatrocientos cuarenticuatro punto cero cero metros cuadrados. En lindes

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 29 de diciembre de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 29 de diciembre de 2023. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. MILITZA MERCADO RIVERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

SUCESIÓN DE SOKI CARABALLO RÍOS; COMPUESTA POR ISLAND PORTFOLIO PUERTO RICO DELILAH BONANO SERVICES, LLC, COMO Demandante V. CARABALLO, NATHASHA AGENTE DE ACE ONE MARITZA SERPA BONANO CARABALLO FUNDING, LLC SERRANO POR SÍ Y Y NADELAYSHKA Demandante Vs. EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL BONANO CARABALLO, Se les notifica que en la DeUSUFRUCTRUARIA DE ALICE J. RÍOS SANTIAGO manda radicada en el caso de “JOHN DOE Y Demandado FRANCISCO PADILLA epígrafe se alega que un paCivil Núm.: PO2023CV02154. RICHARD ROE” COMO FERRER Y OTROS garé hipotecario fue otorgado Salón: 002. Sobre: COBRO POSIBLES HEREDEROS Demandado(a) el dia 31 de marzo de 2017, DE DINERO ORDINARIO. EMDESCONOCIDOS DE Caso Núm.: BY2023CV05807. LEGAL NOTICE ante el Notario Público Omar PLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. (Salón: 505). Sobre: EJECUDICHA SUCESIÓN; ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO A. Jiménez Pacheco, bajo affiESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉCIÓN DE HIPOTECA: PROCENTRO DE dávit número 6,415, a favor de DE PUERTO RICO TRIBURICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE PIEDAD RESIDENCIAL. NOSecretario Departamento de NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA RECAUDACIONES DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL TIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO INGRESOS MUNICIPALES POR EDICTO. de los Estados Unidos de Amé- YAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE DE PUERTO RICO, SS. (CRIM) BELMA ALONSO GARCÍA, rica, o a su orden, por la suma BAYAMÓN A: ALICE J. RÍOS OFICINABELMAALONSO@GMAIL. Demandado de $141,000.00, con intereses COM. ISLAND PORTFOLIO SANTIAGO - CARR 723 Civil Núm.: FA2022CV00704. MARINILDA RIVERA VARGAS, al 4.553% y vencedero 28 de SERVICES, LLC COMO 8H6 BO. PULGUILLAS Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOMRIVERAVARGAS@YAHOO.COM. febrero de 2096, garantizado AGENTE DE ACE ONE BLQ. 1 APR, COAMO, PR TECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE A: CHRISTIAN PADILLA por hipoteca constituida en virAMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE FUNDING, LLC tud de la Escritura Número 16, SERPA, CHRISTOPHER 00769-9612 / RES CARIBE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, Demandante V. otorgada en Carolina, Puerto BLQ. 1 APR 2, PONCE, PR ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO PADILLA SERPA Y HERIBERTO Rico, ante el Notario Público 00731. DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO FRANCISCO JAVIER OCASIO RIVERA Omar A. Jiménez Pacheco, POR LA PRESENTE se le DE SUBASTA. El que suscribe, PADILLA SERPA Demandado(a) inscrita al del tomo Karibe de emplaza y requiere para que Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera HEREDEROS DE Fajardo, finca número 8,344, Caso Núm.: CZ2023CV00111. conteste la demanda dentro de Instancia, Sala Superior, Centro FRANCISCO PADILLA los treinta (30) días siguientes Judicial de Fajardo, Fajardo, inscripción 12. El inmueble Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO gravado mediante la hipoteca ORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN FERRER, MARITZA a la publicación de este Edicto. Puerto Rico, hago saber, a la antes descrita es la finca 8,344 DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. SERPA SERRANO, POR SÍ Usted deberá presentar su ale- parte demandada y al PÚBLIKEVIN SÁNCHEZ CAMPANERO, inscrita al tomo 220 del folio Y EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL gación responsiva a través del CO EN GENERAL: Que en KEVIN.SANCHEZ@ORF-LAW.COM. 221 de Fajardo, Registro de la Sistema Unificado de Manejo y cumplimiento del Mandamiento USUFRUCTUARIA. A: HERIBERTO Propiedad, Sección de FajarAdministración de Casos (SU- de Ejecución de Sentencia exMENGANO DE TAL, OCASIO RIVERA. do. La obligación evidenciada MAC), la cual puede acceder el día 28 de noviembre (Nombre de las partes que se le POSIBLE HEREDERO utilizando la siguiente direc- pedido por el pagaré antes descrito de 2023, por la Secretaría del notifican la sentencia por edicto) fue saldada en su totalidad. DESCONOCIDO DE ción electrónica: https://unired. Tribunal, procederé a vender y EL SECRETARIO(A) que susDicho gravamen no ha podido FRANCISCO PADILLA ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se venderé en pública subasta y al cribe le notifica a usted que el ser cancelado por haberse exrepresente por derecho propio, mejor postor la propiedad que FERRER. 29 de diciembre de 2023, este traviado el original del pagaré. El original del pagaré antes descrito no ha podido ser localizado, a pesar de las gestiones realizadas. El Secretario de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda de los Estados Unidos es el acreedor que consta en el Registro de la Propiedad. El último tenedor conocido del pagaré antes descrito fue Secretario de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda de los Estados Unidos. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza

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

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

por el NORTE, en treinta punto cero cero metros con el solar DD cuarenticuatro de dicha Urbanización; por el SUR, en treinta punto cero cero metros con el solar DD cuarentiseis de dicha Urbanización; por el ESTE, en catorce punto ochenta metros con los solares DD sesentisiete y DD trece de dicha Urbanización; y por el OESTE, en catorce punto ochenta metros con la Calle A de dicha Urbanización. Contiene una casa de concreto diseñada para una familia. Inscrita al folio 15 del tomo 125, finca #6,969 de Luquillo. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Fajardo. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada el 26 de junio de 2023 y notificada el 27 de junio de 2023, en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $96,088.46 por concepto de principal, más los intereses sobre dicha suma a razón del 5.00%, anual desde el 1ro de julio de 2020, hasta su completo pago, más las primas de seguro hipotecario, recargos por demora y cualesquiera otras cantidades pactadas en la escritura de primera hipoteca, desde la fecha antes mencionada y hasta la fecha del pago total de las mismas, más la suma de $11,385.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente. 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 8 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en el Centro Judicial de Fajardo, Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA es de $113,850.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 15 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $75,900.00, 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 23 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $56,925.00, 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 Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hoy día 6 de diciembre de 2023. Sandraliz Martínez Torres, Alguacil Auxiliar Placa #737, División De Subastas, Tribunal De Primera Instancia, Sala Superior De Fajardo. Jorge A. Ortiz Estrada, Alguacil Regional Interino #622.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAROLINA

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

EMY CARTY

Demandado Civil Núm.: CA2023CV02279. Salón: 406. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: EMY CARTY - RES. SABANA ABAJO EDIF 28 APTO. 225 CAROLINA, P.R. 00982.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza por la deuda reclamada de $3,185.57 y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, Lcdo. Edwin Serrano Peña cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 009368518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección edwin.serrano@ orflaw.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy día 30 de octubre de 2023. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 30 de octubre de 2023. LCDA. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA. MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

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

RICARDO A

The San Juan Daily Star

DIAZ BATISTA

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: CA2023CV01997. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: RICARDO A DIAZ BATISTA - URB ROSA MARIA B18 CALLE 13, CAROLINA, PR 00985.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:/// www.poderjudicial.pr/index. php/tribunal-electronico, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Edwin Serrano Peña cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección edwin.serrano@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@ orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, hoy día 30 de octubre de 2023. LCDA. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA. MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

Monday, January 8, 2024 A: LISSETTE M. MASA RODRÍGUEZ - URB. MONTE VERDE 350 CALLE 12 CANÓVANAS, P.R. 00729.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza por la deuda reclamada de $4,019.98 y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, Lcdo. Edwin Serrano Peña cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 009368518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección edwin.serrano@ orflaw.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy día 30 de octubre de 2023. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 30 de octubre de 2023. LCDA. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA. MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

SUCESIÓN DE SOKI CARABALLO RÍOS; COMPUESTA POR ISLAND PORTFOLIO DELILAH BONANO SERVICES, LLC. COMO AGENTE GESTOR DE CARABALLO, NATHASHA ACE ONE FUNDING, LLC. BONANO CARABALLO Y NADELAYSHKA Demandante Vs. BONANO CARABALLO, LISSETTE M “JOHN DOE Y MASA RODRIGUEZ RICHARD ROE” COMO Demandado Civil Núm.: CN2023CV00294. POSIBLES HEREDEROS Salón: 406. Sobre: COBRO DESCONOCIDOS DE DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENDICHA SUCESIÓN; TO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS CENTRO DE UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL RECAUDACIONES DE PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LI- INGRESOS MUNICIPALES BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO (CRIM) RICO, SS.

Demandado Civil Núm.: FA2022CV00704. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior, Centro Judicial de Fajardo, Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hago saber, a la parte demandada y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL: Que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 28 de noviembre de 2023, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor la propiedad que ubica y se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar radicado en la Urbanización Luquillo Mar, situada en los Barrios Sabana y Mata de Plátano del término municipal de Luquillo, Puerto Rico, que se describe en el Plano de Inscripción de la Urbanización con el número cuarenticinco del Bloque DD, con un área de cuatrocientos cuarenticuatro punto cero cero metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en treinta punto cero cero metros con el solar DD cuarenticuatro de dicha Urbanización; por el SUR, en treinta punto cero cero metros con el solar DD cuarentiseis de dicha Urbanización; por el ESTE, en catorce punto ochenta metros con los solares DD sesentisiete y DD trece de dicha Urbanización; y por el OESTE, en catorce punto ochenta metros con la Calle A de dicha Urbanización. Contiene una casa de concreto diseñada para una familia. Inscrita al folio 15 del tomo 125, finca #6,969 de Luquillo. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Fajardo. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada el 26 de junio de 2023 y notificada el 27 de junio de 2023, en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $96,088.46 por concepto de principal, más los intereses sobre dicha suma a razón del 5.00%, anual desde el 1ro de julio de 2020, hasta su completo pago, más las primas de seguro hipotecario, recargos por demora y cualesquiera otras cantidades pactadas en la escritura de primera hipoteca, desde la fecha antes mencionada y hasta la fecha del pago total de las mismas, más la suma de $11,385.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente. 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 8 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en el Centro Judicial de Fajardo, Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA es de $113,850.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 15 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $75,900.00, 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 23 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $56,925.00, 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 Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hoy día 6 de diciembre de 2023. SANDRALIZ MARTÍNEZ TORRES, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #737, DIVISIÓN DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO. JORGE A. ORTIZ ESTRADA, ALGUACIL REGIONAL INTERINO #622.

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

REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC. Demandante Vs.

FELIX HUERTAS ORTIZ; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA

Demandados Civil Núm.: CG2021CV01480. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: LA PARTE DEMANDADA, AL (A LA) SECRETARIO(A) DE HACIENDA DE PUERTO RICO Y AL PÚBLICO GENERAL:

Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Caguas, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América y/o Giro Postal y Cheque Certificado, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, el 1 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto

de ejecución que se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Predio de terreno radicado en el Barrio Florida del término municipal de San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, compuesto de cero punto mil quinientos setenta y cuatro (0.1572) cuerdas. En lindes por el Norte, en una distancia de dieciocho punto once (18.11) metros, con la carretera numero ciento ochenta y tres (183); por el Sur. Este y Oeste, en una distancia de dieciocho punto cero nueve (18.09) metros en treinta y cinco punto cero cero (35.00) metros y treinta y cinco punto cero cero (35.00) metros, respectivamente con la finca principal de la cual se segrega. Finca número 8,426, inscrita al folio 195 del tomo 167 de San Lorenzo, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección II. La Hipoteca Revertida consta inscrita al folio 757 del tomo 495 de San Lorenzo, Finca 8426, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección II, inscripción 9ª. Propiedad localizada en: PR 183 KM 14.2, BARRIO FLORIDA, SAN LORENZO, PUERTO RICO 00754. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas anteriores o preferentes: Nombre del Titular: N/A. Suma de la Carga: N/A. Fecha de Vencimiento: N/A. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante: Nombre del Titular: N/A. Suma de la Carga: N/A. Fecha de Vencimiento: N/A. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo de mínima subasta la suma de $143,000.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, el 8 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $95,333.33, 2/3 partes del tipo mínima establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TER-

CERA SUBASTA, la suma de $71,500.00, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, el 15 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $123,255.32 por concepto de principal, más la suma de $15,092.91 en intereses acumulados al 1 de noviembre de 2021 y los cuales continúan acumulándose a razón de 2.94% anual hasta su total y completo pago; más la sumas de $5,091.83 en seguro hipotecario; $5,460.00 en tarifas de servicios; $109.00 en seguro; $440.00 de tasaciones; $440.00 de inspecciones; $2,256.30 en preservación; $1,645.00 de adelantos pendientes; más la cantidad de 10% del pagare original en la suma de $14,300.00, para gastos, costas y honorarios de abogado, esta última habrá de devengar intereses al máximo del tipo legal fijado por la oficina del Comisionado de Instituciones Financieras aplicable a esta fecha, desde este mismo día hasta su total y completo saldo. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy 20 de diciembre de 2023. EDGARDO ALDEBOL MIRANDA, ALGUACIL PLACA #282.

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

LIME HOMES, LTD.

Parte Demandante Vs.

ELIEZER BERMUDEZ RIVERA, SU ESPOSA KRIZIA MICHELLE RIVERA ORTIZ T/C/C KRIZIA M. RIVERA ORTIZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: NSCI2012-00859. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA Y COBRO DE DINERO. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: ELIEZER BERMUDEZ RIVERA, SU ESPOSA KRIZIA MICHELLE RIVERA ORTIZ T/C/C KRIZIA M. RIVERA ORTIZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS:

El Alguacil que suscribe, certifica y hace constar que en cumplimiento de Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Fajardo, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América. Todo pago recibido por el (la) Alguacil por concepto de subastas será en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del (de la) Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Todo derecho, título, participación e interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar número 3 del Bloque H de la Urbanización Alamar, situada en el Barrio Sabana del término municipal de Luquillo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 268.80 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NOROESTE, en una distancia de 21.00 metros, con el solar #4 del Bloque H; por el SURESTE, en una distancia de de 21.00 metros con el solar #2; por el NORESTE, en una distancia de 12.80 metros, con la Calle J y por el SUROESTE, en una distancia de 12.80 metros, con los solares #22 y #23 del Bloque H. Enclava una casa de concreto dedicada a vivienda. Consta inscrita al folio 190 del tomo 153 de Luquillo, finca #8,551, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Fajardo. La propiedad objeto de ejecución está localizada en la siguiente dirección: Urbanización Alamar, Calle J Bloque

26 H3, Luquillo, P.R. 00773. Se informa que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravamen posterior, una vez sea otorgada la escritura de venta judicial y obtenida la Orden y Mandamiento de cancelación de gravamen posterior. (Art. 51, Ley 210-2015). En relación a la finca a subastarse, se establece como tipo mínimo de licitación en la Primera Subasta la suma de $94,000.00, con intereses al 7% anual, vencedero el día 1 de octubre de 2035, constituida mediante la escritura número 27, otorgada en Fajardo, Puerto Rico, el día 29 de septiembre de 2005, ante la notario Clarisa Sola Gómez, e inscrita al folio 97 del tomo 231 de Luquillo, finca número 8,551, inscripción 6ta. Sujeta a condiciones que aceleran su vencimiento, debidamente modificada la hipoteca por la suma de $94,000.00, se amplía en la suma de $2,076.16, para un nuevo principal de $96,076.16, constituida mediante la escritura número 5, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 16 de febrero de 2011, ante el notario Reggie Díaz Hernández, e inscrita al folio 97 del tomo 231 de Luquillo, finca número 8,551, al margen de la inscripción 6ta. La PRIMERA SUBASTA, se llevará a cabo el día 7 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en mis oficinas sitas en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Fajardo, el tipo mínimo para la primera subasta es la suma de $96,076.16. Si la primera subasta del inmueble no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 14 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo sitio y servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes del precio pactada para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $64,050.77. Si la segunda subasta no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 22 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar y regirá como tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta la mitad del precio pactado para la primera, o sea, la suma de $48,038.08. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo, para con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: La suma de $95,661.53, con intereses a 4.125% anual, desde el 1ro de enero de 2012, hasta el presente y los que se continúen acumulando hasta su total y completo pago, más los cargos por demora que se corresponden a los plazos atrasados desde la fecha anteriormente indicada a razón de la tasa pactada de 5% de cualquier pago que éste en mora por más de

quince (15) días desde la fecha de su vencimiento, más una suma equivalente a $9,607.61, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otra suma que resulte por cualesquiera otros adelantos que se hayan hecho la demandante, en virtud de las disposiciones de la escritura de hipoteca y del Pagaré hipotecario. Para más información, a las personas interesadas se les notifica que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal, durante las horas laborables. Este EDICTO DE SUBASTA, se publicará en los lugares públicos correspondientes y en un periódico de circulación general en la jurisdicción de Puerto Rico. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los referentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente Escritura de Venta Judicial y el Alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días, de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Expedido en Fajardo, Puerto Rico, a 13 de noviembre de 2023. MILDRED I. TORO COLÓN, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR #197. JORGE A. ORTIZ ESTRADA, ALGUACIL REGIONAL INTERINO PLACA #622.

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

ORIENTAL BANK Demandante V.

JUAN JOSE REYES GUADALUPE, FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024 A: JUAN JOSE REYES GUADALUPE, FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS.

POR MEDIO del presente edicto se le notifica de la radicación de una demanda en cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que usted adeuda a la parte demandante, Oriental Bank, ciertas sumas de dinero, y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado de este litigio. El demandante, Oriental Bank, ha solicitado que se dicte sentencia en contra suya y que se le ordene pagar las cantidades reclamadas en la demanda. POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva a la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del didigenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://www.poderjudicial. pr/index/php/tribunal-electronico/, salvo que 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 citarle ni oírle. El abogado de la parte demandante es: Jaime Ruiz Saldaña, RUA número 11673; Dirección: PO Box 366276, San Juan, PR 00936-6276; Teléfono: (787) 759-6897; Correo electrónico: legal@jrslawpr. com. Se le advierte que dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a la publicación del presente edicto, se le estará enviando a usted por correo certificado con acuse de recibo, una copia del emplazamiento y de la demanda presentada al lugar de su última dirección conocida: Urb. Roosevelt, 403 Calle Alfredo Carbonell, San Juan, PR 00918-2827. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 18 de diciembre de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. MARÍA SERRANO SOTO, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

SALA SUPERIOR DE LARES

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES Demandante V.

LUZ H. SOTO RODRÍGUEZ

Demandados Civil: AD2023CV00107. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (REGLA 60). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: LUZ H. SOTO RODRIGUEZ.

Se le(s) emplaza y requiere que dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto excluyendo el día de la publicación de este edicto conteste(n) la demanda. 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/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Se le(s) advierte que si dejare(n) de contestar la Demanda en el período de tiempo antes mencionado, podrá dictarse contra usted(es) Sentencia en Rebeldía, concediéndose el remedio solicitado sin más citarle(s) ni oírle(s). La representación legal de la Parte Demandante lo es el Lcdo. Edwin Serrano Peña, Rodríguez Fernández Law Offices, LLC., P.O. Box 71418, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518; Tel. 787-993-3731. Correo electrónico: edwin.serrano@ orf-law.com. Expedido bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal para su publicación, en Lares, Puerto Rico, hoy día 26 de octubre de 2023. DIANE ÁLVAREZ VILLANUEVA, SECRETARIA DEL TRIBUNAL SUPERIOR. YANELLY PÉREZ SOTO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante Vs.

INES MARIA ROJAS MELENDEZ

Demandada Civil Núm.: MT2023CV00342. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA). EDICTO DE SUBASTA.

Demandados Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV09839. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMAl: PÚBLICO EN PLAZAMIENTO POR EDICLEGAL NOTICE GENERAL. TO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE A: INES MARIA ROJAS AMÉRICA, EL ESTADO LI- ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO MELENDEZ. BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Yo, WILFREDO DÍAZ QUIÑORICO, SS.

NES, 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 1RO. DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Manatí, Manatí, 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 Manatí 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 8 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 15 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado. La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número Tres (3) del Bloque “B” de la URBANIZACIÓN VALLES DE MANATÍ, localizado en el Barrio Coto del término municipal de Manatí, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de DOSCIENTOS OCHENTA Y CINCO PUNTO CERO CUATRO (285.04) METROS CUADRADOS; en lindes por el NORTE, en veintiocho punto cero cero (28.00) metros, con el solar número Dos (2) del Bloque “B”; por el SUR, en veintiocho punto cero cero (28.00) metros, con el solar número Cuarenta y Cuatro (44) del Bloque “B”; por el ESTE, en diez punto dieciocho (10.18) metros, con el solar número Ocho (8) del Bloque “B”; y por el OESTE, en diez punto dieciocho (10.18) metros, con la Calle número Uno (1). Enclava una casa construida de concreto armado y bloques para fines residenciales. La escritura de hipoteca se encuentra inscrita al folio 93 del tomo 582 de Manatí, finca número 8,754, inscripción cuarta. Registro de la Propiedad, Sección de Manatí. La dirección física de la propiedad antes descrita es: Urbanización Valles de Manatí, Calle 1, B-3, Manatí, Puerto Rico. La subasta se llevará a efecto para satisfacer a la parte demandante la suma de

$17,499.83 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 6 ¼ % anual, desde el 1ro. de noviembre de 2022, hasta su completo pago, más la cantidad de $6,800.00 estipulada para costas, gastos, y honorarios de abogado, así como cualquier otra suma estipulada en el contrato de préstamo, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta para el inmueble será de $68,000.00 y de ser necesaria una segunda subasta, la cantidad mínima será equivalente a 2/3 partes de aquella, o sea, la suma de $45,333.33 y de ser necesaria una tercera subasta, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado, es decir, la suma de $34,000.00. Si se declara desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si esta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el importe de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación y que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Podrán concurrir como postores a todas las subastas los titulares de créditos hipotecarios vigentes y posteriores a la hipoteca que se cobra o ejecuta, si alguno o que figuren como tales en la certificación registral y que podrán utilizar el montante de sus créditos o parte de alguno en sus ofertas. Si la oferta aceptada es por cantidad mayor a la suma del crédito o créditos preferentes al suyo, al obtener la buena pro del remate, deberá satisfacer en el mismo acto, en efectivo o en cheque de gerente, la totalidad del crédito hipotecario que se ejecuta y la de cualesquiera otro créditos posteriores al que se ejecuta pero preferente al suyo. El exceso constituirá abono total o parcial en su propio crédito. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en Manatí, Puerto Rico, a 12 de diciembre de 2023. WILFREDO DÍAZ QUIÑONES, ALGUACIL #914, ALGUACIL

DEL TRIBUNAL, SALA SUPE- siva a la demanda dentro de RIOR DE MANATÍ. los treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de este edicto. LEGAL NOTICE Usted deberá presentar su aleESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO gación responsiva a través del DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- Sistema Unificado de Manejo y NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Administración de Casos (SUSALA SUPERIOR DE CA- MAC), al cual puede acceder GUAS utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired. COMPU-LINK CORPORATION D/B/A ramajudiciai.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, CELINK en cuyo caso deberé presentar Demandante Vs. su alegación responsiva en la SUCESION ISMAEL secretaria del tribunal. Si usted RIVERA RODRIGUEZ deja de presentar su alegación T/C/C ISMAEL RIVERA responsiva dentro del referido BERRIOS T/C/C ISMAEL término, el tribunal podrá dicRIVERA COMPUESTA tar sentencia en rebeldía en su y conceder el remedio POR PEDRO ISMAEL contra solicitado en la demanda, o RIVERA ROQUE, cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en EDWIN RIVERA el ejercicio de su sana discreROQUE, RICARDO ción, lo entiende procedente. Greenspoon Marder, LLP RIVERA ROQUE, LUZ Lcda. Frances L. Asencio-Guido ESTHER RIVERA R.U.A. 15,622 TRADE CENTRE SOUTH, SUITE 700 ROQUE, MIRELSIE 100 WEST CYPRESS CREEK ROAD VELAZQUEZ; JOHN FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33309 DOE Y JANE DOE COMO Telephone: (954) 343 6273 Frances.Asencio@gmlaw.com POSIBLES HEREDEROS Expedido bajo mi firma, y sello DESCONOCIDOS; del Tribunal, en Caguas, Puerto AIDA ESTHER ROQUE Rico, hoy día 20 de diciembre LOPEZ T/C/C AIDA E. de 2023. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ ROQUE LOPEZ T/C/C AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. AIDA ESTHER ROQUE MARTA E. DONATE RESTO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR. T/C/C AIDA ROQUE

LOPEZ T/C/C AIDA LEGAL NOTICE ROQUE POR SI Y EN ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO LA CUOTA VIUDAL DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUUSUFRUCTUARIA; NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA ESTADOS UNIDOS DE CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE DORADO GILBERTO INGRESOS MUNICIPALES GARCIA VALLE Demandados

Civil Núm.: CG2023CV03489. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: AIDA ESTHER ROQUE LOPEZ T/C/C AÍDA E. ROQUE LOPEZ T/C/C AIDA ESTHER ROQUE T/C/C AIDA ROQUE LOPEZ T/C/C AIDA ROQUE POR SI Y EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA; LUZ ESTHER RIVERA ROQUE, MIRELSIE VELAZQUEZ; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION ISMAEL RIVERA RODRIGUEZ T/C/C ISMAEL RIVERA BERRIOS T/C/C ISMAEL RIVERA.

Parte Demandante Vs.

SUCESION DE GLORIA GARCIA VALLE, COMPUESTA POR: LYDIA M. QUINONES GARCIA, GILBERT S. QUINONES GARCIA, JAIME F. QUINONES GARCIA, ANGEL L. QUINONES GARCIA, CARLOS ORTIZ GARCIA, LUZ ORTIZ GARCIA Y HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: DO2023CV00253. Sobre: LIQUIDACIÓN DE COMUNIDAD HEREDITARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO E INTERPELACIÓN POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PR, SS.

A: LYDIA M. QUINONES GARCIA, GILBERT S. QUINONES GARCIA, JAIME F. QUINONES GARCIA, ANGEL L. QUINONES GARCIA, CARLOS ORTIZ GARCIA, POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al LUZ ORTIZ GARCIA: 122 WINDSOR STREET #2 Tribunal su alegación respon-

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

que se mencione en el mismo, Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYA- el caso civil número DCD2011- se abonará dicho monto a la en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy DOE, A QUIENES KEARNY NJ 07032 Y CON 2002, seguido por Doral Bank, cantidad adeudada si esta es día 21 de diciembre de 2023. NÚMERO DE TELÉFONO PUDIERA PERJUDICAR se identificará en letra tamaño Rico 00936-85 18, teléfono MÓN SALA SUPERIOR contra Neysa Colón Pérez, por mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo Alguacil Maribel Lanzar Ve10 puntos y negrillas, conforme (787) 993-3731 a la dirección BANCO POPULAR DE LA INSCRIPCION DEL a lo dispuesto en las Reglas de natalie.bonaparte@orf-law.com 201.978.2959. la suma de $187,909.35 mas dispone el Articulo 104 de la lazquez, Alguacil Placa #735, PUERTO RICO DOMINIO A FAVRO DE LA Procedimiento Civil, 2009. Se y a la dirección notificaciones@ A: HEREDEROS intereses, anotado el día 16 de Ley Núm. 210 del 8 de diciem- División De Subastas, Tribunal Demandante V. PARTE PETICIONARIA le apercibe que de no compa- orf-law.com. DESCONOCIDOS: CUYA agosto de 2019, al tomo Kari- bre de 2015 conocida como De Primera Instancia, Sala SuEXTENDIDO NEYSA COLÓN PÉREZ be de Vega Alta, finca número “Ley del Registro de la Propie- perior De Bayamón. EN EL REGISTRO DE LA recer los interesados y/o partes BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del DIRECCIÓN FÍSICA, Demandada PROPIEDAD DE LA FINCA citadas, o en su defecto los Tribunal, en SAN JUAN, Puerto Civil Núm.: DCD2011-2302. 16,136, anotación A. El produc- dad Inmueble del Estado Libre POSTAL Y NÚMERO LEGAL NOTICE to de la subasta se destinará a Asociado de Puerto Rico”. La organismos públicos afectados Rico, hoy día 1ro de noviembre QUE MAS ADELANTES DE TELÉFONO SE Sala: 506. Sobre: COBRO DE satisfacer al demandante hasta propiedad a ser ejecutada se ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO en el término improrrogable de de 2023. Griselda Rodriguez DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HISE DESCRIBIRA Y A DESCONOCE O SEA, LA donde alcance, la SENTENCIA adquiere libre de toda carga y DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUtreinta (30) días a contar de la Collado, Secretaria Regional. POTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS TODA PERSONA EN PARTE DEMANDADA dictada a su favor, el día 10 de gravamen que afecte la men- NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA fecha de la última publicación F/ Maria I Rios Lopez, SecretaDE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENGENERAL QUE CON ARRIBA MENCIONADA. noviembre de 2011 y notificada cionada finca según el Artículo SALA DE TOA BAJA del edicto, el Tribunal podrá ria Auxiliar. TE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIPOR LA PRESENTE se le el 22 de noviembre de 2011, 102, inciso 6. Una vez confirDERECHO PARA ELLO conceder el remedio solicitado ISLAND PORTFOLIO DOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOLEGAL NOTICE emplaza para que presente al por la cantidad de $187,909.35 mada la venta judicial por el HoDESEE OPONERSE A por la parte peticionaria, sin SERVICES, LLC COMO CIADO DE PUERTO RICO, tribunal su alegación responde principal, más los intereses norable Tribunal, se procederá más citarle ni oírle. En PATI- ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO ESTE EXPEDIENTE AGENTE DE ACE ONE SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El siva dentro de los treinta (30) que se acumulan conforme a otorgar la correspondiente LLAS, Puerto Rico, a 3 de oc- DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUPOR LA PRESENTE se les que suscribe, Alguacil del TribuFUNDING, LLC días de haber sido diligenciado pactados a razón del 5.45% escritura de venta judicial y se tubre de 2023. Luz M. Guzman NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA este emplazamiento por edicto, 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 y enviando copia de su contestación a la parte demandante a través de su representación legal; LCDA. LIZ ARABEL RODRIGUEZ RIVERA P.O. BOX 192655 SAN JUAN, PR 00936-2655 T. (787) 800.1800 T. (787) 915.3444 E-mail: info@abogada-notario.com Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y Sello del Tribunal, hoy día 19 de diciembre de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. M. BONILLA, SUB-SECRETARIA.

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

LUIS ALBERTO SANTOS TORRES ROSA MARÍA ALICEA MAISONET

EX PARTE CIVIL NÚM.: SA20233CV00145. SALÓN: SOBRE: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO BAJO EL ART. 13 DE LA LEY 118, PROCEDIMIENTO EXPEDITO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EEUU, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PR. SS.

A: INMEDIATOS DUEÑOS ANTERIORES Y/O SUS HEREDEROS, DENOMINADOS JHON

notifica para que comparezcan, si lo creyeren pertinente, ante este Honorable Tribunal dentro de los veinte (20) días contados a partir de la última publicación de este edicto a exponer lo que a sus derechos convenga en el expediente promovido por la parte peticionaria para adquirir su dominio sobre la finca que se describe más adelante. Usted deberá presentar su posición a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: httos://unired.ramajudicial. or. salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación en la secretaría del Tribunal. Si usted deja de expresarse dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar sentencia, previo a escuchar la prueba de valor de la parte peticionaria en su contra, sin más citarle ni oírle, y conceder el remedio solicitado en la petición, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Tract of land located at Monte Grande ward municipality of Salinas, Puerto Rico. Bounded at North with Ema Santos Torres; at East with Pedro Gonzalez; at South with Israel Rivera; and at the West with Municipal Road. Which is the point of beginning, having an area of 657.3968 Square Meters, equivalent to 0.1673 Cuerdas. El abogado de la parte peticionaria es la Lcdo. Ernesto Rovira Gándara, PMB 767, 1353 Ave. Luis Vigoreaux, Guaynabo, PR 00966; Tel. (787)-758-3277; Email: erovira@partnerslegalservicespr.com. Se le informa, además, que el Tribunal ha señalado vista en este caso para el de _____ de 20_, a las _____ _, mediante videoconferencia, a la cual usted puede comparecer asistido por abogado y presentar oposición a la petición. Este edicto deberá ser publicado en tres (3) ocasiones dentro del término de veinte (20) días, en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que comparezcan si quieren alegar su derecho. Toda primera mención de persona natural y/o jurídica

nal de Primera Instancia, Sala Santiago, Secretaria Regional. CENTRO JUDICIAL DE ARESuperior, Centro Judicial de BaMARISOL ROSADO RODRÍ- CIBO SALA SUPERIOR DE yamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico, GUEZ, Secretaria Auxiliar del ARECIBO hago saber, a la parte demanTribunal I. ISLAND PORTFOLIO dada y al PÚBLICO EN GENESERVICES, LLC COMO RAL: Que en cumplimiento del LEGAL NOTICE AGENTE DE ACE ONE Mandamiento de Ejecución de ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO Sentencia expedido el día 18 FUNDING, LLC DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUde enero de 2022, por la SeDemandante V. NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CARMEN TALAVERA cretaría del Tribunal, procederé SALA DE SAN JUAN. a vender y venderé en pública CONCEPCION ISLAND PORTFOLIO subasta y al mejor postor la proDemandado(a) SERVICES, LLC piedad que ubica y se describe Caso Núm.: AR2023CV00655. COMO AGENTE DE a continuación: URBANA: Solar (Salón: 401 - Civil Superior). FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - número 16 del Bloque “A”, en el plano de Las Palmas de Cerro FUND, LLC REGLA 60. NOTIFICACIÓN DE Gordo, en el Barrio Cerro GorPARTE DEMANDANTE VS. SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. do de Vega Alta, con un área de KENMUEL JOSÉ RUIZ LÓPEZ, CARMEN M KENMUEL.RUIZ@ORF-LAW.COM. 405.273 metros cuadrados. En HERNANDEZ BRANA lindes por el NORTE, en 15.20 KEVIN SÁNCHEZ CAMPANERO, PARTE DEMANDADA KEVIN.SANCHEZ@ORF-LAW.COM. metros, con la Carretera EsCIVIL NÚM. SJ2023CV07053. A: CARMEN TALAVERA tatal número 690; por el SUR, SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. en 15.81 metros, con la Calle CONCEPCION. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICJuan Nater; por el ESTE, en (Nombre de las partes que se le TO. Estados Unidos de Amérinotifican la sentencia por edicto) 25.29 metros, con solar númeca El Presidente de los Estados EL SECRETARIO(A) que sus- ro 15 del mismo bloque y por Unidos El Estado Libre Asocia- cribe le notifica a usted que el OESTE, en 25.94 metros, do de Puerto Rico. SS: el 02 de enero de 2024, este con solar número 17 del mismo A: CARMEN M Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, bloque. Enclava en este solar HERNANDEZ BRANA Sentencia Parcial o Resolución una casa de concreto. Inscrita en este caso, que ha sido debi- al folio 126 del tomo 274 de BO OBRERO 652 CALLE 12, SAN JUAN damente registrada y archivada Vega Alta, Registro de la Proen autos donde podrá usted piedad de Bayamón, Sección PR 00915-4021 enterarse detalladamente de Tercera, finca número 16,136. POR LA PRESENTE se le los términos de la misma. Esta La propiedad ubica en: 16 Las emplaza y requiere para que notificación se publicará una Palmas de Cerro Gordo, Vega conteste la demanda dentro de sola vez en un periódico de Alta, Puerto Rico. Además, el los treinta (30) días siguientes circulación general en la Isla Alguacil que suscribe, hago saa la publicación de este Edicde Puerto Rico, dentro de los ber a todos los acreedores que to. Usted deberá presentar su 10 días siguientes a su notifica- tengan inscritos o anotados alegación responsiva a través ción. Y, siendo o representando sus derechos sobre los bienes del Sistema Unificado de Mausted una parte en el procedi- hipotecados con posterioridad nejo y Administración de Camiento sujeta a los términos a la inscripción del crédito del sos (SUMAC), la cual puede de la Sentencia, Sentencia ejecutante, o de los acreedores acceder utilizando la siguiente Parcial o Resolución, de la cual de cargas o derechos reales dirección electrónica: https:/// puede establecerse recurso de que los hubiesen pospuesto www.poderjudiciaI.pr/index. revisión o apelación dentro del a la hipoteca ejecutada y las php/tribunal-electronico, salvo término de 30 días contados a personas interesadas en, o con que se represente por derecho partir de la publicación por edic- derecho a exigir el cumplimienpropio, en cuyo caso deberá to de esta notificación, dirijo a to de instrumentos negociables presentar su alegación responusted esta notificación que se garantizados hipotecariamente siva en la secretaría del tribuconsiderará hecha en la fecha con posterioridad al crédito ejenal. Si usted deja de presentar de la publicación de este edic- cutado, siempre que surjan de su alegación responsiva dentro to. Copia de esta notificación ha la certificación registral, para del referido término, el tribunal sido archivada en los autos de que puedan concurrir a la supodrá dictar sentencia en reeste caso, con fecha 03 de ene- basta si les convenga o satisfabeldía en su contra y conceder ro de 2024. En Arecibo, Puerto cer antes del remate el importe el remedio solicitado en la deRico, el 03 de enero de 2024. del crédito, de sus intereses, manda o cualquier otro sin más Vivian Y. Fresse González, Se- costas y honorarios de abogacitarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en cretaria. Rachel Vélez Pezzuto, dos asegurados, quedando enel ejercicio de su sana discreSecretaria Auxiliar Del Tribunal. tonces subrogados en los dereción, lo entiende procedente. El chos del acreedor ejecutante: sistema SUMAC notificará coLEGAL NOTICE Aviso de Demanda de fecha 12 pia al abogado de la parte deESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO de septiembre de 2011, expemandante, Natalie Bonaparte DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- dido en el Tribunal de Primera Servera cuya dirección es: P.O. NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, en

anual desde el día 1 de agosto de 2009 hasta la total satisfacción de la deuda, más los recargos por mora pactados y las partidas por seguro hipotecario, más una cantidad equivalente al 10% del principal para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente. 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 7 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 10:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en el cuarto piso, Oficina de Alguaciles de Subastas de Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA es por la cantidad de $211,450.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 14 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 10:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en el cuarto piso, Oficina de Alguaciles de Subastas de Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $140,966.66, equivalentes a dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una TERCERA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 21 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 10:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en el cuarto piso, Oficina de Alguaciles de Subastas de Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $105,725.00, 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;

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. Los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado pueden concurrir a la subasta si les convienen o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Se 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,

Parte Demandante Vs.

ARIANA I MATOS CONCEPCION

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: TB2023CV00282. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: ARIANA I MATOS CONCEPCION - 27 CALLE JUAN S HERRANS, TOA BAJA PR 00949; URB SAN PEDRO 5 CALLE FONALLEDAS, TOA BAJA PR 00949.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:/// www.poderjudicial.pr/index. php/tribunal-electronico, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Kenmuel J. Ruiz Lopez cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección kenmuel.ruiz@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en TOA BAJA, Puerto Rico, hoy día 30 de octubre de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. NOELIA MATÍAS SALAS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

28 Monday, January 8, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

College bowl games in trouble? Send in the memes. By SCOTT CACCIOLA

fter winning the Pop-Tarts Bowl on Dec. 28 in Orlando, Florida, Kansas State’s football team gathered on the field around a garage-size toaster that was protected by a pair of mall cops wearing “Snack Security” shirts. An unusual chant erupted — “Toast that mascot! Toast that mascot!” — as Strawberry, a giant Pop-Tart with limbs, climbed to the top of the toaster, bopping along to the disco-era beat of Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff.” “We will always love you, Strawberry,” announcer Jason Ryan Perry said over the stadium’s public address system. “Can’t wait to eat you.” For nearly three hours, Strawberry had worked the crowd as one of the surprise stars of the game — and of the entire college bowl season, which was no small feat for an anthropomorphized breakfast pastry. By the time Strawberry tossed aside a sign that read “Dreams Really Do Come True” so that it could happily slide through a slot and have its crust toasted to goldenbrown perfection, the internet was about to crater. Sure enough, Strawberry soon emerged from the toaster as an edible version of itself. The victorious players pounced, gorging themselves on Strawberry by the handful until all that was left — RIP, Strawberry — was its left eye. “I think those guys were really hungry,” Heidi Ray, senior director of brand marketing for Pop-Tarts, said in a telephone interview. In a crowded marketplace, the Pop-Tarts Bowl — renamed this year after having previously been the Cheez-It Bowl, the Camping World Bowl and several other monikers — managed to do something special: elevate an otherwise ordinary game into a viral sensation. Michigan and Washington will face off in the College Football Playoff national championship game tonight, but in an era in which there are more than 40 bowl games a season, with only two of them — the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl, serving as national championship semifinals — carrying any sort of significance, the Pop-Tarts Bowl won the internet. Or, at the very least, it shared the internet championship with the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. From a competitive standpoint, the playoff system, which made its debut in 2014 and will add quarterfinal games next year, has rendered the other bowls into artifacts of a bygone era when they meant more to teams — and to their conferences — than they do now. As a result, many prominent players with NFL aspirations opt out of the games if there is nothing on the line. None of that has slowed a steady drumbeat in favor of even more bowl games, which generate decent ratings and advertising revenue around the holidays. With so many mostly meaningless bowls — the Guaranteed Rate Bowl and the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, the Radiance Technologies Independence

Bowl and the Avocados from Mexico Cure Bowl — the most intense competition is not necessarily between teams on the field but among the brands that are hoping for a fleeting (and profitable) moment of virality. “I think doing it in unique, fun ways is an important way to keep bowls relevant,” said Miller Yoho, director of marketing and communications for the Charlotte Sports Foundation, which hosts the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. “Honestly, this is the most anyone’s been talking about it in the 10 years I’ve been doing it.” When Duke’s Mayo, a condiments company based in Richmond, Virginia, began sponsoring the game in 2020 — it had previously been sponsored by, among others, Meineke Car Care Center — the feeling was that the company “needed to do something different to make mayonnaise cool again,” said Joe Tuza, condiments president of Sauer Brands, which owns Duke’s Mayo. In partnering with college football, the brand has sought to capitalize on its share of made-for-theinternet moments, both planned and unplanned. Since 2021, the winning coach of the game has gotten drenched with a cooler full of mayonnaise as Tubby, the brand’s aggressively eyebrowed mascot, triumphantly raises his arms and Tuza stands nearby with a cartoon-size check. The incentive for the coach is that $10,000 goes to a charity of his choice. “Every time I’m up onstage with the trophies, the players start chanting, ‘Mayo dump! Mayo dump!,’” Tuza said. “It’s like a payoff for them to see their coach get doused after all the hard work they’ve put in.” And although various skeptics, including Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, a noted mayonnaise hater, have questioned whether it is actually mayonnaise, Tuza and Yoho both vouched for its authenticity. “It’s 100% mayonnaise,” Yoho said. “I’ve smelled it. They have to stir it to get the viscosity right.” Before this season’s game Dec. 27, Duke’s Mayo upped the ante by staging a draft-style combine to select the two people who would dump the mayonnaise on the winning coach. (This was lingering fallout from the 2021 game, when Shane Beamer, coach of South Carolina, was accidentally bonked on the head by the cooler; Duke’s Mayo later sent him a hard hat.) Yoho said he watched the combine via live feed. “I just see people covered in mayo trying to catch a football,” he said. “I’m like, ‘What is happening?’” The extra effort paid off. Duke’s Mayo had a record day of online sales during this year’s game, Tuza said, and the company expects to generate about $10 million worth of brand exposure, more than doubling its investment. “Based on the size of our business, it’s a big investment for us,” Tuza said, “so we really needed to make it work. We had to execute and not just slap our name on the sponsorship.” Amid a cluttered bowl game landscape, complacency will get you left behind. Bowl season never rests, not entirely. For example, one of the attractions at the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl was a branded hot tub —

Wikipedia photo

“Feelin’ the Cheeziest” — that is now available for purchase on eBay, with proceeds going toward the Florida Citrus Sports Foundation. (Condition: used.) And the day after the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, Yoho was a part of a text chain with colleagues who were already looking ahead to the 2024 edition of the game. The gist of those messages? “OK, we just saw the Pop-Tarts Bowl, and it’s game on,” Yoho recalled. The Pop-Tarts phenomenon was something to behold, in no small measure because of the exploits of Strawberry, who was played by Barry Anderson, a former mascot for the Chicago Bulls. In its first and only public appearance, Strawberry danced with fans, distributed bite-size versions of itself and welcomed its own demise. (Thanks to the magic of television, Anderson did not actually toast himself.) “It far surpassed any of our expectations,” Ray said, adding: “We didn’t have to fake anything. That’s totally the brand. That’s how we treat social every day of the year. We just brought a little bit of that world to the world of college football.” And although Strawberry is now the highest-profile individual Pop-Tart in the brand’s 60-year history, Kellanova produces about 3 billion of the treats annually, Ray said. In other words, Strawberry was not a one-off. There is more talent in the pipeline. “Everyone witnessed that Strawberry was consumed by the Wildcats, and he’s happily in mouth heaven because his dreams came true,” Ray said. “But fear not: This is not the last time you will see an edible Pop-Tart as the mascot.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

Sudoku

GAMES

How to Play:

Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9. Sudoku Rules: Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword Crossword #K8R448BT Down

25 31

45 49

47 51

Across

47. Take in

5. "Nothing ___ sleeve"

52. Put up with

14. ___-Rooter 15. Howdy!

16. Informal reply to "Who's there?" 17. Lame excuse

19. Go green, in a way

20. Canadian physician William 21. ____ lot (was telling) 23. Comics cry 25. Simians

30. Guitar god

33. Rochester's place (abbr.) 35. Hindu goddess 36. Certain acid

37. Hardwood trees

9. Like a bouffant hairdo

4. Downhill

6. Name of twelve popes

8. City in the Cascades

10. Western tribe

12. Car stereo types

13. "___-haw!" (Western shout)

18. 1995 Stallone role 22. Mafia chief

26. Hindu god of desire

28. Woman gossip

30. Baffin Islander

32. "Hasta la ___!"

33. Wyle and Webster

34. Native of eastern Siberia 38. Cheat

40. "Un momento, ___ favor" 41. French girlfriend

46. "Born on the _____"

7. Talking bird

27. Privileged groups

1. Ninny

24. Chicken ____ (breaded cutlet dish)

53 55

11. Tallahassee sch. 42

2. Impresses

9. Voracious fish 36

1. Set of three

5. Clock, in Cologne

3. Lang. of Rome

30 34

19 21

48. Philanthropists 53. Check out

54. Competing

57. Jack of "The Texas Rangers" 61. Maxim

65. Like a chatterbox 67. Riding ___

68. Lewis or Long

69. Automotive pioneer

70. ___ board (manicurist's tool) 71. Eye ailment

72. Cape Canaveral org.

Wordsearch

Word Search Puzzle #H692YO

29. Porcine proboscis 31. Abel's mother

44. Dishonorable tricks 49. Frozen over 50. Body parts

51. "Weeds" actor Kevin 55. Kind of mile: Abbr.

56. Jennifer of "Dirty Dancing" 58. Soda pop nut

59. Some birth control options 60. She, in Milan

61. Soul, in French

62. Perignon starter 63. Amaze

64. Teutonic (abbr.) 66. Deli option

Adequately

Grosses

Phrases

Shame

Assume

Hello

Proxy

Spinster

Assorts Bodies Bogus

Ciders

Clasps Ditty

Elude

Gashes

39. Big name in scooters 42. Alaskan island

Generate

43. "I Get ___ Out of You"

Golds

45. Grave

Answers on page 30

Guises

Humble Lacing

Mound

Musics Napes

Nativity Nosed Paste Patch

Piano

Racially React

Rocket Rodeo Ropes

Rowed Sages Satire

Scarlet

Shies Tauts Titles

Trunks

Uprising Visit

HOROSCOPE 30 Aries

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 8, 2024

(Mar 21-April 20)

Aries, right now you could be overwhelmed by conflicts among your own needs, the needs of your family, and your responsibilities toward your job. As a result, you may be feeling tense and stressed out, and wondering if the situation will ever be resolved. Don’t panic. It will, and you’ll be none the worse for it. The keyword is balance, and the solution lies in finding it. Get to it! You’ll want to put this behind you.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

A lack of contact with a romantic partner could have you feeling a little down right now, Libra. You may be wondering if you’ve said or done anything that offended your beloved one in some way. Your friend, however, is apt to be totally oblivious to the idea that you’re upset. Your partner is probably taking care of some family obligations and may have lost track of time.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

A close relative may be ill or otherwise troubled, Taurus, and you might worry a bit too much today because of a lack of communication from this person. Attempts to phone might result in no answer or repeated voicemail messages. However, take care to stay focused and objective. Your relative is probably recovering from whatever has been bothering him or her. This is not the day to make financial investments of any kind, Gemini, although someone may present you with some possible opportunities. They may sound good, but caution is called for. If the information appeals to you, look into it and try to learn the facts, but make no commitment today. If it’s truly a good opportunity, it won’t disappear within a few days. If it isn’t, you’ll want to know. Wait! You should be looking especially attractive today, Cancer, but you may feel that it’s wasted because your beloved isn’t around to appreciate it. Cheer up! It will only be for a few days, and you’ll still look pretty good by then. Try to keep yourself busy, preferably doing something you love to do, so your enthusiasm will enhance your good looks.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Excesses in food and drink yesterday may force you to cancel a social engagement today, Scorpio. You probably aren’t feeling up to it. This might be a bit irritating, and somewhat embarrassing as well. However, you just might have needed the rest even if you hadn’t eaten too much. Make the most of your evening alone. Soak in a tub and go to bed early.

Tension between a married couple who are both your friends could have you situated in the most uncomfortable place of all, Sagittarius: right smack in the middle. Both may want to recruit you to their side, but you’ll want to avoid allying yourself with either party. The best you can do is mediate by trying to get each of them to see the other’s point of view.

Gloom over the absence of a family member or romantic partner could come upon you today, Capricorn, and your usually exuberant nature could be far more subdued than is normal for you. You might even spend the entire evening watching whatever happens to be on TV.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Your ingenuity and imagination may seem to have deserted you today, Leo, and this isn’t making it easy for you to produce the high level of quality you’re used to at work. Perhaps it might be best to busy yourself with routine tasks you can do automatically and, if you can, put off the more creative endeavors until your brain gets back in gear. Don’t be too proud or too shy to ask for help. Hang in there.

Too much food and drink could have you feeling a little out of sorts today, Aquarius. Some friends might have taken you out and exposed you to the most tempting of food and drink. This is always fun, but today you have to face the consequences! A workout fueled with water could help burn off any toxins or extra calories, and a nap just might complete the process so you’re feeling like your old self again.

Virgo

Pisces

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Money matters might require your attention today, Virgo. Unusual expenses may have depleted your reserves, so you might have to cut a few corners. Your income, however, is probably the same if not slightly higher. This is, therefore, only a temporary situation, and your accounts should be back to normal in time, although some caution with regard to spending may need to be observed for a while.

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Right now you might be in the process of moving from one job to another, Pisces. This might even be a total change in career. Your hard work is paying off, though it may not show up in your bank account for a while yet. There might be contracts to be executed first. Your social life may be put on hold until all facets of this transition are worked out. Don’t be intimidated, however. You’ve made the right choice.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Monday, January 8, 2024

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

32 Monday, January 8, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star