Monday Jan 9, 2023

3 GOOD MORNING

Governor names new women’s advocate

By THE STAR STAFF

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia announced on Sunday the appointment of Vilmarie Rivera Sierra as women’s advocate.

The appointment, having been made during the legislative recess of the Senate, takes effect immediately.

“The new Women’s Advocate has extensive experience in defending women’s rights and serving victims of abuse, which was instrumental in my decision to make this appointment,” the governor said in a written statement. “It is truly impressive, the dedication of Vilmarie Rivera Sierra, throughout her professional life, to provide shelter, protection, guidance and emotional support to thousands of women and children who have been victims of abuse.”

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Since 2004, Rivera Sierra has stood out as executive director of the Hogar Nueva Mujer Santa María de la Merced in Cayey. As part of her work, she designed, developed and implemented services for female victims of domestic and sexual violence, as well as their children. She also chairs the Domestic Violence Shelters Network, was part of the Committee for Gender Violence Prevention, Support, Rescue and Education (PARE Committee), as well as the Services subcommittee, from where she ensured that the necessary help is offered to victims, and is a member of Coordinadora Paz para la Mujer, among other organizations and committees related to this fight.

“I am confident that Vilmarie Rivera will be a great asset to Puerto Rico in this position,” the governor added.

Rivera Sierra holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and a master’s degree in education from Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (USC). She has also received recognition from various entities and organizations, including Mujer Emprende Latina (ME Lanzo Empoderada 2022) and Women of Worth Award (L’Oreal Paris 2015), among others.

“I know, from her work in the PARE Committee, that Rivera Sierra has the ability to reconcile conflicting positions, seek consensus and avoid unnecessary controversies in the fight against gender violence,” Pierluisi said. “She has vast knowledge and a proven background in the fight against gender-based violence, so I hope that the members of the Senate can evaluate this appointment fairly and on its merits. I have an unwavering commitment to combating

sexist violence on the island and creating collective awareness about the importance of respect and fair treatment among all human beings in Puerto Rico.”

The meanwhile extended until June 30 the executive order that declared a state of emergency against gender violence.

The announcement of the appointment came after Sen. Migdalia González Arroyo, who chairs the Women’s Affairs Committee in the upper chamber, was the latest woman in a high-profile position in Puerto Rico to ask the governor to fill the vacancy following the resignation of former Women’s Advocate Lersy Boria last August.

“We ask the Governor to urgently fill this vacancy. We need a woman committed to the struggles that we and the most vulnerable populations face every day,” González Arroyo said in a written statement issued Sunday morning. “We have seen an increase in cases of violence against women this festive season and the central government does nothing. We need to carry a clear message of no more violence against women and it must start from the Office of the Women’s Advocate.”

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.

Vilmarie Rivera Sierra

House speaker outlines legislative priorities for 2023

By THE STAR STAFF

Speaker of the House of Representatives Rafael Hernández Montañez announced Sunday a comprehensive legislative agenda for the next regular session, which begins today and will run until June, in which he will promote measures to combat corruption, transform the public education system and reorganize the health model to adjust it to federal regulations.

Hernández Montañez added that the Popular Democratic House majority will continue to monitor the performance of executive branch agencies, the contract with the private consortium LUMA Energy to operate the island’s electricity transmission and distribution system and the disbursement of reconstruction and recovery funds, in tandem with the Senate, as occurred in the previous legislative session.

“Our duty is to focus on legislating strict, rigorous and good governance in public policies, to restore confidence in our government institutions and avoid bankruptcies in future administrations,” Hernández Montañez said. “In addition, fulfilling our oversight duty has always been the essence and heart of this House of Representatives.”

Regarding anti-corruption measures, the House speaker said “we will transform the way white-collar crimes are prosecuted to end the culture of impunity prevailing on the island.”

“We are going to simplify and standardize the current obsolete model to ensure that the corrupt are held accountable,” he said.

Along those lines, a pending bill will sub-

stantially amend the organic laws of the Office of the Special Independent Prosecutor Panel, the Department of Justice, the Government Ethics Office and the Office of the Inspector General.

Hernández Montañez also said “we will approve a new Anti-Corruption Code that

will provide prosecutors with the necessary tools to take these criminals to the ultimate consequences at the state level and we do not have to wait for federal authorities, as happens today.”

Another institutional priority is to promote the most significant transformation of the

island’s education system in decades, from primary to higher level, focusing on creating a curriculum adapted to the needs of the 21stcentury labor market and the strengths of each student, the House speaker said.

The initiative, called “Creating Citizens,” has been under discussion in recent months, through House Resolution 485, and numerous summits, meetings and public hearings have been held, receiving input from universities, technical colleges, business groups, professional associations and nonprofit organizations.

“We will provide each student of the public education system with the tools to graduate truly prepared with the skills and abilities that employers are looking for on the island, avoiding the emigration of young people with the training to undertake and become citizens who contribute positively to the repositioning of Puerto Rico as an incubator of ideas, talent and innovation,” Hernández Montañez said.

The House speaker also pointed out that the issue of health will remain at the top of the legislative agenda, as has been the case in recent years, from oversight of the new funds allocated for the Medicaid program, to amendments to the laws of the Health Insurance Administration (ASES by its Spanish acronym) and the Department of Health (DH).

“We will legislate an organizational reengineering of ASES and the Medicaid Office in the DH to meet all the standards of the federal guidelines and operate the Government Health Plan like the rest of the 50 states,” Hernández Montañez said.

By THE STAR STAFF

The current composition of the U.S. Congress will complicate moving Puerto Rico to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from the Nutrition Assistance Program, Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón said over the weekend.

The 118th Congress, which convened last week, had Democrats retaining control of the Senate and Republicans assuming the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives by a slim margin.

“It is a complicated path, but Medicaid was more complicated because the Republicans have always been against it,” González Colón after leaving the convention of the United States Federation of Farm Offices. “We achieved an

agreement two years ago that was approved unanimously in a committee [but] that was never brought to the House’s plenary session

for other reasons. That same agreement was the one that we approved for Medicaid now. So I think that was the most difficult. Nevertheless, I think this SNAP thing is going to happen. We have various allies and organizations [in support of Puerto Rico’s transition to SNAP].”

“This is something that, obviously, has to be put into an effort both in the House and the Senate in both areas,” she added.

The resident commissioner said there are several issues on the agenda pending approval.

Congress has yet to approve legislation seeking to change the U.S. territory’s status through a federally binding plebiscite. Lawmakers must also approve the extension of the rum tax and a bill that would exempt Puerto Rico from the air cabotage laws. The exemption would require an amendment to

the Stevens Act, allowing a cargo flight from a foreign carrier to stop in Puerto Rico, transfer or consolidate cargo with domestic or other foreign carriers and continue to other U.S. airports.

Puerto Rico received a two-year exemption but only at an administrative level.

González Colón said she also wants Puerto Rico to obtain more funding to fight drug trafficking.

“For us, it is important,” she said. “We will also see more immigration of people coming to Puerto Rico. So this is an area that we have to guard on our shores.”

The resident commissioner also wants Puerto Rico and the United States to not depend on China for the manufacture of pharmaceutical products.

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón

Speaker of the House of Representatives Rafael Hernández Montañez

By THE STAR STAFF

On the first anniversary of being appointed to lead the department, Labor and Human Resources (DTRH) Secretary Gabriel Maldonado González on Sunday highlighted the agency’s main achievements for the benefit of the working class and the economic development of Puerto Rico.

He added that Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia did justice to thousands of workers, both in the public and private sectors, over the same period.

“... [O]n May 23, I came to work and promote projects that encourage labor development and improve working conditions in all sectors, this being part of the public policy of the chief executive,” Maldonado González said.

“The summary of achievements of my first year in office fills me with satisfaction, recognizing that we still have work to materialize in the agenda we have established,” he said, “always thanking the governor for the trust placed in me and my work team, which is composed of over a thousand public servants to whom I am extremely grateful.”

The labor chief also listed among the most significant achievements a series of agreements established with private and public entities and nonprofit organizations, for the impact they have in the short and long term for all sectors on the island. Those pacts stand out, he said, because they include

the creation of labor market studies, the development of new skills among the population for their insertion into the workforce and the monitoring of compliance with labor laws.

Among the collaborative agreements is the “Digital Skills for Employability” project, which was realized with the multinational computer company Microsoft. The alliance

will allow the training of thousands of unemployed citizens in computer and digital skills that will help them to integrate more successfully into the workforce.

Also, an alliance with the organization Women Who Lead, through which the “First Study of Working Women in Puerto Rico” was designed, resulted in an x-ray of the contemporary labor reality that will play a central role in creating and promoting new public policy aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the labor sector. This is in addition to an agreement with the Office of the Women’s Advocate (OPM) focused on monitoring employers’ compliance with enacting protocols to handle situations of domestic violence and cases of sexual harassment in the workplace, as well as collaborations with the PARE Committee to educate on those issues.

Similarly, during 2022 the Labor secretary established an agreement with his counterpart in the Department of Education, Eliezer Ramos Parés, through which they will design a module to integrate labor studies into the 10th-grade curriculum of the island public education system.

The DTRH also spent much of the past year actively working hand-in-hand with the governor during the evaluation and implementation of Executive Order 2022-014, which provides for an increase in the minimum wage in central government reconstruction projects and establishes the pilot program for the implementation of project labor agreements.

By THE STAR STAFF

Natural and Environmental Resources Secretary Anaís Rodríguez Vega announced on Sunday the establishment of a pine tree recycling center so that citizens who have natural Christmas trees can contribute to recycling.

The activity will be held on Friday, Jan. 13 and Sat-

urday, Jan. 14 at the South Botanical Garden of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in Río Piedras from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. There, in a joint effort, personnel from the UPR, the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources and the Municipality of San Juan will receive and process the trees.

“Every year thousands of families go out to buy their Christmas tree in the spirit of decorating it for the enjoyment of children and family. That same spirit must remain to disassemble it and take it to be recycled,” Rodríguez Vega said in a written statement. “This is how we are contributing to the environment because the processing of trunks and trees is used for composting, for fill at recreational areas and for prevention of soil erosion. We encourage citizens to activate and collaborate with us to prevent clandestine dumps and illegal burning.”

Maribelle Marrero Vázquez, the interim director of the Botanical Garden, said people who bring their trees for recycling will be able to do so in a quick and efficient procedure.

“It will be a light process in which the tree unloaded from the car and crushed, citizens receive information and can even take shavings, which is the material product of crushing and with which compost is made,” she said. “It is necessary to maintain the humidity of the land, useful

for the creation of landscape gardening and also used as a natural fertilizer.”

The drop-off of natural pines, which must be without lights or ornaments, will be handled in a drive-through fashion, so people will not have to get out of their cars. Trained personnel will take care of them once the person arrives at the Botanical Garden in Río Piedras. The recycling event will be offered free as a service to the community.

Labor and Human Resources Secretary Gabriel Maldonado González

Fiscal board, PREPA creditors must resolve trust agreement dispute by Tuesday

By THE STAR STAFF

The judge overseeing the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) bankruptcy case, U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain, has ordered the electrical utility’s representatives and creditors to settle a dispute over the utility’s trust agreement by Tuesday.

Swain ordered the Financial Oversight and Management Board, which is PREPA’s representative in the Title III bankruptcy proceedings, to meet with creditors and by Tuesday file a conformed trust agreement that incorporates the original 1974 trust agreement and all its 19 supplemental agreements that all parties agree on. The trust agreement is what regulates matters related to PREPA’s bonds.

According to court documents filed last week, PREPA’s bondholders had initially filed the conformed trust agreement in October 2022.

However, the fuel line lenders, who have a $700 million claim against PREPA, in a November 2022 motion disputed language in the conformed trust agreement. The fuel line lenders noted that as filed by bondholders, the conformed trust agreement prohibits the creation of a lien other than a lien created by the agreement. Fuel line lenders argue that

it should prohibit the creation of any liens.

In December 2022, the fuel line lenders reached a deal with the oversight board to settle their $700 billion claim against PREPA that would give them priority over bondholders’ treatment in the authority’s proposed debt restructuring.

The agreement would reduce the fuel line lenders’ claim by 16% through newly issued PREPA bonds.

The principal to be paid on the bonds issued to the fuel line lenders would have priority over principal payments to be paid on other bonds to be issued under the plan described in the agreement.

The fuel line lenders in a motion last week noted that language in the conformed trust agreement may impact the settlement.

“The Fuel Line Lenders file this response to ensure that issues of importance for future Current Expense litigation are not predetermined in a manner that would prejudice the Fuel Line Lenders,” the Fuel Line Lenders said.

The judge’s order is part of an adversary proceeding related to the security of the over $8 billion in PREPA bonds. Creditors argue that $8 billion in bonds are secured and must be paid through PREPA’s revenues, but the oversight board argues that they are backed only by a sinking fund that has about $16 million or less in it. The fuel line lenders have sided with the oversight board in the dispute.

PREPA filed a proposed plan of adjustment in mid-December 2022. A ruling on the dispute over the security of the bonds would alter the proposed plan of adjustment.

Resident commissioner, US Rep. Velázquez to discuss path forward for PR status bill

By THE STAR STAFF

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón said she will be meeting with U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) to discuss the Puerto Rico status bill approved by the lower chamber of Congress. The House of Representatives voted in December in favor of the Puerto Rico Status Act, House Bill 8393, which seeks to resolve the U.S. territory’s status and its relationship with the United States through a binding

plebiscite. The referendum would include non-territorial statuses such as statehood, independence and sovereignty in free association with the U.S. In addition, the legislation calls for a transition to and implementation of the new political status.

The legislation needs approval in the Senate.

“The same measure should be introduced early in the session for a public hearing process to begin, which was one of the elements that some used to vote against [the bill in the House],” the resident commissioner said “Then,

once we have that, the process begins.”

González Colón said she will have to seek both Republican and Democratic votes.

“We are going to start with the process of public hearings, which is the most important process so that all those doubts that people have or that have been raised can be clarified,” she said. “In the process, the worst criticism that the minority had was [regarding] the hearing process; if we deal with that early, we have these two years to be able to work on it.”

U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain

Speaker drama raises new fears on debt limit

By JIM TANKERSLEY

Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California finally secured the House speakership in a dramatic vote ending around 12:30 a.m. Saturday, but the dysfunction in his party and the deal he struck to win over holdout Republicans also raised the risks of persistent political gridlock that could destabilize the American financial system.

Economists, Wall Street analysts and political observers are warning that the concessions he made to fiscal conservatives could make it very difficult for McCarthy to muster the votes to raise the debt limit — or even put such a measure to a vote. That could prevent Congress from doing the basic tasks of keeping the government open, paying the country’s bills and avoiding default on America’s trillions of dollars in debt.

The speakership battle that spanned more than four days and 15 rounds of votes suggested that President Joe Biden and Congress could be on track later this year for the most perilous debt limit debate since 2011, when President Barack Obama and a new Republican majority in the House nearly defaulted on the nation’s debt before cutting an eleventh-hour deal.

“If everything we’re seeing is a symptom of a totally splintered House Republican conference that is going to be unable to come together with 218 votes on virtually any issue, it tells you that the odds of getting to the eleventh hour or the last minute or whatever are very high,” Alec Phillips, the chief political economist for Goldman Sachs Research, said in an interview Friday.

The federal government spends far more money each year than it receives in revenues, producing a budget deficit that is projected to average in excess of $1 trillion a year for the next decade. Those deficits will add to a national debt that topped $31 trillion last year.

Federal law puts a limit on how much the government can borrow. But it does not require the government to balance its budget. That means lawmakers must periodically pass laws to raise the borrowing limit to avoid a situation in which the government is unable to pay all of its bills, jeopardizing payments including military salaries, Social Security benefits and debts to holders of government bonds. Goldman Sachs researchers estimate Congress will likely need to raise the debt limit sometime around August to stave off such a scenario.

Raising the limit was once routine but has become increasingly difficult over the past few decades, with Republicans using the cap as a cudgel to force spending reductions. Their leverage stems from the potential damage to the economy if the limit is not increased. Lifting the debt limit does not authorize any new spending; it just allows the United States to finance existing obligations. If that cap is not lifted, the government would be unable to pay all of its bills, which include salaries

for military members and Social Security payments.

The exception to the debt limit drama was the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, when Republicans largely abandoned their push to tie increases in the limit to cuts in federal spending. In 2021, Senate Republicans clashed with Biden as the deadline for raising the limit approached, but those lawmakers ultimately helped Democrats pass a law increasing the cap.

Some Democrats pushed to avoid this scenario last year, when it became clear that their party would likely lose at least one chamber of Congress. They hoped to raise the limit again in the lame-duck session of Congress after the November elections that delivered House control to Republicans, to avoid any chance of a default before the 2024 presidential election. But the effort never gained traction.

As a result, the next round of debt limit brinkmanship could be the most fraught on record — as evidenced by the battle over the speakership. Conservative Republicans have already made clear that they would not pass a debt limit increase without significant spending curbs, likely including cuts to both spending on the military and on domestic issues not related to national defense.

Their power stems from the fact that Republicans hold a more narrow majority than they did following the 2010 midterms, which empowered the conservative holdouts who opposed McCarthy. Among that group’s demands were a push for steep cuts in federal spending and a balancing of the federal budget within a decade without raising taxes.

“Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling?” Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who was one of 20 Republicans to initially vote against McCarthy on the House floor, recently told reporters. “That’s

a nonnegotiable item.”

McCarthy appeared to agree to those demands, pledging to allow open debate on spending bills and to not raise the debt limit without major cuts — including efforts to reduce spending on socalled mandatory programs, which include Social Security and Medicare — in a deal that brought many holdouts, including Norman, into his camp.

If the speaker violated that deal, he could risk being overthrown by his caucus — a single lawmaker could force a vote to oust McCarthy, under the terms of the agreement. But Biden and his party’s leaders in the Democratic-controlled Senate have vowed to fight those cuts, particularly to social safety net programs. That could mean a standoff that goes on until the government runs out of money to pay its bills.

Staunch budget hawks in Washington have long argued that the United States needs to stop spending — and borrowing — so much money and that the nation cannot afford its long-term debt. They have pushed for a variety of ways to reduce the growth in long-term spending, including cuts to health care for the poor and for older Americans. And many have called for ending some tax breaks while ensuring that the wealthiest and corporations pay more.

Yet many of those fiscal hawks have called the Republican spending demands reckless and likely to produce stalemates on key fiscal issues.

“Their specific ask of balancing the budget in 10 years is just totally unrealistic. It would take $11 trillion in savings,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in Washington, which has long pushed lawmakers to reduce future deficits through spending cuts and tax increases.

“I want to save more money than a lot of people,” MacGuineas said. “But what they’re demanding is just not achievable.”

Administration officials have given no indication that they would negotiate with Republicans over a debt limit increase at all — nor that they were preparing to act unilaterally to bypass the debt ceiling, as some progressives have pushed for, in the event of a House speaker refusing to put a debt limit increase to a vote without steep spending cuts.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in a briefing Friday that Biden expected Congress to raise the debt limit again with no strings attached.

“We have said that we should not be using the debt ceiling as a matter of political brinkmanship,” she said. “We’ve been very clear. If you look at what Republicans in Congress did three times — three times during the Trump administration — is that they were able to deal with it in a way that was responsible, right? They voted three times, again, to lift the debt ceiling. And so Congress must once again be responsible.”

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other lawmakers on the House floor during another day of repeated votes that failed to elect a speaker, in Washington, Jan. 6, 2023.

In speaker fight’s final hours, arm-twisting, flaring tempers and calls from Trump

acted as McCarthy’s chief emissary negotiating with the rebels. “The preference in politics is to always suffer your indignities in private, not in public. That was the goal. And the last weekend, it was evident that we would have to suffer this in public.”

Suffer they did.

“That was easy, huh?” McCarthy said after finally taking the gavel just after 1 a.m. “I never thought we’d get up here.”

Over the past century, the negotiating and deal-cutting that have paved the way for the ascendance of new House speakers have typically played out behind closed doors and far before the actual election; no speaker designate had needed more than one ballot to be elected since 1923. Instead, on Friday, much of the charged eleventh-hour negotiations was televised in real time for all to see.

as an attention-seeking rabble-rouser on Capitol Hill.

Gaetz had told McCarthy and his allies that he was interested in leading an influential panel on the Armed Services Committee, where he has served since he arrived in Congress in 2017, according to people familiar with the discussions. Rogers was having none of it. (An aide to Gaetz said that the congressman had not sought a subcommittee chairmanship and did not anticipate receiving one.)

Now Gaetz and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., two of the most intractable holdouts, were refusing to budge and suggested that the House adjourn until Monday before any more voting took place.

By CATIE EDMONDSON

Confident that he was about to win the speaker’s gavel after a torturous four-day stretch of defeats, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sat grinning late Friday night in his chair on the House floor. Then his face dropped.

As the voting dragged on in his 14th attempt to become speaker, it had become clear that winning would require the support of Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the Republican leader’s chief antagonist — and Gaetz had just voted “present.”

For days as the historic floor fight played

out, McCarthy had remained in his seat and dispatched allies to buttonhole the remaining holdouts privately. Now, his sunny smile replaced with a clenched jaw, McCarthy strode across the floor to confront Gaetz, who leaned back in his seat, exuding defiance.

McCarthy spoke sternly to Gaetz, appealing to him to finally relent and allow the speakership crisis to end; the Florida Republican jabbed his finger as he refused. After two minutes, McCarthy, seething and head down — the first flash of frustration he had showed all week — returned to his seat. He didn’t have the votes.

The astonishing spectacle that played out into the early hours of Saturday morning was a fitting coda to a week that spotlighted the deep divisions in the Republican Party, the power of an unyielding hard-right flank that revels in upending normal operations of government, and a leader who has repeatedly capitulated to the right in his quest for power.

The final hours of McCarthy’s ultimately triumphant struggle for the speakership featured backroom dealing with the hard right and arm-twisting out in the open; phone calls from Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president, to try to win over holdouts; haggling over how the House would operate in the coming two years; and even a narrowly avoided physical altercation inside the chamber.

“Preferably, you do this in private,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, who

The dysfunction that left the House without a speaker for a week also allowed the indignities to become more public. Photographers and videographers, unfettered from the normal rules governing their conduct because there was no speaker to put any in place, allowed spectators the opportunity to parse rare footage live from the House floor.

As McCarthy’s supporters furiously haggled with the hard-right holdouts, photographers captured a striking moment involving Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a recent McCarthy ally. Greene was seen trying to push her phone, which displayed a call from “DT,” into the hands of Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., a crucial defector. It was Trump on the line.

Rosendale furiously told Greene not to put him in that situation, brushing the phone away, according to lawmakers who witnessed it.

Around the same time, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., who is in line to become the next chair of the Armed Services Committee, had to be physically restrained by another lawmaker who clapped his hand over Rogers’ open mouth after the irate congressman approached Gaetz.

“We haven’t seen this in a century,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., referencing the last time a speaker election dragged out past nine ballots. “We’re in an emotional climate to begin with, absent this, before we got here. It’s emotions running high.”

Rogers had vented his frustration with the defectors over the past week, threatening during a closed-door party discussion Tuesday that they could lose their seats on committees for their disloyalty. But he has reserved special contempt for Gaetz, the fourth-term Trump acolyte who has established himself

Greene, one of McCarthy’s most vociferous backers, was seen rolling her eyes while sidling up to Boebert, a fellow member of the Freedom Caucus, to tap her on the shoulder.

“You need to stop,” Greene appeared to say. Boebert responded curtly, staring straight ahead.

Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said later that Gaetz and Boebert had appeared dug in. “They said that they had agreed to both vote present, and they voted present, so that’s as far as they were going to move,” Buck said.

Crestfallen, McCarthy marched back to his seat, and McHenry called for the chamber to adjourn.

Yet there was movement still to come after all. After the failed 14th vote, Trump phoned Gaetz, according to two people familiar with the conversation. CNN reported that Trump had also reached out to Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who had remained a holdout even as a large group of defectors had swung their support behind McCarthy earlier in the day.

As the vote to adjourn unfolded, there was a shift in the energy on the House floor and a commotion that appeared to change the mood. With little warning, both Gaetz and Boebert marched to the well of the chamber and raised up red cards to show they were switching their votes on adjourning to “no” after all.

“Everyone take your seats,” McCarthy said, appearing relieved. “Let’s do it one more time.”

On the next ballot — the 15th and final — Gaetz and Boebert cast the same “present” votes, signaling they did not support McCarthy but reducing the number of votes he would need to win a majority. The last of the holdouts — Biggs, Rosendale, and Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona and Bob Good of Virginia — fell in line and also changed their votes to “present,” allowing McCarthy to become speaker.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) reacts as the House’s vote to select a speaker continues, at the Capitol in Washington, on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023.

After 6-year-old is accused in school shooting, many questions and a murky legal path

By PAUL BIBEAU, SARAHH MERVOSH and TIM ARANGO

The scene was heartbreakingly familiar.

Inside Richneck Elementary School, children and teachers hunkered down in fear. At a family reunification center nearby, desperate parents waited for answers. Some were so panicked that they struggled to breathe. Once again, a school shooting had left a community reeling.

Only this time, authorities said, the gun had been fired by a 6-year-old boy.

The incident, which initially set off fears about potential mass violence, quickly morphed into another kind of tragedy: a rare example of a school shooting involving an exceptionally young child.

The 6-year-old, a first grader at Richneck Elementary in Newport News, Virginia, shot a teacher with a handgun Friday afternoon, the Newport News Police Department said, in an incident that police said was “not an accidental shooting.” The boy and the teacher had been involved in an altercation in a classroom before the boy shot the teacher once, police said. The teacher suffered “lifethreatening” injuries but had improved by Saturday and was in stable condition.

Police radio traffic posted online by Broadcastify, a streaming service, captured the chaotic moments as a dispatcher communicated with officers responding to the scene.

“We have a female victim shot in the abdomen,” the dispatcher said. She added that the victim had also been shot through the hand and was waiting for medical assistance in the school’s office, where she was “in and out of consciousness.”

A medic was also called to a nearby church, where some parents were reported to be hyperventilating as they waited for information.

It took only six days for the country to register its first school shooting of 2023, according to a tracker by Education Week, a count that is almost certain to grow as school shootings become more common in the United States. Outside Richneck Elementary, a sprawling, green-roofed building in a quiet neighborhood of Newport News, the school’s sign on Saturday still read “Happy New Year.”

Yet school shootings by young children are exceedingly rare, experts say. The K-12 School Shooting Database, which has compiled data on every gun incident at a school — anytime a firearm has been discharged on school property — dating back to 1970, has

identified just 16 incidents involving shooters younger than 10, and even fewer by children as young as 6.

The situation in Newport News left many shaken, with major questions unanswered.

Among them: How did a 6-year-old obtain access to a gun? Authorities have not publicly identified the child or the teacher, detailed the nature of the altercation or offered information about whether the gun was taken from home, school or elsewhere.

The boy was in police custody Friday evening, authorities said, but the unusual nature of the situation leaves the path forward far from clear. While it is possible that the child could be criminally charged, legal scrutiny could also fall on the child’s parents or another adult. Virginia law prohibits leaving a loaded gun where it is accessible to children younger than 14.

On Saturday, some families were stunned and grieving.

“It’s scary,” said Ramon GonzalezHernandez, who said his son was in the classroom where the teacher was shot.

“I’m just here trying to keep my son occupied so he’s not thinking about everything,” Gonzalez-Hernandez added, speaking briefly from his porch. He said he was waiting to hear from detectives to set up counseling sessions and was considering whether to home-school his son.

Tucked on a quiet street where parents and children can often be seen walking in the neighborhood, Richneck Elementary serves a diverse student body of more than 550 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Newport News, a city of about 185,000 in southeast Virginia, is home to a large military community and is known for its shipyard, which builds aircraft carriers and other vessels for the U.S. Navy.

Daniel Smith, 51, who lives near the elementary school, said he was surprised by the shooting because the surrounding neighborhood is generally safe. “We’re a quiet neighborhood,” he said. “Nobody bothers anybody and they look out for each other.”

The shooting renewed calls from teachers unions and gun control groups for tougher laws to keep guns out of schools, including laws requiring safe storage. “When will the shock of gunshots in school be enough to inspire the action necessary to prevent guns in schools and the shattering of lives it causes?” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of

Teachers, said in a statement.

Virginia, unlike some other states — notably Oregon and Massachusetts — does not have a broad law that requires all guns to be safely stored in homes.

“Virginia’s law is on the weaker end of the spectrum of these types of laws,” said Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, said Saturday that he believed Virginia already had “some of the toughest gun laws in the nation” but that the next step was to invest more money in mental health treatment and to pass tougher penalties for crimes committed with guns.

In a state budget proposed last month, before the Legislature’s 2023 session next week, the governor requested $230 million for increased capacity to respond to people with mental health issues, including mobile crisis teams, expanded mental health care in schools and same-day care for people in crisis. He also said Saturday, during a brief interview in Virginia Beach, that he wanted the Legislature to enact tougher penalties for gun crimes, although it was unclear whether either initiative would address how a 6-yearold was able to wield a loaded handgun in school.

Under Virginia law, a 6-year-old cannot be charged as an adult. And while it is possible the child could be charged criminally in juvenile court, the minimum age to be

sentenced to a juvenile prison in Virginia is 11.

“The juvenile justice system is not really equipped to deal with really young kids who commit criminal offenses and is probably the wrong place to deal with a situation like this,” said Andrew Block, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and the former director of the Virginia Department of Justice.

The unsettling situation in Virginia comes as greater attention is being paid to gun violence in elementary schools, especially after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year.

In the 2020-21 school year, the most recent year for which data is available, 59 elementary schools reported an incident involving a gun, up from 32 the prior year and up from single digits as recently as 2016, according to data from the K-12 School Shooting Database reported by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Not all of the incidents, though, resulted in injury or death. The count includes incidents in which a gun was brandished or fired, or a bullet hit school property, regardless of motive or whether anyone was hurt.

“It’s not necessarily that shootings are increasing based on how those incidents are defined, but that the presence of firearms is increasing,” said Jaclyn Schildkraut, the interim executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

A 6-year-old boy shot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School on Friday, the police said, just days after students returned from the holiday break.

A new area of AI booms, even amid the tech gloom

By ERIN GRIFFITH and CADE METZ

Five weeks ago, OpenAI, a San Francisco artificial intelligence lab, released ChatGPT, a chatbot that answers questions in clear, concise prose. The AI-powered tool immediately caused a sensation, with more than 1 million people using it to create everything from poetry to high school term papers to rewrites of Queen songs.

Now OpenAI is in the midst of a new gold rush.

The lab is in talks to complete a deal that would value it at around $29 billion, more than twice its valuation in 2021, two people with knowledge of the discussions said. The potential deal — where OpenAI would sell existing company shares in a socalled tender offer — could total $300 million, depending on how many employees agree to sell their stock, they said. The company is also in discussions with Microsoft — which invested $1 billion in it in 2019 — for additional funds, two people said.

The clamor around OpenAI shows that even in the most dismal tech downturn in a generation, Silicon Valley’s deal-making machine is still kicking. After a humbling year that included mass layoffs and cuts, tech investors — a naturally optimistic bunch — can’t wait to jump on a hot trend.

No area has created more excitement than generative artificial intelligence, the term for technology that can generate text, images, sounds and other media in response to short prompts. Investors, pundits and journalists have talked up artificial intelligence for years, but the new wave — the result of more than a decade of research — represents a more powerful and more mature breed of AI.

This type of AI promises to reinvent everything from online search engines like Google to photo and graphics editors like Photoshop to digital assistants like Alexa and Siri. Ultimately, it could provide a new way of interacting with almost any software, letting people chat with computers and other devices as if they were chatting with another person.

That has sent deal-making around generative AI companies into overdrive. Jasper, a generative AI startup founded in 2021, raised $125 million in October, valuing it at $1.5 billion. Stability AI, an image generating company founded in 2020, raised $101 mi-

llion that same month, valuing it at $1 billion. Smaller generative AI companies, including Character.AI, Replika and You.com, have also been inundated with investor interest.

In 2022, investors pumped at least $1.37 billion into generative AI companies across 78 deals, almost as much as they invested in the previous five years combined, according to data from PitchBook, which tracks financial activity across the industry.

OpenAI’s $29 billion valuation was earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal. Venture capital firms Thrive Capital and Founders Fund may buy shares in the tender offer, two people said. Because OpenAI began as a not-for-profit company, pinpointing its precise valuation is difficult.

OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Founders Fund did not provide comments on the proposed investment.

Companies have developed generative AI for years, including tech giants like Google and Meta as well as ambitious startups like OpenAI. But the technology did not capture the public’s attention until last spring, when OpenAI unveiled a system called DALL-E that let people generate photo-realistic images simply by describing what they wanted to see.

That inspired entrepreneurs to dive in with new ideas and investors to make

sweeping proclamations of disruption. Their enthusiasm reached new heights in December after OpenAI released ChatGPT, with fans seizing on the technology to generate love letters and business plans.

“It’s the new ‘mobile’ kind of paradigm shift that we’ve been all waiting for,” said Niko Bonatsos, an investor at venture capital firm General Catalyst. “Maybe bigger, too.”

Investors at Sequoia Capital wrote that generative AI had “the potential to generate trillions of dollars of economic value.” And Lonne Jaffe, an investor at Insight Partners, said, “There is definitely an element to this that feels like the early launch of the internet.”

More than 450 startups are now working on generative AI, by one venture capital firm’s count. And the frenzy has been compounded by investor eagerness to find the next big thing in a gloomy environment.

Michael Dempsey, an investor at venture firm Compound, said the tech downturn — which last year included a crypto crash, poor performing stocks and layoffs at many companies — created a lull among investors.

Then “everyone got excited about AI,” he said. “People need something to tell their investors or themselves, honestly, that there is a next thing to be excited about.”

Some worry the hype around genera-

tive AI has gotten ahead of reality. The technology has raised thorny ethical questions around how generative AI may affect copyrights and whether the companies need to get permission to use the data that trains their algorithms. Others believe big tech companies such as Google will quickly trounce the young upstarts, and that some of the new companies have little competitive advantage.

“There are a lot of teams that don’t have any AI competency that are pitching themselves as AI companies,” Dempsey said.

Those concerns have not slowed the swell of excitement, especially after the arrival of Stability AI in October.

The startup had helped fund an open source software project that quickly built image-generating technology that operated much like DALL-E. The difference was that while OpenAI had only shared DALL-E with a small number of testers, Stability AI’s open source version — Stable Diffusion — could be used by anyone. People quickly used the tool to create photo-realistic images of everything from a medieval knight crying in the rain to Disneyland painted by Vincent Van Gogh.

In the ensuing excitement, Eugenia Kuyda, founder and CEO of chat bot startup Replika, said in an interview that she was contacted by “every VC firm in Silicon Valley,” or more than 30 firms. She took their calls but decided against additional funding because her company, founded in 2014, is profitable.

“I feel like the person who was a week early arriving at the airport for a flight — and now the flight is boarding,” she said.

Character.AI, another chat bot company, and You.com, which is adding chat technology to its internet search engine, have also been deluged with interest from venture capitalists, the companies said.

Radical Ventures, a venture firm in Toronto, one of the global centers of AI research, was created five years ago specifically to invest in this kind of technology. It recently launched a new $550 million fund dedicated to AI, with more than half of its investments in generative AI companies. Now those bets look even better.

“For 4 1/2 years, people thought we were nuts,” said Jordan Jacobs, a partner at Radical. “Now, for the past six months, they’ve thought we were geniuses.”

Sam Altman, a founder and chairman of OpenAI, a lab that is popularizing generative artificial intelligence, speaks at the New Work Summit in Half Moon Bay, Calif., Feb. 25, 2019.

Wall St rallies as jobs, services data calm rate hike worries

Wall Street’s main indexes all gained more than 2% on Friday after December payrolls expanded more than expected even as wage increases slowed and services activity contracted, easing worries about the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hiking path.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 223,000 jobs in December, Labor Department data showed, while a 0.3% rise in average earnings was smaller than expected and less than the previous month’s 0.4%.

In another set of data, U.S. services activity declined for the first time in more than 2-1/2 years in December as demand weakened, with more signs of inflation easing.

“We got good news on the inflation front with wage gains that are slowing. We got participation rates pick up again and yet we’re still creating jobs. It’s a kind of a win-win for the economy. And on the other side the ISM services report was really weak and broadly weak,” said Megan Horneman, chief investment officer at Verdence Capital Management in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

“That’s basically making people think the Fed is nearing the end of what’s been one of the most aggressive tightening cycles we’ve seen in decades. That’s why the markets are taking off.”

By 4:23 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 700.53 points, or 2.13%, to 33,630.61; the S&P 500 gained 86.98 points, or 2.28%, at 3,895.08; and the Nasdaq Composite added 264.05 points, or 2.56%, at 10,569.29.

Friday’s rally boosted the benchmark S&P and the Nasdaq enough to snap four weeks of declines. For the holiday-shortened week, the S&P rose 1.45% while the Nasdaq added 0.98% and the Dow advanced by 1.46%.

For the gains, John Augustine, chief investment officer at Huntington National Bank in Columbus, Ohio, pointed to a calming of anxiety that the Fed would raise rates so much that it causes a recession.

“Today’s reports may alleviate that pressure to force a recession. They may already have slowed down the economy enough. They just need validation from inflation reports.”

Still the Fed last month projected an a interest rate target peak of around 5% and said it would keep rates high until inflation is where it wants it to be.

Fed officials on Friday acknowledged cooling wage growth and other signs of a gradually slowing economy, with Atlanta President Raphael Bostic hinting at the chance of a quarter percentage point hike at the next policy meeting.

But Huntington’s Augustine said the central bank needs to see further slowing of price increases in the December inflation report, due out on Thursday, before deciding whether to slow its next rate hike. It raised rates 50 basis points in December.

Also next week several of the biggest U.S. banks in-

cluding JPMorgan and Bank of America will kick off the fourth-quarter earnings season on Friday.

“That’s the part of the puzzle people haven’t been able to figure out. How much should earnings estimates be cut for the calendar year or have they been cut enough?” said Horneman at Verdence.

All the major S&P 500 indexes gained with materials’ 3.44% increase leading the pack. Interest-rate sensitive technology was next with a 2.99% gain.

The weakest sector was healthcare, which rose 0.89% followed by energy’s 1.68% increase.

Consumer staples was boosted by Costco Wholesale Corp, whose shares jumped 7% after the membershiponly retailer reported strong December sales growth.

Shares in Biogen Inc closed up 2.8% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab developed by Eisai Co Ltd and Biogen for patients in the earliest stages of the disease. Eisai’s U.S. shares closed up 4% at $64.20.

Pfizer Inc shares advanced 2.5% after reports of talks with China to secure a license that will allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of the U.S. company’s COVID-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid in China.

Supporters of defeated Brazilian president storm congressional building

By JACK NICAS and ANDRE SPIGARIOL

Supporters of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed Brazil’s Congress and presidential offices Sunday to protest what they falsely believe was a stolen election. It was the violent culmination of incessant rhetorical attacks by Bolsonaro and his supporters against the nation’s electoral systems.

Thousands of protesters ascended a ramp to the roof of the congressional building in Brasília, the capital, while a smaller group invaded the building from a lower level, according to witnesses and videos of the scene posted on social media.

President

The toll of capturing El

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Ten soldiers and 19 drug cartel members were killed and dozens of people were wounded in a series of gunbattles surrounding the capture of the son of the notorious drug kingpin known as El Chapo, Mexican officials said late last week.

Ovidio Guzmán, a son of Joaquín Guzmán who is said to be a leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel that his father once headed, was arrested Thursday in what the government described as a major blow to one of the country’s most notorious criminal organizations. But the scale and high cost of the operation were not made public until a day later, at a news conference led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

As cartel members shot at soldiers, including with .50-caliber machine guns, and set up roadblocks with flaming vehicles in an attempt to free the younger Guzmán, more than 3,500 troops became involved in the operation, returning fire on the ground and from aircraft, officials said.

In addition to the 29 men killed, 35 soldiers were wounded by gunfire and 21 suspected cartel members were arrested. Authorities did not say if anyone other than troops were wounded. They said the government seized six .50-caliber machine guns, four .50-caliber semi-automatic rifles, 26 other long guns, pistols and 53 vehicles including 26 that were armored, as well as quantities of fentanyl and cocaine.

“With these actions, the army, the air force and the national guard reaffirm the unwavering decision of the federal government to continue acting against organized crime,” said Luis Cresencio Sandoval, the defense secretary.

The capture gives López Obrador a win just days be -

Chapo’s son:

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,

who defeated Bolsonaro in October and took office Jan. 1, was in Sao Paulo, and Congress was not in session. Both Congress and the presidential offices were largely empty Sunday.

Thousands of protesters stood and shouted from atop the Congress building, in view of thousands more running over toppled fences to get to the presidential offices. Protesters complained of tear gas, while security guards stationed at Congress took cover behind the building.

The invasions capped months of protests by supporters of Bolsonaro, who have been camped outside military bases across the country and had called on the armed forces to take control of the government and halt the inauguration of Lula.

10 soldiers, 19 cartel members dead

fore he is to play host to a summit meeting with President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. And it at least partially cleanses the stain of a previous arrest of Ovidio Guzmán, in 2019, when authorities were forced to free him after being overpowered by cartel gunmen.

The operation Thursday, officials said, reflected lessons learned from that experience, including the need for overwhelming numbers. Rather than in the cartel’s stronghold, the northwestern city of Culiacán, the capture took place about a 25-mile drive away, in the village of Jesús María, limiting the risk of civilian casualties — there have been no reports of any, they said — and the reinforcements that the cartel could muster.

“We did not come to win a war. We came to build peace,” said Rosa Icela Rodríguez Velásquez, the security secretary in the president’s Cabinet.

Early Thursday, a national guard surveillance patrol spotted six suspicious vehicles that appeared to be armored, and called in support from the army, Sandoval said. But the vehicles’ occupants ignored orders to get out and submit to a search, attacked the troops and fled.

After cornering them in a house in the village, authorities arrested 18 armed men, Sandoval said, including one who identified himself as Ovidio Guzmán, referred to by officials Friday as “Ovidio N.”

“A considerable number of criminal cells managed to group together with the intention of rescuing Ovidio N, attacking military personnel,” Sandoval said. It was in that second clash that seven soldiers were killed and the cartel began using heavy machine guns, he said, prompting the troops to summon still more reinforcements, including aircraft.

Rather than try to transport Guzmán on roads the cartel could block, Sandoval said, an army helicopter landed

amid the shooting and took him to Mexico City. He said two military aircraft were hit by gunfire and forced to land, and that a commercial plane at the Culiacán airport was also hit.

More fighting took place around nine burning roadblocks the cartel erected, he said, and one fight in the afternoon claimed more troop casualties. López Obrador said all the roadblocks had been cleared.

Guzmán faces prosecution in Mexico and the United States. His father, who famously escaped a Mexican prison in 2015, was recaptured and extradited to the United States. He is serving a life sentence in a U.S. federal prison.

The federal facility where Ovidio Guzmán, the son of the drug lord widely known as El Chapo, was brought in by helicopter on Thursday in Toluca, México.

Supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s capital in December.

Benedict’s burial leaves Francis alone, and unbound

By JASON HOROWITZ

Since the first day of his papacy nearly a decade ago, Pope Francis has had to navigate an unprecedented complication in the Catholic Church: coexisting with his retired predecessor in the same Vatican gardens. Supporters of Francis studiously played down the two-pontiff anomaly, but it generated confusion, especially when conservative acolytes of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sought to wrap their fervent opposition in their leader’s white robes.

Now, with the burial of Benedict on Thursday, Francis, never bashful about exercising his power, is for the first time unbound.

“Now, I’m sure he’ll take it over,” said Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbai, as he walked around St. Peter’s Square before Benedict’s funeral Mass.

Some liberal supporters of Francis’, who has often balked in the face of advancing major overhauls, are raising expectations for a late-breaking season of change.

Many bishops and cardinals in the Vatican are convinced “he’s thinking ahead,” said Gerard O’Connell, the Vatican correspondent for America magazine. “What changes now is that the opposition will not have the rallying figure, manipulating Benedict. Francis has a very clear agenda.”

O’Connell, the author of “The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History,” envisioned an immediate future of swifter personnel decisions and the placing of more lay Catholics in power. He said there was talk about a new document on morality, sexuality and contraception. He also predicted the revisiting of major issues.

Francis has already allowed debate on key, and previously taboo, topics such as being more inclusive to gay people and giving women larger roles in the church. In 2021, he seemed poised to allow married men in farflung areas such as the Amazon to become priests. Although an unexpected expression of opposition from Benedict, or those writing in his name, perhaps contributed to Francis’ pulling back, he left the door open.

Already absolute, Francis’ leadership in the church is increasingly fortified by a hierarchy in his image. By the end of the year, Francis will almost certainly pack the College of Cardinals with hand-picked appointees. His chosen prelates will most likely then make up twothirds of the body, the threshold necessary for electing the next pope.

That number could click even higher if he remains in power through the end of 2024, when the second of two major meetings of the world’s bishops he has convened will end. Those so-called synods, deeply disparaged by Benedict’s wing, are the fulfillment of Francis’ vision to foster a consensus for big changes in the church.

While that all remains in the future, what seems certain is that Francis seems eager to put an end to grievances about the past. On Friday, the day after the burial of his predecessor, Francis seemed to try to quell the grumbling by Benedict’s loyalists, who had accused him

of giving Benedict short shrift in his funeral homily and of having disappointed the pope emeritus repeatedly over the past decade, by quoting Benedict’s own words about avoiding the petty and mundane and putting faith above all else.

In a remark that has been widely interpreted in the Vatican as a direct response to the complaints of Benedict’s closest collaborator, Archbishop Georg Gänswein — who has a book coming out — Francis said during the Mass, “Let us worship God, not ourselves; let us worship God and not the false idols that seduce by the allure of prestige or power, or the allure of false news.”

The new era also ended the strange business of church officials denying any awkwardness in the twopope era.

Gracias said there was continuity between Benedict, whom he admired, and who had elevated him to cardinal, and Francis, of whom he said Benedict was a “big supporter.”

“Pope Francis was not being influenced” by Benedict or his coterie, said Cardinal Juan José Omella of Spain on the day of Benedict’s funeral.

“There were not two popes,” agreed Mario Iceta Gavicagogeascoa, archbishop of Burgos, Spain. Benedict had withdrawn

in his monastery, and so “there was only one pope, Francis.”

But after Benedict’s death, the calculus in the Vatican has clearly changed.

“It would be difficult to have two emeritus popes,” a French bishop, Jean-Yves Riocreux, said Thursday, adding that the major difference for Francis after Benedict’s death was that “now he can resign.”

Although Francis has entertained the prospect of retiring, Vatican analysts say that if his health holds out and he keeps enjoying the job of being pope, it is unlikely he would rush to hand things over to a successor who could undo his legacy, just as he has chipped away at Benedict’s.

Indeed, conservative critics of Francis’ are already fearing the worst.

“Seems that Francis declared Year Zero, goodbye to all that, etc.,” Rod Dreher, a hard-right traditionalist who left the church but remains active in its politics, declared Thursday on Twitter after what he considered a paltry homily to Benedict by Francis. “Bad times coming for faithful orthodox Catholics.”

But some Vatican analysts hold a countervailing view that Francis will not be the only force with a freer hand now. Frustrated conservatives and traditionalists, they say, will no longer feel chastened by Benedict, who at times provided cover to Francis by telling his own followers to cool it. Instead, with Francis having already brought down the hammer on their beloved old Latin Masses, some predict that they will wage an even more open war against Francis.

Francis does not seem too worried. He has mostly shrugged off their critiques, and in 2019, he responded to a question about a potential breaking off by archconservatives in the Catholic Church by saying, “I pray there are no schisms, but I’m not scared.”

More than conservative opposition, what has held Francis back on major issues, O’Connell said, was the search for a collegial consensus to bring the whole church forward on the major changes. “His aim is to keep the unity of the church,” O’Connell said. “And that is the constraint.”

Inside St. Joseph Shrine during a Latin Mass in Detroit, Oct. 2, 2022.

Iran executes 2 men arrested in protests

By FARNAZ FASSIHI

Iran on Saturday hanged two men, a 22-year-old national karate champion and a 39-year-old poultry worker, who participated in anti-government demonstrations and whose executions were condemned as a ploy by the government to use violence and sow fear to crush the protests.

The men, Mohammad Mehdi Karami, the karate champion, and Sayed Mohammad Hosseini, the factory worker, were hanged at dawn Saturday in the city of Karaj near the capital, Tehran, after hasty trials on charges that they participated in the killing of a member of the Basij paramilitary group in November, according to the judiciary.

Iran has deployed heavy-handed violence against protesters since midSeptember, when the death of 22-yearold Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police sparked a nationwide uprising to demand an end to theocratic rule in Iran. Rights groups say at least 500 people have been killed by security forces, including 50 children, and the United Nations says at least 14,000 have been arrested.

At least 13 of the detained protesters have been sentenced to death, among them a doctor, a bodybuilding champion, a rapper and a barber, with their charges ranging from burning a trash can to allegations of killing security forces, according to Amnesty International. Two men were executed in December; one of them was hanged in public from a crane with a sack over his head.

The trial for Karami and Hosseini, held in Iran’s Revolutionary Court, lasted less than a week and relied on forced confessions and shoddy evidence, according to Amnesty International.

The men were denied lawyers of their choice and were represented by attorneys appointed by the gover-

nment, according to Karami’s family and rights groups. Both men had denied the allegations against them.

The executions shocked Iranians who had been campaigning and protesting against the execution of protesters and drew widespread condemnation from the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

“Appalled by the regime’s execution of two more young Iranians after sham trials,” Robert Malley, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, said in a tweet. “These executions must stop. We and others across the globe will continue to hold Iran’s leadership accountable.”

Four protesters have now been executed and at least 15 others are at risk of receiving death sentences because they have been charged with capital offenses, rights groups said.

“The Islamic Republic has demonstrated yet again that it has no policy but reliance on maximum violence to address ongoing and growing opposition to its rule,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.

On Thursday, Iran arrested Mehdi Beik, the political editor of the Etemad newspaper, whose interviews with families of those on death row, including Karami’s father, have gained national attention.

In an audio interview posted online, Karami’s father said he is a street vendor who sells napkins and had invested his life savings to help his son realize his athletic dreams.

Karami’s parents had camped outside the prison where they had heard their son might be executed and had begged prison officials for a last visit but were denied, according to Iranian news reports.

A photo of Karami, who is Kurdish, circulated on social media showing a tattoo of the Olympic rings on his muscular arms. His family said he dreamed of making it to the Olympics one day, and the tattoo was for inspiration.

A video from Saturday shows his grave covered in a traditional termeh textile, typically used for weddings, and white flowers. A woman said to be his mother is heard sobbing and wailing and saying his name.

Before Saturday’s executions, the lawyer for Hosseini, Ali Sharifzadeh Zakani, tweeted that he had filed an appeal Wednesday and was told by authorities to come back Saturday to register the appeal.

He said he was on his way to the court when he heard his client had been hanged. “Why so much hurry? You could have at least allowed one more review of the case,” he said in a tweet. He had said earlier that Hosseini had been severely tortured in detention.

Hosseini’s parents are both dead, and according to Iranian news media reports, no family members have yet claimed his body. In his trial, he had said he was on his way to the cemetery to visit his parents’ graves when was caught in protest traffic and the clashes that resulted in the death of the Basij member.

In a public outpouring of grief for both men on social media, many Iranians said they would mourn for Hosseini in the absence of his family. Azar Mahisefat, a social media influencer and home cook who has 500,000 followers on Instagram, wrote that she cried for him “as the mother you did not have.”

Hamideh Abbasali, an Olympian and the captain of Iran’s national women’s karate team, condemned the executions. On Instagram, she wrote about Karami, “This kid did not deserve to be denied the right to live the rest of his life,” and added that “injustice will not last forever.”

On Saturday night, protests broke out in several neighborhoods in Tehran, videos posted on social media showed, with crowds chanting, “For every person killed, there are a thousand others behind him.”

Mohammad Mehdi Karami, center, a national karate champion in Iran, was hanged on Saturday.

Kevin McCarthy and the return of the pre-Trump GOP

By ROSS DOUTHAT

Did you miss the Republican Party that existed before Donald Trump came along? Are you nostalgic for the days of John Boehner battling Tea Party rebels over the debt ceiling or the fiscal cliff, or Ted Cruz’s “plan” to defund Obamacare? Do you pine for the years when the crucial test of conservative purity was a commitment to an implausible deficit reduction plan, the good old days when empty suits and aspiring lobbyists battled libertarian ideologues and aspiring cable news personalities for the chance to advance an agenda of mild austerity and businessfriendly tax cuts?

Good news, then; those days are back. The failure of the “red wave” in the 2022 midterms and Trump’s subsequent diminishment have had a reverse-wave effect: It’s like watching a wall of water roll backward, exposing the old coastline, the political topography that the water covered up. Kevin McCarthy’s embarrassing struggle to claim the speakership, and the week of chaos in the House of Representatives, don’t properly belong to the Trump era. It’s the old world come again, the GOP ancien regime with all its dysfunctions, stalemates and futility.

Not that the flood didn’t change the landscape. Some of the House Republicans who have bedeviled

McCarthy are Tea Party throwbacks, but others are more Trumpian figures, creatures of right-wing celebrity and brands unto themselves. The wouldbe Republican populists in the Senate — figures like J.D. Vance, Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton — aren’t libertarians in the style of circa-2013 Cruz, which may change the role the Senate plays in intra-Republican battles. The national party and its ambitious governors are now more likely to be fighting over cultural issues than fiscal ones. And Trump himself is hardly finished.

But in the negotiations over the speakership, it’s been clear that certain pre-Trump patterns are still resilient. On one side, embodied now by McCarthy and his allies, you have a GOP establishment trying to run the House in a centralized fashion without any particular vision or agenda. On the other, in the factions that resisted his speakership, you have conservatives with a lot of legitimate complaints about process joined to a policy vision that’s mostly performative gestures and fiscal apocalypticism. The likely result, as in the Tea Party era, is a Congress incapable of governing, save through last-minute brinkmanship and a conservatism that manifests itself in demands for implausibly sweeping budget cuts and not much else.

Part of Trump’s original success rested on the way he freed the Republican Party from this dead end by resolutely refusing to campaign on the True Conservative™ catechism and elevating issues that mattered more to less-ideological conservatives and swing voters. He did all this in a demagogic style, but his promises — to bring back jobs lost to China and build new highways, to protect Social Security while ending illegal immigration — helped the GOP slip out of its Barack Obama-era trap, where the congressional party appeared to be obsessed with unpopular spending cuts but also was rarely capable of driving any bargains to achieve them.

For the House GOP today, an equivalent escape is imaginable. Its majority could be used to pass a series of messaging bills on issues where conservatives have, or might have, an advantage with the public: a crime bill, a border security bill, a bill highlighting issues with military recruitment and readiness, reforms to academic funding and tax breaks and school standards that aim to weaken the elite-college cartel and influence the educational culture wars, some version of the profamily policies that anti-abortion groups have pushed for in the wake of Dobbs. In each case, the goal would be to position the party on ground where the concerns of activists and independent voters might overlap and set the GOP up for success in 2024.

On fiscal issues, this kind of strategy would recognize the impossibility of either a grand bargain

of the kind that eluded Boehner and Obama or the forcing of meaningful fiscal changes on a Democraticcontrolled Senate and White House. Instead, it would propose budgets that mostly seek cuts in places that matter to Democratic interest groups and govern with deals that include some inevitable fakery and gimmicks, but basically just preserve the status quo.

Such deals are what will happen anyway: There will not be a radical change to our fiscal trajectory between now and 2024. The question is whether, along the way to that inevitable outcome, House Republicans present themselves as a plausible governing party, or whether their internal divisions yield both emptiness and chaos, letting Democrats and the Biden White House cast them as the party of sabotage, the enemies of economic recovery.

We’ll have more clarity when we see the price of victory in the speaker’s race or when the debt ceiling negotiations get here. But we probably know the answer already.

A live feed from the House chamber shows Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as voting for the next Speaker of the House continued at the Capitol, in Washington on Jan. 5, 2023.

Taboada de Jesús sugiere comenzar a bloquear la entrada de la pirotecnia al país

POR EL STAR STAFF

SAN JUAN – El presidente de la Asociación de Miembros de la Policía de Puerto Rico, José J. Taboada de Jesús convocó a los miembros de la legislatura de Puerto Rico a que unan esfuerzos junto al poder ejecutivo y el poder judicial para crear una alianza comunitaria con los alcaldes y jefes de gobierno para que se trabaje un plan efectivo que permita eliminar la mayoría de pirotecnia que entra ilegal a la isla de Puerto Rico.

“El uso de pirotecnia en los días de navidad, especialmente en momentos de la despedida del año 2022 fue abusivo, peligroso, sobre todo, es un daño irreparable a nuestras mascotas. La gente no tuvo compasión con los vecindarios donde había personas de edad avanzada, niños con problemas de salud y mascotas, especialmente perros que perdieron el control al darse un tipo de bombardeo indiscriminado que parecía no tener fin. Ahora que ha pasado el grueso de la navidad, todavía se escuchan explosivos en nuestros vecindarios, cosa que lastima la paz de nuestros hogares. Precisamente este es el mejor momento para iniciar un proyecto de alianza cívico gubernamental que permita unir

al gobierno, la legislatura, los tribunales y a las entidades cívicas para que se trabaje para evitar que esto vuelva a suceder el próximo año”, señaló José J. Taboada de Jesús, presidente de la Asociación de Miembros de la Policía de Puerto Rico.

El líder de los policías dijo que se estima que los puertorriqueños invirtieron entre $15 a $20 millones de dólares en pirotecnia la cual fue utilizada de forma indiscriminada por las personas que compraron la misma.

“Estamos en un momento importante donde sabemos que los comerciantes mayoristas que se dedican a importar este tipo de explosivo comienzan hacer sus órdenes al extranjero. La mayoría de estos explosivos vienen como parte de la carga que se mueve por los muelles en furgones. El 90% de los explosivos entran a la Isla los primeros siete meses del año. Esas personas que se dedican a este mercado negro de la pirotecnia tienen sus contactos en los muelles y logran mover la mercancía sin que el gobierno o los inspectores de aduana los detecte. Mucha gente que trabaja en los muelles sabe cómo llega la mercancía, sin embargo, nada hacen para detener esto que tanto afecta a nuestra tranquilidad. En estos momentos se puede trabajar para evitar que eso entre en forma masiva ya sea por los muelles, por ferry o por nuestros aeropuertos. Se está dando el caso que algunas embarcaciones de recreación grandes que viajan a las islas del Caribe o República Dominicana se regresan con grandes cantidades de artefactos de pirotecnia que es almacenada y luego vendida. Esto hay que detenerlo y podemos hacerlo si unimos esfuerzos desde principio de año de manera que evitemos el fácil flujo de esa mercancía.

Sujeto persigue y choca auto donde se encontraba su expareja en Canóvanas

POR CYBERNEWS

C

ANÓVANAS – La Policía investiga un supuesto incidente de violencia de genero, a eso de las 10:30 de la noche del sábado, en Canóvanas. Según el reporte de la Policía, una mujer alegó que se encontraba en el centro comercial The Outlets en Canóvanas acompañada de un amigo cuando supuestamente llegó su expareja.

El sujeto le dijo a la mujer que se bajara del vehículo de su amigo, por lo tanto, decidieron salir del lugar. Fueron perseguidos por el sujeto quien impactó en varias ocasiones el vehículo donde se encontraban la mujer y su amigo.

Al llegar al kilómetro 16.2 de la Ruta 66 se detuvieron, porque el hombre perdió el control como consecuencia de los choques recibidos .

Al detenerse, el sujeto que supuestamente los

perseguía llego hasta el vehículo y la mujer se bajó.

Supuestamente, el hombre la agredió en varias ocasiones en el rostro, luego amenazó a ambos con un cuchillo y se marchó del lugar.

La mujer fue atendida en Centro de Diagnóstico y Tratamiento de Canóvanas y el caso pasó a ser atendido por la División de Violencia Domestica del Área policiaca de Carolina.

AAA actualiza el estatus del servicio en sectores de Corozal

POR CYBERNEWS

TOA ALTA – El director del área de Toa Alta de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados, Miguel Berríos Oyola, actualizó el estatus del servicio de agua potable para clientes en el municipio de Corozal.

Sobre el particular, el funcionario explicó que, “tenemos personal destacado en el municipio de Corozal trabajando para estabilizar el servicio a nuestros clientes. Durante los pasados días, hemos experimentado interrupciones en la operación de las plantas de filtros Negros y Corozal Urbano debido a obstrucciones en la

toma de aguas crudas y eventos de turbidez por las lluvias registradas. Adicional, personal atiende reparación de motor averiado en la estación de bombas Padilla que afecta el servicio a clientes en el Bo. Padilla, parte de Cuchillas y parte de Cibuco. Estas incidencias se están trabajando para estabilizar de manera satisfactoria el servicio a nuestros clientes”.

Igualmente, Berríos añadió, “en el caso de Palmarito, nuestras brigadas permanecen en el área identificando salideros que afectan el servicio. En esta pasada semana hemos reparado varios salideros. Hoy, domingo, continuamos reparando para, de la misma forma, estabilizar

la red de distribución en beneficio de los abonados”.

Como medida de mitigación, en coordinación con la Oficina Municipal para el Manejo de Emergencias, se coordina el acarreo de agua potable en camiones cisterna por los sectores afectados, mientras se atienden la distintas incidencias reportadas en la zona. La AAA continúa con los planes de trabajo y el personal designado con el fin de estabilizar el servicio de agua potable en Corozal.

Para finalizar, Berríos exhortó a hervir el agua destinada para consumo por al menos tres minutos una vez restablecido el servicio de agua potable.

By ALEXANDRA ALTER and ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

The details streaming from leaks and interview teasers in advance of Prince Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” have been sensational, even explosive. News organizations around the world have covered them breathlessly.

There’s Harry’s description of his brother, Prince William, knocking him to the floor during a fight, and Harry’s admission that he killed 25 people in Afghanistan. There’s also his claim that William and his wife, Kate, encouraged him to dress up as a Nazi, and his recollection of losing his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a bar.

A tell-all by a member of the British Royal Family was bound to be a nightmare to manage. Big books, widely anticipated books, will often leak, despite publishers’ best attempts to keep the process tightly orchestrated. But the contents of Harry’s memoir have been excavated to such a degree that it has raised the question: Will readers still be curious enough to buy the book?

So far, it looks like the answer is yes. The media frenzy seems to be driving interest in the memoir, which is due out Tuesday. “Spare” held the No. 1 spot on Amazon in the United States and Britain on Friday, as well as at Barnes & Noble. Booksellers and distributors said that preorders are enormous and growing with the avalanche of news coverage.

Still, the extraordinary volume of leaks highlighted the challenges, and perhaps the impossibility, of choreographing the release of what may be the most anticipated and divisive celebrity memoir of all time.

Many of the memoir’s eye-popping revelations have already spilled in leaks, and some of the most dramatic moments from the interviews Harry gave promoting the book have circulated online as teasers. This was all preceded by a six-part Netflix documentary, “Harry & Meghan,” which aired in December, and where Harry made incendiary accusations against his family, including a claim that his brother’s communications aides planted negative stories about his wife, Meghan Markle, in the London tabloids.

Despite the risk that blanket coverage could lead to Harry and Meghan fatigue, many booksellers expect the memoir to be

an unmitigated success. Random House has said it is printing 2.5 million hardcover copies for North America alone. Ingram, the book wholesaler, has 90,000 copies in its warehouses to restock stores that run out. ReaderLink, which distributes books to chain stores such as Target and Walmart, said it had ordered about 300,000 copies. Barnes & Noble has also ordered hundreds of thousands of copies.

James Daunt, who heads Barnes & Noble and British bookstore chain Waterstones, said that even the negative leaks have been driving up customer interest in “Spare,” and that he expects to see “the most extraordinary” first-day and first-week sales.

After The Guardian obtained a copy of the book and revealed some of its biggest bombshells, reservations for in-store purchases of the book shot up in Britain, he said.

“This one has really whipped up a level of press hysteria that I really struggle to think of one that’s comparable,” Daunt said.

Ever since Penguin Random House announced in 2021 that they had acquired a memoir by Harry — who stunned the world when he and his wife announced they were parting ways with the royal family — the book’s content has been the subject of intense speculation in the publishing world, in the British tabloids and among royal watchers.

Publishers often guard against leaks with strict embargoes, in some cases requiring anyone who works on the book, including typesetters and copy editors, to sign nondisclosure agreements. Retailers are often required to sign an affidavit agreeing to store books in a monitored, locked and secure area if they get copies before the onsale date. Some publishing executives even choose not to send highly anticipated books to airport bookstores because they tend to pay less attention to embargoes.

Matt Latimer, a founder of the literary

agency Javelin, which has handled many books by high-profile politicians, said he has never seen an embargoed book leak from within a publishing house or printing plant. It’s in the days before publication, when the books have to be put on trucks and shipped to stores, that the revelations start.

“I call this the danger zone,” Latimer said. “The week or two before publication, there is almost always a leak.”

A simultaneous international release complicates this delicate process further. “Spare” will be released in 16 languages at the same time, multiplying opportunities for leaks: In Spain, the book accidentally went on sale early Thursday.

Publishing executives say that leaks can be beneficial if they drive the right kind of media coverage and drum up interest in the book. During the Donald Trump era, some of the most explosive information in tell-all books by journalists and former administration officials often leaked out early and dominated cable news coverage for days, which catapulted titles to the top of the bestseller lists. But in some cases, books that are built around news nuggets can see their sales nose-dive after the news cycle is exhausted and the media has moved on.

It’s too soon to say whether the overall sales trajectory of Harry’s memoir will be affected by the steady drip of revelations. Many readers will buy the book for an intimate view of Harry’s life from his perspective, not just for bomblets of news. Harry has partnered with a highly regarded ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer, and a cascade of articles does not offer the same narrative journey as a well-crafted book. And his story, while ripe for tabloid fodder, also deals with universal themes such as race, class and the sometimes tortured relationships between brothers or between fathers and sons. The book’s title refers to a phrase that King Charles is reported to have used to refer to Harry, his second son, as his “spare,” or backup heir, since he had already secured an heir in Harry’s older brother.

“It’s ridiculous and it’s fun, but it’s also clearly going to be an interesting book that’s going to keep on selling and it’s going to keep on being part of the conversation,” said Daunt.

“We’re making a bet that this book has got legs,” he said. “It’s not going to be a flash in the pan.”

“All it does is build up this great excitement, which gets people into bookstores.”

The rollout of Prince Harry’s book is chaotic. Sales are still surging.

Copies of “Spare” were accidentally sold ahead of publication in Spain.

Diego Calva and the detour that took him to ‘Babylon’

By CARLOS AGUILAR

AVHS tape of “Peter and the Wolf,” the Disney animated short from 1946, played on repeat at home when Diego Calva was growing up in the 1990s.

Both terrified and tantalized by that first cinematic obsession as a child, Calva discovered the power of audiovisual storytelling in the unnerving leitmotif of the villainous wolf.

“Without being able to put in words, it made me realize that I was a little box of feelings and that movies could make them surface,” Calva explained, speaking in Spanish. “That hooked me.”

After only one major independent movie, the actor from Mexico City is now starring alongside Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie in his first megabudget American production: director Damien Chazelle’s silent-era revel “Babylon,” about the grotesque origins of the Hollywood film industry and why movies fascinate us.

Calva, 30, received a Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a musical or comedy for his performance as the Mexican-born Manny Torres, who slowly moves up the ranks in 1920s Hollywood — from catchall production assistant to influential producer.

His character functions as the story’s driving force: as both the link between Pitt’s and Robbie’s characters — two successful, often deranged actors — and as the viewer’s guide to this decadent world. Calva gives Manny an adoring naïveté about the movies, which fuels the character’s determination to become a part of them, even if his devotion eventually backfires.

While Calva worked hard to win the part, performing wasn’t his original dream. Long before Hollywood called, Calva had ambitions to become a writer-director, as he explained in an interview at a hotel in Beverly Hills. The tall, easygoing novice wore a preppy look composed of a gray sweater vest over a white T-shirt, black slacks and a pair of shiny black shoes.

From a young age, he surrounded himself with friends a few years older who were making short films. Like Manny, Calva helped out in miscellaneous positions behind the scenes of those independent shoots, whether it was catering or holding a boom mic.

On one such set, he was asked to step in for an actor who hadn’t shown up, which led to more jobs, mostly unpaid, in front of the camera. He eventually landed his first lead in a feature film, appearing in director Julio Hernández Cordón’s 2015 gay drama “I Promise You Anarchy,” a festival hit.

The story follows two male skateboarders in a tumultuous romance, as they become involved with criminals trafficking human blood on the black market.

On a friend’s recommendation, Hernández Cordón checked out Calva’s Facebook profile. Afterward, the director eagerly reached out to Calva, who had been skating since early adolescence.

“Within five minutes of meeting Diego, I knew he was

the right person for the part because of his confidence and charisma,” Hernández Cordón said on a video call from Mexico City.

That introduction to performing professionally, however, didn’t dazzle Calva enough to make him push his filmmaking aspirations aside.

He went on to enroll at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, one of Mexico’s preeminent film schools, to study directing. But to stay afloat financially, Calva took on acting work, which created a conflict with the institution’s policies.

Ultimately, he chose to leave the school and returned to acting full time, appearing on TV series and in supporting parts on the big screen, and putting on acting workshops for children.

It was during this period of doubt about his future that the opportunity to audition for the third season of the Netflix hit series “Narcos: Mexico” arrived. He aced it. And while playing real-life drug lord Arturo Beltrán Leyva on the show introduced him to production on a larger scale, Calva couldn’t anticipate what would soon come his way.

As Damien Chazelle searched, in late 2019, for a fresh face to star in “Babylon,” he came across Calva’s image amid

a stack of headshots. The Oscar-winning director was struck by the actor’s gaze.

“There was something of a dreamer in his eyes, something of a poet,” Chazelle said via video. “But I had no idea if he could act.”

The character he envisioned Calva for, Manny, is partly inspired by two Latin American filmmakers whose careers started to take off in the 1920s: Enrique Juan Vallejo, a Mexican cinematographer and director, and René Cardona, a prolific Cuban-born director.

Calva submitted several self-taped auditions and eventually met with Chazelle online during the early months of the COVID pandemic. The more intrigued Chazelle became by Calva, the more it also became apparent that the actor had limited experience and that his English needed work.

Chazelle and Olivia Hamilton, his wife and a producer of the film, “debated whether it was a gamble worth taking with Diego,” Chazelle said. “She had this full 100% unwavering belief in him.”

Several months into the casting process, Calva began to feel overwhelmed by the life-changing magnitude of the opportunity, which seemed closer to materializing but not yet certain. Aside from executing Chazelle’s increasingly specific notes about his line delivery, improving his English became a priority.

In late 2020, Calva finally traveled to Los Angeles to meet with Chazelle and Robbie, who would play Nellie LaRoy, a fictional starlet and Manny’s love interest.

Using his cellphone, Chazelle filmed the chemistry read between Calva and Robbie in his backyard. Their palpable energy convinced him that Calva could deliver on his potential.

“He had this kind of Al Pacino-level ability to command the camera without seeming to do anything,” Chazelle said. In fact, Pacino’s arc from innocence to corruption as Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” films served as a key reference for Calva’s turn.

Robbie admired Calva’s ability to improvise in his second language.

“It’s so transformative to act with him because he’s so present that you forget you’re doing a scene,” Robbie said. “He was the greatest scene partner I could ever wish for.”

As Manny rises in Hollywood, he loses perspective, even denying his Mexican identity and claiming to be from Spain. Calva, grounded in advice from his mother, whom he considers his best friend, said he believed that wouldn’t happen to him.

“I don’t want to lose my childlike outlook on life, my ability for wonder,” Calva said. “I want to remember the road back home and know that if I make mistakes I won’t lose myself.”

For now, Calva plans to remain in Mexico City and build his burgeoning career, but whenever he’s wanted on this side of the border, the actor will joyfully oblige.

“They invited me to this party,” Calva said with a hint of mischievous glee. “Getting me out of Hollywood is going to be difficult.”

The actor Diego Calva, in Los Angeles on Dec. 4, 2022. The “Babylon” star was once hoping to write or direct, rather than act.

36 hours in Sao Paulo, Brazil

By SETH KUGEL

São Paulo is a city for city people, where street art, street noise and street food cede, but only occasionally, to high design, high rollers and high-end restaurants. Thriving throughout are cultural institutions like the reopened Ipiranga Museum, a historical collection that questions history. Brazil’s biggest city has long attracted migrants and dreamers, making it a great place to explore the country’s kaleidoscopic variety of regional cuisines and musical genres. If crowded buses, clogged streets and 12 million people living in horizon-obliterating highrises is too mega a megacity for your taste, at least stay a few days, breathe in the culture, spit out the exhaust fumes and be on your way with stories to tell.

ITINERARY Friday

3 p.m. | Explore Brazil’s roots

Some 56% of Brazilians identified as Black or mixed race in 2021, and race relations here are as complex as they are in the United States, making the Afro-Brazil Museum in the city’s glorious Ibirapuera Park a must-see. The museum is at once an exuberant celebration of the contributions that the majority and their ancestors have made to the artistic, intellectual and economic life of the country, and a searing reminder — with the restored remains of a slave ship, instruments of torture and photographs of enslaved people — that Brazil was the last country in the Americas to fully abolish slavery, in 1888. Entry is 15 reais, or about $3.

5 p.m. | People-watch in the park

Stick around Ibirapuera, as there’s no better place to people-watch (or ride rental bikes, or drink coconut water) than the city’s gorgeous, democratic, monumental 400-acre central park, a magnet for Paulistanos of all backgrounds who come to walk their dogs, juggle their soccer balls, read their books and ride their skateboards all weekend long. Stroll the miles of paths, look for the Japanese Pavilion, as well as the Ibirapuera Auditorium and other works by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, and observe the city at play — you won’t see this much green again

for the rest of the weekend.

8 p.m. | Have dinner in the park

Dining al fresco in São Paulo is not always so fresco, often accompanied by a bouquet of exhaust from motorbike engines. Escape the ruckus at Selvagem, just inside Gate 5 of Ibirapuera Park. Chef Filipe Leite has turned what was once a snack bar into one of the city’s most compelling dining venues, especially at night, when the park is largely empty. The cuisine at Selvagem (which means “savage”) celebrates contemporary takes on traditional Brazilian dishes like seafood stew with heart of palm or manioc fritters with cream-cheese-like requeijão. For dessert, Julieta and Romeu (Juliet and Romeo) is a boursin-style sheep’s milk cheese with a dollop of guava ice cream. Dinner for two, about 500 reais, with drinks.

11 p.m. | Listen to live music

Picking a place to sample live Brazilian music in São Paulo is like choosing a taco stand in Mexico City. Leave the more mainstream nightlife neighborhoods of Pinheiros and the city center behind and head east to the traditionally Italian Mooca neighborhood to check out TemploBar de Fé, exuberantly decorated with images and statues of figures from many religions, including Christianity, Hindu-

ism and Afro-Brazilian Umbanda. Most nights feature samba groups, but Friday is devoted to sertanejo, the ultra-popular Brazilian version of country music. It’s a low-pressure, high-quality live music experience (entrance, 30 reais).

Saturday 10 a.m. | Shop for furniture

Pick up breakfast from Zestzing, a kinda-sorta French bakery with croissants (13 reais), and rich kouign-amann pastries originally from Brittany, but with toppings like peanut-brittle-like pé-de-moleque (17 reais). Then stroll through the Jardins district to Alameda Gabriel Monteiro da Silva. Nowhere can squat-but-curvy modernist Brazilian furniture be found in greater concentration than along this avenue. Your starting point is Dpot, where you’ll find furnishings from celebrated Brazilian designers like Sergio Rodrigues, Lina Bo Bardi and Carlos Motta. Then head south until you reach Dpot Objeto, which offers ceramics, pillows and other items that you can both afford and fit in your suitcase.

Noon | Test your taste buds

You can try just about any kind of Brazilian regional cuisine in São Paulo, from the fiery dishes of Salvador in the northeast to the hearty, porky soul food of Minas Gerais state. But until recently,

there was nowhere to try the cuisine from the Amazonian state of Acre. Arrive early for lunch at homey Casa Tucupi, named after the delightfully sour broth made from manioc root that forms the base of the must-try tacacá soup, served with mouthnumbing jambu leaves and shrimp (or mushrooms for vegetarians). Many of the dishes feature Amazonian river fish you’ll rarely or never see back home. Lunch for two is around 250 reais.

2 p.m. | Rethink history

According to traditional accounts, the soon-to-be-emperor Dom Pedro declared Brazilian independence beside the Ipiranga River on Sept. 7, 1822. A palace-like monument, built to commemorate the moment, eventually became the Ipiranga Museum. The museum closed in 2013 for repairs and recently reopened on Brazil’s bicentennial (Sept. 7). The exhibits are often contrarian, taking a sharply critical view of the way history is traditionally taught, down to the explanation of 19th-

Taraz is a reasonably priced restaurant in the pricey, new Rosewood São Paulo hotel, the first establishment to open in the once crumbling and vacant Cidade Matarazzo, a sprawling, beautiful landmark hospital complex, in São Paulo, Nov. 10, 2022.

Strolling outside the Museu do Ipiranga, a history museum that recently reopened after years of renovation, in São Paulo, Nov. 6, 2022.

century painter Pedro Américo’s roomsize painting “Independence or Death,” which depicts the moment when Dom Pedro, on horseback, declared independence from Portugal. Exhibits include household items, historic photos and a sound-and-light show projected onto a full-scale model of São Paulo in 1841. Free entry until Dec. 6, then 30 reais.

7 p.m. | Try a favorite dish: sushi São Paulo has the biggest ethnically Japanese population of any city outside Japan, so it is not a surprise that sushi competes with pizza and Lebanese esfihas for the most popular dish brought by 20th-century immigration. No one competes with Jun Sakamoto and his namesake restaurant for a high-end, low-key, Michelin-starred omakase experience for a reasonable 400 to 500 reais. Reserve at the bar well in advance and Jun himself may serve you luscious slices of tuna, salmon and mackerel and, perhaps, slightly sweet eel tempura with a touch of tongue-tingling sansho peppercorn.

10 p.m. | Have a fluid experience Casa Fluida opened last year in an eclectic space that welcomes a LGBTQ and straight crowd, making “fluid” an appropriate moniker. Same with “casa” — this is, indeed, a house, with three stories to explore with caipirinha or beer in hand while you view art exhibits, lounge on balconies or socialize in the stairwell. At 10 p.m. (Thursday to Saturday) comes the main event, an hourlong drag show featuring not just sassy pros but a brave layperson who pays 120 reais for a drag “experience” — including a two-hour makeup session upstairs with resident drag queen Mahina Starlight. She’ll help you choose an outfit, but you choose the song for your upcoming lip-sync performance (entrance, 5 reais).

Sunday

9:30 a.m. | Take an elevated walk

Following the worst tradition of 20th-century urban planning, the elevated highway cutting through a stretch of downtown São Paulo split neighborhoods in half and contributed to urban decay. The silver lining: These days what is officially the João Goulart Elevated Highway but is more commonly called, with tongue-in-cheek affection, the Minhocão (Big Worm), closes each weekend to traffic and opens up to cyclists and pedestrians who amble along, craning their necks to see glorious, massive works of art painted on the sides of high-rises. Enter near the Santa Cecília metro station, first making a pit stop at the nearby farmers market for traditional pastéis (fried Brazilian empanadas) and sugar cane juice.

10:30 a.m. | Indulge in sweets

Stock up on candy that you’ve never heard of — and that your friends back home will love — at Doces Santa Teresinha (Rua das Palmeiras 135, in the Santa Cecília area), one of dozens of bombonieres, or bonbon shops, in town. Some may like Bis, the poor man’s Kit Kat, or pé de moleque, the Brazilian peanut brittle. But the treat that creates lifelong addicts is paçoca, crumbly blocks of sweetened ground peanuts. A bucket of 20 will run you 37.75 reais, but you’d better get two, since the first will be gone before you get off the plane.

1 p.m. | Have a pan-Latin meal

From 1993 to 2021, Cidade Matarazzo, a sprawling landmark hospital complex in the Bela Vista neighborhood, stood vacant — beautiful but crumbling — amid some of the most expensive real estate in São Paulo. Last year, it began its next chapter when the Rosewood São Paulo became the first of its new establishments to open. Among the hotel’s pricey restaurants and bars, irresistible Taraz stands out as a more informal pan-Latin treat, casually elegant and reasonably priced. Among its delicious offerings are smoked rib sliders on

pão de queijo (Brazilian cheese buns). Should the weather cooperate, sit outdoors for live salsa amid a stylized orchard of olive trees. Lunch for two, about 400 reais.

KEY STOPS

Ipiranga Museum surveys Brazil’s history with a contrarian twist.

The Minhocão, an elevated highway, closes to weekend traffic, allowing pedestrians to admire provocative murals.

Selvagem, a restaurant in a park, specializes in updated traditional Brazilian dishes.

WHERE TO EAT

Zestzing puts a Brazilian spin on French pastries, perfect for breakfast on the run.

Casa Tucupi specializes in Amazonian food, including flavorful tacacá soup.

Jun Sakamoto excels in sushi — in a city with the biggest urban Japanese pop-

ulation outside Japan.

Taraz offers pan-Latin food in an elegant setting both inside and outside.

WHERE TO STAY

Rosewood São Paulo, which recently opened in the heart of the city, is filled with Indigenous art, historical photos and other Brazil-centric objects (rates start around 3,000 reais, or about $562).

At the sleek Renaissance São Paulo, just off Paulista Avenue in the trendy Jardins neighborhood, prices range widely by date, but recently started at around 1,300 reais.

Vila Galé Paulista, also off Paulista, is a moderately priced option, with comfortable, modern rooms from about 570 reais a night.

Vacation rentals are popular in São Paulo; look for spots in trendy Pinheiros or homey Vila Mariana for as little as $30 a night.

A scenic walking bridge in São Paulo’s monumental, 400-acre Ibirapuera Park, Nov. 6, 2022.

USDA approves fi rst vaccine for honeybees

By REMY TUMIN

Abiotech company in Georgia has received conditional approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the first vaccine for honeybees, a move scientists say could help pave the way for controlling a range of viruses and pests that have decimated the global population. It is the first vaccine approved for any insect in the United States.

The company, Dalan Animal Health, which is based in Athens, Georgia, developed a prophylactic vaccine that protects honeybees from American foulbrood, an aggressive bacterium that can spread quickly from hive to hive. Previous treatments included burning infected colonies and all of the associated equipment, or using antibiotics. Diamond Animal Health, a manufacturer that is collaborating with Dalan, holds the conditional license.

Dalail Freitak, an associate professor in honeybee research at Karl-Franzens University of Graz in Austria and chief science officer for Dalan, said the vaccine could help change the way scientists approach animal health.

“There are millions of beehives all over the world, and they don’t have a good health care system compared to other animals,” she said. “Now we have the tools to improve their resistance against diseases.”

Before you start imagining a tiny syringe being inserted into a bee, the vaccine, which contains dead versions of the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae, comes in the form of food. The vaccine is incorporated into royal jelly, a sugar feed given to queen bees. Once they ingest it, the vaccine is then deposited in their ovaries, giving developing larvae immunity as they hatch.

Scientists long assumed that insects could not acquire immunity because they lacked antibodies, the proteins that help many animals’ immune systems recognize and fight bacteria and viruses. Once scientists understood that insects could indeed acquire immunity and pass it to their offspring, Freitak set about answering the question of how they did so. In 2015, she and two other researchers identified the specific protein that prompts an immune response in the offspring and realized they could cultivate immunity in a bee population with a single queen.

Their first goal was tackling American foulbrood, a bacterial disease that turns larvae dark brown and makes the hive give off a rotting smell. The disease ran rampant during the 1800s and the early 1900s in bee colonies in parts of the United States. While American foulbrood is not as destructive as varroa mites, the bacterium can easily wipe out colonies of 60,000 bees.

The introduction of a vaccine comes at a critical moment for honeybees, which are vital to the world’s food system but are also declining globally because of climate change, pesticides, habitat loss and disease.

“There is no silver bullet, but there is a toxic stew of causation, and some of that includes diseases that are new

and some that are old and familiar,” said Keith Delaplane, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia and the director of its honeybee program, which provided research grounds for Dalan. “It’s death by a thousand cuts.”

By pollinating food as they feed on pollen and nectar, honeybees pollinate about one-third of the food crops in the United States and help produce an estimated $15 billion worth of crops in the United States each year. Many beekeepers lease their hives across the country to assist in pollination of almonds, pears, cherries, apples and other types of produce.

At least three-quarters of flowering plants require the assistance of pollinators, including bees, butterflies and moths, to produce fruit and seeds.

Chris Hiatt, who keeps bees in North Dakota and California and is the president of the American Honey Producers Association, participated in the vaccine trial over the summer with about 800 queen bees in North Dakota.

“For beekeepers, you just don’t want to be reliant on antibiotics,” which most beekeepers give once a year or when there are flare-ups, he said. “Antibiotics can wipe out some of the beneficial microbes. This has the potential to add other things, too.”

Annette Kleiser, the CEO of Dalan, called the vaccine “a huge breakthrough.”

“Bees are livestock and should have the same modern

tools to care for them and protect them that we have for our chickens, cats, dogs and so on,” Kleiser said.

The conditional approval provides a mechanism that allows companies to accelerate approval for vaccines if they demonstrate there is a high, unmet need in the market, Kleiser said.

“The agency realizes that these new tools are needed in the market to help change practices,” Kleiser said, adding that the USDA had recommended that the company pursue a conditional path “to get this out onto the marketplace as quickly as possible.”

Kleiser said the company had to show proof of “safety, purity and certain degrees of efficacy” to gain approval and that it planned to continue collecting data while it applied for full approval. Dalan also hopes to use the American foulbrood vaccine as a map to produce vaccines for other diseases that affect honeybees.

“When we started, there was no regulatory path,” she said. “No one has ever developed an insect vaccine; they’re wild animals who fly around,” compared to domesticated livestock and pets with vaccine protocols. She added, “We’re really hoping we’re going to change the industry now.”

Delaplane, the entomologist at the University of Georgia, agreed.

“Someday,” he said, “we could have a cocktail that solves a lot of bee problems. That would be the holy grail.”

A conditional license for a vaccine to protect honeybees against American foulbrood disease has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMER INSTANCIA SALA DE SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO GOBIERNO MUNICIPAL AUTÓNOMO DE FAJARDO, REPRESENTADO POR SU ALCALDE, JOSÉ A. MELÉNDEZ MÉNDEZ

Peticionario V. ADQUISICIÓN DE FINCA 3,869 DE LA CALLE AMPARO, DEL TÉRMINO MUNICIPAL DE FAJARDO; PETRA GUERRA CARRERAS, ET ALS.

Partes con Interés

Civil Núm.: FA2022CV00761.

Sobre: EXPROPIACIÓN FORZOSA. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: PETRA GUERRA CARRERAS Y/O

CUALQUIER PERSONA CON ALGÚN POSIBLE INTERÉS.

Se le emplaza y notifica que, con el fin público de erradicar el abandono y peligrosidad de propiedades declaradas estorbos públicos, el Municipio de Fajardo ha radicado en esta Secretaría una Petición de Expropiación Forzosa al amparo de la Ley General de Expropiación Forzosa del 12 de marzo de 1903, según enmendada, la Ley Núm. 107 de 14 de agosto de 2020 conocida como el Código Municipal de Puerto Rico, en su Artículo 2.018 [21 L.P.R.A. § 7183]; la Ordenanza Número 26, Serie 2014-2015, aprobada por la Legislatura Municipal de Fajardo, Puerto Rico el 4 de septiembre de 2014 y firmada por el su Alcalde el día 30 del mismo mes; y, la Ordenanza Número 13, Serie 2021-2022, aprobada por la Legislatura Municipal el 4 de noviembre de 2021 y por el que suscribe el día 28 del mismo mes; para adquirir la siguiente Finca: “URBANA: Solar radicado en la Calle AMPARO del Municipio de Fajardo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 113.40 metros cuadrados.

En lindes por el NORTE, en 13.50 metros, con un solar ocupado por Emilia Guerra; por el SUR, en 13.50 metros, con un solar ocupado por Monserrate Carreras; por el ESTE, en 8.40 metros, con solar ocupado por Zoila Difré y por el OESTE, en 8.40 metros, con la calle Amparo. FINCA 3,869, INSCRITA al FOLIO 35 del TOMO 123 de Fajardo. Catastro Número: 150-

046-044-21-001. Existiendo una Deficiencia de Deficiencia de $566.06 por gastos de limpieza, se consignó $9,433.94 por la expropiación de la propiedad que tasó $10,000.00. No habiéndose podido emplazar personalmente a las partes con interés antes relacionadas, por desconocer su paradero, este Tribunal ha ordenado que se le emplace por edicto, el cual se publicará una (1) vez por semana, durante tres (3) semanas consecutivas en un periódico de circulación diaria en Puerto Rico. Se le notifica que, si usted desea presentar objeción o defensa a la incautación de las estructuras descritas, debe presentar su contestación en este Tribunal dentro del término de 30 DÍAS, contados a partir de la última publicación de este edicto, debiendo notificar con copia de la misma a la parte peticionaria, a través de la LCDA. JOSEPHINE M. RODRÍGUEZ RÍOS - RUA 15,736: PO BOX 889 FAJARDO, PR 00728 Email: josephine.rodriguez@ gmail.com. Este Tribunal ha señalado la vista del caso el día 30 de marzo de 2023 a las 10:00 de la mañana, mediante videoconferencia, en cuyo día se determinará el justo valor de la propiedad y las partes a ser compensadas. A dicha vista podrá usted comparecer y ofrecer prueba de valoración, aunque no haya contestado la petición. De no comparecer, el Tribunal dictará Sentencia declarando CON LUGAR la Petición de Expropiación Forzosa en todas sus partes, sin más citación ni vista. Las partes deberán proveer mediante correo electrónico (Ana.DeJesus@poderjudicial.pr) su nombre, número de teléfono y correo electrónico al cual se le estará enviando el enlace de la vista. Expedida por Orden del Tribunal, en Fajardo, Puerto Rico a 14 de diciembre de 2022. WANDA I. SEGUÍ REYES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. LINDA I. MEDINA, SUB-SECRETARIA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMER INSTANCIA SALA DE SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO GOBIERNO MUNICIPAL AUTÓNOMO DE FAJARDO, REPRESENTADO POR SU ALCALDE, JOSÉ A. MELÉNDEZ MÉNDEZ

Peticionario V. ADQUISICIÓN DE FINCA 17975 DE LA CALLE AMPARO, DEL TÉRMINO MUNICIPAL DE FAJARDO; JESÚS MOLINA TORRES,

CARMEN CALDERÓN GUTIÉRREZ, ET ALS.

Parte con Interés Civil Núm.: FA2022CV00739.

Sobre: EXPROPIACIÓN FORZOSA. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: JESÚS MOUNA TORRES, CARMEN CALDERÓN GUTIÉRREZ, LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS Y/O CUALQUIER PERSONA CON ALGÚN POSIBLE INTERÉS.

Se le emplaza y notifica que, con el fin público de erradicar el abandono y peligrosidad de propiedades declaradas estorbos públicos, el Municipio de Fajardo ha radicado en esta Secretaría una Petición de Expropiación Forzosa al amparo de la Ley General de Expropiación Forzosa del 12 de marzo de 1903, según enmendada, la Ley Núm. 107 de 14 de agosto de 2020 conocida como el Código Municipal de Puerto Rico, en su Artículo 2.018 [21 L.P.R.A. §7183]; la Ordenanza Número 26, Serie 2014-2015, aprobada por la Legislatura Municipal de Fajardo, Puerto Rico el 4 de septiembre de 2014 y firmada por el su Alcalde el día 30 del mismo mes; y, la Ordenanza Número 13, Serie 2021-2022, aprobada por la Legislatura Municipal el 4 de noviembre de 2021 y por el que suscribe el día 28 del mismo mes; para adquirir la siguiente Finca: “URBANA: Solar radicado en la Calle AMPARO número ciento sesenta y ocho (168) de Fajardo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de ciento cuarenta y siete (147) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en siete punto quince (7.15) metros con la Corporación de Renovación Urbana y Vivienda; por el SUR, en siete punto setenta (7.70) metros con la calle Amparo; por el ESTE, en veinte (20.00) metros con la Sucesión Gota y; y, por el OESTE, en veinte (20.00) metros con un solar ocupado por Antonio De León. FINCA NÚMERO 17,975, INSCRITA al FOLIO 49 del TOMO 464 de Fajardo. Catastro Número: 150046-036-39-001. Existiendo una Deficiencia de Deficiencia de $1,132.47, no se ha consignado cantidad alguna por la adquisición de dicha propiedad, la cual se tasó en $8,000.00. No habiéndose podido emplazar personalmente a las partes con interés antes relacionadas, por desconocer su paradero, este

Tribunal ha ordenado que se le emplace por edicto, el cual se publicará una (1) vez por semana, durante tres (3) semanas consecutivas en un periódico de circulación diaria en Puerto Rico. Se le notifica que, si usted desea presentar objeción o defensa a la incautación de las estructuras descritas, debe presentar su contestación en este Tribunal dentro del término de 30 DÍAS, contados a partir de la última publicación de este edicto, debiendo notificar con copia de la misma a la parte peticionaria, a través de la LCDA. JOSEPHINE M. RODRÍGUEZ RÍOS - RUA 15,736: PO BOX 889 FAJARDO, PR 00728 Email: josephine.rodriguez@ gmail.com. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a la Petición de Expropiación Forzosa dentro de los TREINTA (30) DÍAS contados a partir de la última publicación de este edicto, a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, 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 alegación responsiva 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. Este Tribunal ha señalado el caso para el día 16 de febrero de 2023 a las 2:00 de la tarde, mediante videoconferencia, en cuyo día se determinará el justo valor de la propiedad y las partes a ser compensadas. A dicha vista podrá usted comparecer y ofrecer prueba de valoración, aunque no haya contestado la petición. De no comparecer, el Tribunal dictará Sentencia declarando CON LUGAR la Petición de Expropiación Forzosa en todas sus partes, sin más citación ni vista. Expedida por Orden del Tribunal, en Fajardo, Puerto Rico a 8 de diciembre de 2022. WANDA I. SEGUÍ REYES, SECRETARIA INTERINA. KATHERINE ROBLES TORRES, SUB-SECRETARIA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE BAYAMÓN BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

SUCESIÓN DE ANTONIO OMAR MUÑIZ MARTÍNEZ, Y SUCESIÓN DE CARMEN MARÍA CABRERA ACARON T/C/C CARMEN MARÍA CABRERO ACARON, AMBAS COMPUESTAS POR SUS HEREDEROS: CARMEN MARÍA MUÑIZ CABRERA T/C/C CARMEN MARÍA MUÑIZ CABRERO; “JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE” COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE ANTONIO OMAR MUÑIZ MARTÍNEZ; “JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE” COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE CARMEN MARÍA CABRERA ACARON T/C/C CARMEN MARÍA CABRERO ACARON; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (C.R.I.M.)

Demandados Civil Núm.: BY2022CV01836. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hago saber, a la parte demandada y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL: Que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 15 de diciembre de 2022, 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: Propiedad Horizontal: Apartamento número ciento uno “B” (101-B): Apartamento individualizado de forma irregular de concreto armado y bloques de hormigón de uso residencial identificado con el número ciento uno “B” (101-B) y localizado en la Primera planta del Edificio “B” de Riberas del Río Gardens Apartments. Tiene una cabida superficial de ciento diez punto veinte metros cuadrados (110.20) y consta de una sala-comedor, una cocina, tres dormitorios, dos baños y un balcón. Sus linderos son: Por el NORTE, en 13 metros, con elementos comunes; por el SUR, en igual distancia con

el Apartamento 102-B, escalera común y elementos comunes; por el ESTE, en 9.169 metros, con elementos comunes y escalera común; y por el OESTE, en 9.169 metros, con elementos comunes. La puerta principal está localizada en la parte Oeste del inmueble. Le corresponde el estacionamiento 101-B. Tiene una participación en los elementos comunes del Condominio de 1.28205%.

Inscrita en la finca número 66,331, al folio 121 del tomo 1,506 de Bayamón Sur. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección I de Bayamón. La propiedad ubica según pagaré en: 101 B Apt. Riberas del Río, Bayamón, PR. Además, el Alguacil que suscribe, hago saber a todos los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o de los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, siempre que surjan de la certificación registral, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante: Aviso de Demanda de fecha 5 de noviembre de 2019, expedido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, en el caso civil ntimero BY2019CV06516, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca, seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, contra Carmen Maria Cabrera (asi surge) Acaron por sí y como miembro de la Sucesión de Antonio Omar Muñiz Martínez, compuesta además por Carmen Muñiz Cabrero (asi surge), John Doe y Richard Doe como posibles herederos desconocidos; Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales, por la suma de $94,522.54 más intereses, anotado el día 4 de diciembre de 2019, al tomo Karibe de Bayamón Sur, finca ntimero 66,331, Anotación A. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada y notificada el 7 de noviembre de 2022 siendo publicada en un periódico de circulación general de Puerto Rico (“The San Juan Daily Star”) el 10 de noviembre de 2022 en el presente

caso civil, a saber la suma de $96,307.54 por concepto de principal; generando intereses a razón de 5.625% desde el 1ro de diciembre de 2018; cargos por demora los cuales al igual que los intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda reclamada en este pleito, y la suma de $9,520.00 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 13 DE FEBRERO DE 2023

A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el cuarto piso, Oficina de Alguaciles de Subastas de Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA es de $95,200.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 27 DE FEBRERO DE 2023 A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $63,466.66, 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 6 DE MARZO DE 2023 A LAS 11:15

DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $47,600.00, 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 Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 22 de diciembre de 2022. Maribel Lanzar Velázquez, Alguacil Placa #735, División De Subastas, Tribunal De Primera Instancia, Sala Superior De Bayamón.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante Vs. SHALIMAR

CORUJO VÁZQUEZ

Demandados Civil Núm.: FCD2017-0336. Sala: 408. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (VÍA ORDINARIA).

EDICTO DE SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente CERTIFICA, ANUNCIA y hace CONSTAR: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que le ha sido dirigido al Alguacil que suscribe por la Secretaría del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA, SALA

DRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. KEILA GARCÍA SOLÍS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

WILMINGTON SAVINGS FUND SOCIETY, FSB, D/B/A CHRISTIANA TRUST, AS INDENTURE TRUSTEE, FOR THE CSMC 2015-PR1 TRUST, MORTGAGE-BACKED NOTES, SERIES 2015-PR1 Plaintiff V. GLADYVIRG RIVERA

JIMENEZ, ALSO KNOWN AS GLADYVING RIVERA JIMENEZ

Defendant(s) Civil No.: 3:18-CV-01978. (FAB). FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE AND COLLECTION OF MONIES. NOTICE OF SALE.

To: GLADYVIRG RIVERA JIMENEZ, ALSO KNOWN AS GLADYVING RIVERA JIMENEZ. APT. 1303-B, COND. PARQUE DE SAN FRANCISCO, BAYAMÓN, PR 00959; APT. 1303 B BOX 126, BAYAMÓN, PUERTO RICO 00959.

THE GENERAL PUBLIC. WHEREAS: On March 23, 2022, this Court entered Default Judgment in favor of Plaintiff, against Defendant. On August 10, 2022, this Court entered Order for Execution of Judgment, stating that Defendant has failed to pay the sums of monies adjudged to be paid under the judgment. The In the Judgment, this Court stated that Defendant has defaulted on the repayment obligation to WILMINGTON SAVINGS FUND SOCIETY, FSB, D/B/A CHRISTIANA TRUST, AS INDENTURE TRUSTEE, FOR THE CSMC 2015-PR1 TRUST, MORTGAGE-BACKED NOTES, SERIES 2015PR1, and ordered to pay the Plaintiff the principal sum of ONE HUNDRED TWO THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR DOLLARS AND THIRTY-TWO CENTS ($102,334.32), plus interest at 7.000% per annum from January 1, 2016, which will continue to accrue interest at the contractual rate. The defendant also owes and the Court ordered to pay Wilmington Savings all advances made in accordance with the mortgage note, including, but not limited to, insurance premiums, taxes and inspections, as well as 10% of the original principal balance, or $9,500.00, to cover costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees guaranteed by the mortgage obligation. The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by the par-

ties at the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Federal Building, Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. WHERAEAS, Pursuant to the terms of the aforementioned judgment and the order of execution thereof, the following property belonging to Defendant will be sold at a public auction: HORIZONTAL PROPERTY: San Francisco Condominium, Apartment B-1303: Rectangular shape, three bedroom unit with a total construction area of 865.46 square feet, equivalent to 80.40 square meters, distributed in 798.06 square feet, equivalent to 74.14 square meters of enclosed area and 67.40 square feet, equivalent to 6.26 square meters of porch. The main entrance is located on the South side. This apartment is located in Building B of the Condominium and occupies part of the thirteenth floor of the building. The maximum length of this unit is 25’5” and the maximum width is 44’4”. Its boundaries all: by the NORTH, in a distance of 44’4”, equivalent to 13.52 meters, with the common wall that separates it from apartment number 1304 and the common interior areas; by the SOUTH, in a distance of 44’4”, equivalent to 13.52 meters with exterior common areas; by the EAST, in a distance of 24’1”, equivalent to 7.34 meter with the common wall that separates it from apartment number 1302 and interior and exterior common areas and by the WEST, in a distance of 25’3”, equivalent to 7.70 meters with the exterior common areas. This unit contains a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, three bedrooms with closet, two bathrooms and a covered porch. Se le asigna a este apartamento el estacionamiento número 85 como elemento común limitado. Este apartamento tiene una participación de .61792% en los elementos comunes del condominio. Property recorded at page 61, volume 1708 of Bayamón Sur, property number 71489, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section I of Bayamón. WHEREAS: The property is subject to the following lien: HIPOTECA en garantía de pagaré a favor de RG Premier Bank de Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma de $95,000.00 con intereses al 7.00% anual y vencimiento 1ro de agosto de 2036. Constituida por la Escritura 571 otorgada en San Juan el 31 de julio de 2006 ante el notario Antonio

José Cruz Bonilla, e inscrita y extendido su asiento abreviado el 4 de mayo de 2011 bajo la Ley 216 del 27 de diciembre de 2010 para Agilizar el Registro de La Propiedad, al folio 161 del tomo 1846 de Bayamón Sur, finca 71489, inscripción 5ª. AMPLIADA en una suma adicional de $12,209.77 y MODIFICADA en cuanto a su interés

y vencimiento, siendo ahora su principal por $107,209.77 con intereses al 7.00% anual y vencimiento 1ro de enero de 2042, según consta de la escritura 12 otorgada en San Juan el 20 de enero de 2012 ante la notario Ileana Quintero Aguiló, e inscrita al folio 161 del tomo 1846 de Bayamón Sur, finca 71489, inscripción 6ª. Senior Lien: None.

The above-described property is subject to the following junior lien: HIPOTECA en garantía de pagaré a favor de la Corporación para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda de Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma de $24,700.00 sin intereses y vencimiento 20 años. Constituida por la Escritura 48 otorgada en San Juan el 23 de enero de 2001 ante el notario Miguel A. García Rivera, e inscrita al folio 62 del tomo 1708 de Bayamón Sur, finca 71489, inscripción 2ª. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential lien with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential lien to the one being foreclosed upon, including but not limited to any property tax, lien (express, tacit, implied or legal), shall continue in effect it being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation. The present property will be acquired free and clear of all junior liens. WHEREAS: For the purpose of the First Judicial Sale, the minimum bid agreed upon by the parties in the mortgage deed will be $107,209.77 for the property and no lower offers will be accepted. Should the first judicial sale of the abovedescribed property be unsuccessful, then the minimum bid for the property on the Second Judicial Sale will be two-thirds of the amount of the minimum bid for the First Judicial Sale, or $71,473.18. The minimum bid for the Third Judicial Sale, if the same is necessary, will be onehalf of the minimum bid agreed upon by the parties in the aforementioned mortgage deed, or $53,604.89 (Known in the Spanish language as: “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmobiliaria del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, 2015 Puerto Rico Laws Act 210 (H.B. 2479), Article 104, as amended. WHEREAS: Said sale to be made by the appointed Special Master is subject to confirmation by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of conveyance and possession to the property will be executed and delivered only after such confirmation. NOW

THREFORE, public notice is hereby given that the appointed Special Master, pursuant to the provisions of the Judgment herein before referred to, will on

FEBRUARY 3, 2023 AT 10:45 AM, in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150, Federal Building, Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 2001 will sell at public auction to the highest bidder, the property described herein, the proceeds of said sale to be applied in the manner and form provided by the Court’s judgment. Should the first judicial sale set hereinabove be unsuccessful, the SECOND JUDICIAL SALE of the property describes in the Notice will be held on FEBRUARY 10, 2023 AT 10:45 AM, in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court located at the address indicated above. Should the second judicial sale set hereinabove be unsuccessful, the THIRD JUDICIAL SALE of the property described in this Notice will be held on FEBRUARY 17, 2023 AT 10:45 AM, in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court located at the address indicated above. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 28 day of December 2022. JOEL RONDA FELICIANO, APPOINTED SPECIAL MASTER.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE FAJARDO SALA SUPERIOR BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante Vs. LA SUCESION DE SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ PAGAN COMPUESTA POR IRIS GONZALEZ CUPEREZ; MAYRA RODRIGUEZ MONTES, NYDIA RODRIGUEZ MONTES, SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ MONTES, DESIRE RODRIGUEZ MONTES, LEONARDO SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ ANDINO; FULANO Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

Demandados Civil Núm.: FA2022CV00915.

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

A La Parte CoDemandada: A) DESIRE RODRIGUEZ MONTES COMO MIEMBRO DE LA

SUCESIÓN DE SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ PAGáN, A LAS SIGUIENTES DIRECCIONES: (A) COND. HILLSIDE VILLAGE EDIFICIO OLAS APT. D-302 RIO GRANDE, PR 00745; (B) PO BOX 11968 CAPARRA HEIGHTS STATION SAN JUAN, PR 00922-1968; (C) URB. COCO BEACH #439 CALLE BAHIA RIO GRANDE, PR 00745; (D) #207 CALLE ACACIA URB. BOSQUELLANO SAN LORENZO, PR 00754; (E) URB. MONTE LLANO E-33 CALLE JAGUEY SAN LORENZO, PR 00754; (F) URB. BOSQUE LLANO E-33 CALLE JAGUEY SAN LORENZO, PR 00754. Por la presente se le(s) notifica que se ha radicado en la Secretaría de este Tribunal una Demanda en Cobro y Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en contra de la La Sucesión de Samuel Rodríguez Pagán, en la cual se alega que adeuda a la parte demandante por concepto de hipoteca la suma de $202,732.93 por concepto de principal, desde el 1ro de mayo de 2013, más intereses al tipo pactado de 5.75% anual que continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la obligación. Además, La Sucesión de Samuel Rodríguez Pagán adeuda a la parte demandante los cargos por demora equivalentes a 5.00% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha de vencimiento; los créditos accesorios y adelantos hechos en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca; y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado equivalentes a $20,800.00. Además La Sucesión de Samuel Rodríguez Pagán se comprometió a pagar una suma equivalente a $20,800.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca y una suma equivalente a $20,800.00 para cubrir cualquiera otros adelantos que se hagan en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca número 80, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 20 de abril de 2011, ante la notario José E. Franco Gómez, inscrita al Folio 144 del Tomo 481 de Río Grande, finca número 25,970, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Tercera. Por razón de dicho incumplimiento, y al amparo del derecho que le confiere el Pagaré, el demandante ha declarado tales sumas vencidas, líquidas y exigibles en su totalidad. Este Tribunal ha ordenado que se le(s) cite a usted(es) por edicto que se publicará una

sola vez en un periódico de circulación general. Quedan emplazados y notificados de que en este Tribunal se ha radicado una demanda enmendada en su contra. Se les ordena a que dentro del término de treinta (30) días, a partir de la notificación de la presente Orden, acepten o repudien la participación que les corresponda en la herencia de Samuel Rodriguez Pagán. Los co-demandados miembros de La Sucesión de Samuel Rodriguez Pagán se incluyen en la demanda enmendada ya que como herederos responden por las cargas de la herencia según lo dispuesto en Nuestro Ordenamiento Jurídico. Se les apercibe y notifica que, de no expresarse dentro de ese término de 30 días en torno a su aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la herencia se tendrá por aceptada. También se les apercibe que luego del transcurso del término de 30 días antes señalado contados a partir de la fecha de la notificación de la presente Orden, se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia del causante y, por consiguiente, responden por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme el Artículo 1578 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. 2785. Se ordena a la parte demandante a que, en vista de que La Sucesión de Samuel Rodríguez Pagán, se incluye a los herederos y herederos desconocidos de Samuel Rodríguez Pagán denominados Desire Rodríguez Montes, como miembro de La Sucesión de Samuel Rodríguez Pagán, proceda a notificar la presente Orden mediante publicación de un edicto a esos efectos una sola vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de la Isla de Puerto Rico. Se le(s) emplaza y requiere que dentro de los sesenta (60) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto excluyendo el día de la publicación de este edicto conteste(n) la demanda radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la Contestación de la Demanda a las oficinas de CARDONA & MALDONADO LAW OFFICES, P.S.C. ATENCION al Lcdo.

Duncan Maldonado Ejarque, P.O. Box 366221, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-6221; Tel (787) 622-7000, Fax (787) 6257001, Abogado de la Parte Demandante. 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, po-

drá dictarse contra usted(es) Sentencia en Rebeldía, concediéndose el remedio solicitado sin más citarle(s) ni oírle(s). EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y con el Sello del Tribunal. DADA hoy 4 de enero de 2023, en Fajardo, Puerto Rico. WANDA I. SEGUÍ REYES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. LINDA I. MEDINA MEDINA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS

ORIENTAL BANK

Parte Demandante V. GREGORIO ROSADO TORRES, EMMA RUTH SEDA FIGUEROA Y LA SOCIEDAD

LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: CG2022CV01000.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA.

LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, hago saber a la parte demandada, GREGORIO ROSADO TORRES, EMMA RUTH SEDA FIGUEROA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; Y AL PÚBLICO EN GENERAL que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el 1 de agosto de 2022, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor pagadero en efectivo, cheque de gerente o giro postal, a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal, la siguiente propiedad con dirección física: [Urb. Hacienda Borinquen A5 Calle Almendro, Caguas, PR 00725] y que se describe como sigue: URBANA: Solar radicado en la Urbanización Hacienda Borinquen, situada en el Barrio Tomás de Castro, jurisdicción de Caguas, Puerto Rico, que se describe en el plano de inscripción de la urbanización con el número, área y colindancias que se relacionan a continuación: Solar 5 Bloque A, Área del solar: 510.87 MC. En lindes por el NORTE, en una distancia de 2.15 metros, 20.07 metros y 2.58 metros en arco con la “State Road PR 789”, por el SUR, en una distancia de 7.34 metros en arco con la Calle Almendro de la Urbanización, por el ESTE, en una distancia de 36.55 metros con el Solar 6 del Bloque A de la Urbanización, y por el OESTE, en una distancia de 29.16 me-

tros, con el Solar 4 del Bloque A de la Urbanización. Enclava estructura dedicada a vivienda. Finca número 64501, inscrita al tomo digital Karibe, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección Primera. La finca antes descrita se encuentra afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: (i) Hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré a favor de World Mortgage Corporation, h/n/c World Mortgage Bankers, o a su orden, por la suma de $289,000.00, con intereses al 6.00% anual y vencimiento 1 de septiembre de 2036. Constituida mediante la escritura 239 otorgada en San Juan el 31 de agosto de 2006 ante el notario Félix J. Santiago García. Inscrita el 18 de febrero de 2022 al Tomo Karibe, finca 64,501 de Caguas, inscripción 2da. La hipoteca objeto de esta ejecución es la que ha quedado descrita en el inciso (i). Será celebrada la subasta para con el importe de la misma satisfacer la sentencia dictada el 13 de junio de 2022, mediante la cual se condenó a la parte demandada pagar a la parte demandante la cantidad ascendiente a En dicha sentencia, se determinó que la parte demandada, adeuda a la parte demandante la suma de $216,820.46 de principal, más $7,516.44 a intereses acumulados, que continuarán acumulándose al 6.00% anual hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más $519.84 a cargos por demora, más $3,522.58 a otros cargos, más $28,900.00 de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, según pactado, más cualquier otro desembolso que haya efectuado o efectúe la parte demandante durante la tramitación de este caso para otros adelantos de conformidad con el Contrato Hipotecario.

La PRIMERA SUBASTA será celebrada el día 7 DE FEBRERO DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de CAGUAS, Puerto Rico. Servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma, la cantidad de $289,000.00 sin admitirse oferta inferior. De no haber remate ni adjudicación, celebraré SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 14 DE FEBRERO DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la que servirá como tipo mínimo, dos terceras (2/3) partes del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $192,666.67. Si no hubiese remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, celebraré TERCERA SUBASTA el 22 DE FEBRERO DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA DE 2023, en el mismo lugar en la que regirá como tipo mínimo, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $144,500.00. El Alguacil que suscribe hizo constar que toda licitación deberá hacerse para pagar su importe en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, de acuerdo con la Ley y de acuerdo con lo anunciado

Crawford wants to fight Spence. Jaron Ennis may get to face him first.

By MORGAN CAMPBELL

Welterweight boxing contender Jaron Ennis has 30 wins, 27 knockouts and one simple request: to face an opponent who can withstand his punches. Fulfilling it is trickier than it seems.

Sergey Lipinets, a rugged Russian boxer, was supposed to be such a foe. Ennis, a fast-handed puncher from Philadelphia, dismantled him in six rounds in April 2021, dropping Lipinets with a thunderous right hook and left hand. The referee waved the fight off without even counting.

In May, Custio Clayton came into a bout against Ennis with an unblemished record and Olympic pedigree, having represented Canada in 2012. Ennis starched him in two rounds, knocking Clayton woozy with a looping right hand to the ear.

Even after a lopsided unanimous decision victory over defensive-minded Ukrainian contender Karen Chukhadzhian on Saturday night in Washington, D.C., Ennis reckons boxing fans have seen only a fraction of his skill set. He said the two welterweights he has targeted for later this year are durable enough to bring the best out of him. Those fighters, Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford, would be on his ideal schedule for 2023.

Spence (28-0, 22 knockouts) owns welterweight titles from three of the four major sanctioning bodies, while Crawford (39-0, 30 knockouts) has the fourth belt. They are the principals in a hypothetical super fight that has been discussed, debated and negotiated but never finalized. Fans and media have clamored for the bout, and Crawford and Spence each profess to want a showdown later this year.

But Ennis has the boxing-industry leverage to disrupt those plans.

The International Boxing Federation has ordered the winner of Spence’s springtime bout with Keith Thurman to face Ennis or vacate the title. Ennis also has a broadcast contract with the cable network Showtime, which would simplify negotiations for bouts against the Showtime-aligned boxers Spence and

Thurman.

Neither bout would be the matchup fans have most coveted, but given Ennis’ relentless rise and the delays in pairing Spence and Crawford, it might be the title bout the public receives.

“They’re just holding it up,” Ennis, who is nicknamed Boots, said in a recent interview, referring to Spence and Crawford.

He continued, “Hopefully they do fight each other. If not, so be it. They need to fight me or go ahead and move up to 154,” he said, referring to the next weight class, super welterweight.

In this sense, pro boxing resembles major college football in 1997. Spence and Crawford are that year’s Michigan and Nebraska, who both finished with undefeated records and atop a major poll and ended up being considered national champions without playing each other.

Ennis, however, is more like Central Florida in 2017: undefeated but shut out of the title chase.

For now.

“We’re gonna deal with them,” said Derek Ennis, Jaron’s father and trainer. “Knock them off till they come to their senses. You either fight us or you move up. One or the other.”

For his part, Chukhadzhian (21-2, 11 knockouts), a Ukrainian who is now based in Germany, insisted he signed to

fight Jaron Ennis because he believed he could win.

“I’m very motivated, and I have a lot to prove,” Chukhadzhian said via a translator in an interview with Showtime’s Brian Custer.

Still, Ennis was the Saturday bout’s Aside and the boxer around whom Showtime is building long-term plans. It was Ennis’ ninth appearance on the network and his first on a pay-per-view card.

Placing him in the cofeature spot on a card with a lightweight-title main event between Gervonta Davis and Héctor Luis García (which resulted in a TKO victory for Davis) should position Ennis to vault into the next phase of his career: headlining a pay-per-view world title fight.

“That’s the only question any knowledgeable boxing fan is asking about Boots,” Stephen Espinoza, Showtime’s president of sports and event programming, said in an interview. “What happens when he fights one of the world champions? We’re going to see that happen, I believe, in 2023.”

Showtime signed Ennis after his promoter, veteran boxing power broker Cameron Dunkin, suggested the network feature him on ShoBox, the network’s series of fights between top young prospects, in 2018. But the current structure of big-time boxing makes

such deals, between an individual boxer and a broadcast platform, rare.

Davis, Spence and other fighters who appear on Showtime do so because they’re signed to Premier Boxing Champions, the managerial outfit that supplies most of the network’s boxing content. If boxing is like college football, PBC could be the Big Ten Conference. That setup would make Top Rank, which partners with ESPN, the boxing equivalent of the SEC. Together, they dominate the sport’s television broadcast landscape in the United States.

In this scenario, Ennis is sort of like Notre Dame — independent, yet still valuable to a broadcaster.

“I have the platform now,” Ennis said. “I’m a main-event fighter.”

But where Notre Dame has cultivated a large and loyal following over decades, Ennis, at 25, still lacks the profile of his rivals, who are in their 30s. Spence has 936,000 Instagram followers, and Crawford has 850,000. Ennis’ Instagram following, as of Thursday night, numbered 255,000.

Espinoza, for his part, said Ennis is poised for a breakthrough in the welterweight class, one of boxing’s marquee divisions, and fights with a crowd-pleasing style that will earn mainstream sports fans’ attention if he keeps winning.

Ennis blends quickness, craft and punching power, and like Crawford is equally comfortable boxing orthodox or as a southpaw. He has recorded 21 knockdowns in his last 12 bouts.

“What speaks for him is his performances in the ring,” Espinoza said. “That’s something that builds you a following. Those are all things that boxing fans react to. Boxing skill, excitement, stoppages.”

Ennis figures his fan base will grow if he can force top-tier welterweights like Spence and Crawford to face him and haul the welterweight division back to its early 1980s glory days.

“Back in the day, everybody used to fight everybody. Hearns, Leonard. They all fought each other,” he said, referring to Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard. “Why not start now and bring that back?”

Jaron Ennis, right, won his previous fight, a May 2022 bout with Custio Clayton, in two rounds.

After an emotional week, NFL returns to something like normal

By KEVIN DRAPER and KEN BELSON

One of the most traumatic weeks in NFL history ended much as it began: With fans tailgating and players clashing in highly anticipated football games filled with touchdowns and bonecrunching hits.

In between, the league and the millions of fans grappled with their addiction to football five days after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed onto the field during a game in Cincinnati and went into cardiac arrest — a terrifying scene that stretched for 10 minutes as medical personnel repeatedly compressed his chest and teammates and opponents wept.

The NFL has been thrust into many crises, including after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina, which forced the Saints to abandon New Orleans. But the league has never had to grapple with the sight of doctors and paramedics trying to save a player’s life on the field during a prime time game with millions of people watching.

Hamlin remained in critical condition Sunday, but his breathing tube was removed Friday and Saturday he sent his first posts on social media. His recovery has given license to the league, the players and fans to focus again on the sport they love as the regular season ends this weekend.

It was, with a slight twist on the old saw, any given Saturday as the Las Vegas Raiders hosted the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tennessee Titans traveled to Jacksonville to play the Jaguars. The few signs of the pall that Hamlin’s injury has cast over the league were mostly visible only before the games.

In Las Vegas, Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes warmed up in a cutoff hooded sweatshirt with an image of Hamlin and the words “Hamlin Strong” on the back, one of the many tributes to Hamlin at Allegiant Stadium.

Most Raiders players wore black warmups that said “Love For Damar” and had his No. 3 on the front. The No. 3 was outlined in dark blue, Buffalo Bills colors, on each 30-yard line.

“Throughout this week the entire NFL family has been praying for Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills as he continues his recovery,” the public address announcer said before the national anthem was played. “The Raiders ask you to join us in

a moment of support and love for Damar, and cheer for him and his family as they continue their fight.”

The scene was similar in Jacksonville, with a twist. After both teams warmed up, every Jaguars and Titans player and coach met at the 50-yard line, took a knee and prayed for about one minute. The fans in TIAA Stadium who had been cheering went silent.

Then it was back to football. In Las Vegas, Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson booted the ball 75 yards into the opposing end zone for a touchback to open the game, and then Mahomes and his offense spent 60 minutes tormenting their division rivals in a 31-13 victory.

Kansas City finished the regular season with a 14-3 record and clinched a bye in the first round of the playoffs.

In Jacksonville, linebacker Josh Allen returned a Titans (7-10) fumble 37 yards for a touchdown with three minutes left to propel the Jaguars (9-8) to a 20-16 win and their first AFC South title since 2017.

The Titans jumped out to a 10-0 lead behind running back Derrick Henry, but Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence responded by throwing a 25-yard touchdown score to receiver Christian Kirk.

In the third quarter, Lawrence overthrew receiver Zay Jones, who was wide open in the end zone, and settled for a

field goal. The Jaguars could not muster much offense, but their defense pressured Titans backup quarterback Joshua Dobbs, whose fumble was scooped up by Allen for a go-ahead score.

The Jaguars will now host a wild-card round game next weekend.

And just like that, the NFL soldiered on after a week of anguish and unanswered questions.

It was just two games, but they were vitally important ones for the NFL, which makes billions of dollars marketing a violent sport while hoping it never reaps the worst consequences of that violence. The gravity of the injury to Hamlin created a crisis for the league because it starkly reminded fans of the possibility that they could witness far worse than concussions and torn ligaments.

The game in Las Vegas proceeded even as players were still processing what they had witnessed last Monday night.

Wearing a “Love For Damar” shirt after the game, Mahomes said it was “definitely weird” to step back onto the field after Hamlin’s injury. “You have that in the back of your mind,” he said.

He said Hamlin’s improving condition made it easier.

“That gives you a little bit of that final thing that, all right, this is what we are supposed to be doing, let’s go out there and

give joy not only to us, but the rest of the world watching us,” he said.

Saturday’s games looked like any other NFL games. There were spectacular plays, bad fumbles, fans mugging for the camera, and halftime entertainment provided by a band past its prime.

Fans, too, seemed eager to get back to football. In Jacksonville, tailgaters played cornhole and beer pong, grilled burgers and mixed cocktails. Inside the stadium, a standing-room-only crowd waved white towels to pump up the Jaguars — frequent cellar dwellers — who had a chance to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2017.

Far from the games, Hamlin was on the mend. The Bills said Saturday that while he continued to make progress at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, he remained in critical condition. He was breathing on his own, however, and his neurological function was “excellent,” according to the team. On Friday, Hamlin spoke to some of his teammates on a video chat.

“On a long road keep praying for me!” read a new post on Hamlin’s Instagram account Saturday, the first direct communication from Hamlin since his injury.

Injuries are inevitable in football, and players are used to competing through pain that would sideline the average person. They are also accustomed to continuing to play even after watching teammates get carted off the field. The Raiders had to do that Saturday, when linebacker Harvey Langi left the game with a concussion.

Hamlin’s injury, though, which threatened his life, was not the kind of thing players could compartmentalize: It resulted in the game being postponed and eventually canceled, both of which are nearly without precedent in NFL history.

“I don’t think it’s ever out of your mind as a player, to experience that,” said Chris Jones, a Kansas City defensive lineman. “I think you try to mask it with what’s going on with your surroundings.”

SUNDAY’S EARLY NFL RESULTS

Browns at Steelers Ravens at Bengals Vikings at Bears Patriots at Bills

Jets at Dolphins Buccaneers at Falcons Panthers at Saints Texans at Colts

Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence warmed up wearing a shirt honoring Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills before a game Saturday against the Titans.

Sudoku

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

Wordsearch Crossword

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29 Aries (Mar 21-April 20)

The Leo Moon makes some sterling aspects, putting you in the mood to do something fun or to accept an invite to a social event. Still, your mind may be on your goals and responsibilities, especially if things haven’t gone as planned. Mercury’s lively link with Uranus could coincide with a second bite of the cherry. If you missed a golden opportunity, you might be in luck, Aries.

Taurus (April 21-May 21)

If you’ve given up on something because you don’t have enough skill or experience, the current star map encourages you to think again. Most people set out not having as much knowledge as they need, and this is why they feel out of their comfort zone. Mercury’s link with Uranus encourages you to learn as you go. You’ll soon find your feet and begin to make progress.

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Sometimes it’s possible to know too much. The emphasis on your sector of change, suggests that letting go of what you think is important can help you make a better job of something. Whether you’re finishing a project, closing a deal or sorting out a financial matter, approaching it from a more intuitive perspective could see you making decisions and taking actions that really work.

Cancer (June 22-July 23)

Mercury in its retro phase aligns with energizing Uranus, which could coincide with a reunion, and one you’ll thoroughly enjoy. There may be a lot of catching up to do, and you’ll both be pleased and surprised by all the news. Feel like a little retail therapy? Indulgent lunar ties can find you ready to splurge, even if you vowed to save your money. Why not treat yourself!

Leo (July 24-Aug 23)

The Moon in your sign and its ties to jovial Jupiter and charming Venus, may be a call to indulge a desire for good company and new experiences. Take time out to go on a trip or opt for an adventure. You’ll return refreshed and renewed. Plus, you’ll be keen to experiment with ideas that make your daily life easier. Anything that simplifies matters is worth a look, Leo.

Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)

With Mercury your personal planet currently retrograde, you may rediscover an activity that you enjoyed in your younger years. And you might have forgotten how much fun it was. With restless Uranus in the mix, you’ll be ready to dive in and see if it gives you the same buzz. Today is perfect for doing things you don’t normally do. Once you have a go, you won’t look back.

Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)

The Leo Moon in your social zone makes some fabulous ties, that could coincide with a get-together, party or other positive event. The vibes look to be especially warm and welcoming, and you’ll be ready to let your hair down and enjoy the company of new friends and old. Fancy something more low-key? An outing with the family can turn into a wild and happy occasion.

Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)

If you abandoned an idea recently, today’s starry outlook hints you’ll be ready to have another go, Scorpio. If it didn’t seem of much use before, you’ll now realize that it’s worth going for. What seems like a backward step could be very progressive. It may be a good move to discuss this, as the feedback you get can be surprisingly positive. Don’t second guess yourself.

Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)

You’ll be excited to try your hand at something different. And if it involves a little risk, all the better. Trekking, mountain biking, rock climbing and even a long walk in the country, can soothe that itch that craves adventure. Taking someone like-minded along with you could make your day complete. On the financial front, a job offer out of the blue might be a good earner, Archer.

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)

Expect the unexpected today, as Mercury rewinds in your sign and aligns with Uranus in your leisure zone. You’ll be keen to snap up an invite if it engages your curiosity. This may be from someone you haven’t seen in a while, which could add to the occasion. The chance to catch up and the option to go to an exhibition, concert or for a meal or outing, may be too good to miss.

Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)

Do you have dreams and desires you haven’t dared to admit to yourself? Over coming days and weeks, these can begin to bubble up and make themselves known. Now it’s time to embrace them, even if some of them go against other people’s expectations and beliefs. If you’re willing to own them and make a start, you’ll begin to flourish and you won’t look back, Aquarius.

Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)

You may have your mind set on trying something different that will enliven your finances and expand your horizons, Pisces. Yet you need excitement as well as stability. Even so, you are likely very aware of the price of having too many things happening at once. Choose your projects wisely, as the way in which you invest your time can be crucial to getting good results.