Wednesday Jul 19, 2023

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.

Ex-Ponce mayor Meléndez resigns as statehood shadow delegate

Will retire from public life, citing health concerns

By THE STAR STAFF

Due to health complications, María Eloísa

“Mayita” Meléndez Altieri announced her resignation earlier this week as a statehood shadow delegate and her retirement from public life.

“As everyone knows, a few months ago I suffered a health mishap that has changed my pace of life,” Meléndez Altieri said in a statement Monday. “Today my body tells me something else.”

“It is by the infinite mercy of God that I am alive,” the former mayor of Ponce added. “I must do my part and focus my energies on my family and my healing.”

Meléndez Altieri, 71, made the decision after at least nine months without being able to travel

to Washington, D.C.

Her resignation comes three weeks after an island court removed Elizabeth Torres, another shadow delegate for statehood, from her position.

Now, there are four special delegates elected to lobby Congress for the statehood of Puerto Rico: Zoraida Buxó and Melinda Romero in the United States Senate, along with Roberto Lefranc Fortuño and Ricardo Rosselló Nevares in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Tuesday that he favors an election to fill the two statehood lobbyist/delegate vacancies.

“If that materializes, what I am going to do on my part is urge qualified and willing statehood supporters to join the cause for the remaining year and a half [of the delegates’ terms] because the law is clear,” the governor said in response to questions from the press.

“Any additional voice joining the cause of statehood before Congress is positive. We have had, as I said, six delegates and [of those] delegates, as I said in the past, five of the six were doing the work, they have been doing the work,” Pierluisi added. “Now we are talking about the possibility of two vacancies and in the face of that, what I am saying is that, according to the law that created these positions, it is the State Elections Commission that calls and carries out the process.”

An odontologist by profession, Meléndez Altieri served as mayor of Ponce under the New Progressive Party banner from Jan. 2, 2009 to Jan. 10, 2021. She became a national committee member from the Democratic Party of Puerto Rico in 2013, and also served as chairwoman of the local council of the League of United Latin American Citizens, commonly known as LULAC.

Veteran pro-statehood lawmaker José Aponte Hernández lauded Meléndez Altieri for the “commitment and passion” she brought to her work as a member of the special delegation to the U.S. Congress.

“Her work in favor of equal rights for U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Rico has been very significant,” he said. “We wish ‘Mayita’ Meléndez the best in this new facet of her life and she can count on us for whatever she needs.”

María “Mayita” Meléndez Altieri

PIP, MVC appeal ruling on political alliances ban

By THE STAR STAFF

The Citizen Victory Movement (MVC by its Spanish initials) and the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) have appealed the court decision upholding a ban on electoral alliances through an intrajurisdictional certification request before the Supreme Court.

The appeal announced Tuesday allows the decision to be raised before the consideration of the top court with the possibility of it being reversed.

In May, the PIP and the MVC filed a

lawsuit challenging the prohibition of electoral alliances in Puerto Rico.

“The PIP and the MVC appear before the Court to correct the statutory wrong that the Electoral Code has inflicted on Puerto Rican democracy,” attorney Carlos Gorrín Peralta said at a press conference at the time.

The prohibitions imposed in the Electoral Code “create a series of unconstitutional conditions that impose onerous burdens on the exercise of fundamental rights of political parties and their members,” the petitioners said.

The ban on electoral alliances in Puerto Rico has been in effect since 2011.

According to the PIP and MVC, it limits the ability of political parties to form coalitions and field candidates representing a variety of viewpoints.

In the initial lawsuit filed in Superior Court, the parties allege that the ban violates various constitutional rights of political parties, their members and voters.

“The current ban unfairly limits the freedom of association of the Electoral Commissioner,” argued Yanira Reyes Gil, representing the MVC electoral commissioner.

For some time, the PIP and the MVC have been discussing joining forces and

running together in the next election. Such political alliances are formed in many countries. However, the Electoral Code prohibits such political coalitions in Puerto Rico.

Fiscal board orders LUMA to expedite permits for solar projects

By THE STAR STAFF

The Financial Oversight and Management Board has required LUMA Energy, the private operator of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) transmission and distribution system, to issue by July 31 an expedited permitting process to enable the development of three solar projects.

The information is in a letter dated July 17 sent by the executive director of the oversight board, Robert Mujica, to LUMA Energy Chief Regulatory Officer Mario Hurtado.

On Nov. 8, 2022, Clean Flexible Energy (CFE), a subsidiary of AES Puerto Rico, which sells energy produced by coal to PREPA, submitted documents to the oversight board in connection with three projects: Jobos Solar + BESS, Salinas Solar + BESS, and Naguabo A & B Solar. On March 6 of this year, after reviewing

CFE’s initial submissions, the board issued a letter to CFE President Jesús Bolinaga requesting

additional information to assist with its review. The oversight board (FOMB) finished reviewing the applicable submissions and determined them to be complete.

“We have determined that LUMA will have a role related to the development of one or more of the CFE projects,” the letter notes. “Therefore, LUMA is required to submit to the FOMB its expedited permitting process by 31 July. If LUMA fails to submit the expedited permitting process in a timely manner, the FOMB will develop, in consultation with the governor, an expedited permitting process on LUMA’s behalf.”

The oversight board also gave 15 commonwealth entities until May 23 to issue their respective expedited permitting process for the development of the solar projects, but the status of the permits was not provided.

Aguada tornado packed 110-mile winds, according to NWS

By THE STAR STAFF

Atornado that struck Aguada on Sunday has been categorized as EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF), with winds of 110 miles per hour, after a damage assessment by the National Weather Service (NWS).

According to reports, an intense electrical storm spawned the tornado near highway PR411, on the border between Barrio Asomante and Barrio Guayabo in the northwestern coastal town, around 3:08 p.m. The tornado was active for about 11 minutes, moving northwest. It then transformed into a waterspout over the coastal waters near Pico de Piedra Spa before

dissipating completely.

The NWS survey revealed significant damage in the affected area. One home sustained extensive damage, including partial loss of the roof, resulting in significant interior damage to the property. Another home lost its roofing material and metal siding. Additionally, uprooted and split trees were observed along the path of the tornado.

The EF1 rating indicates an estimated maximum wind speed of 110 mph, a path length of 1.5 miles, and a path width of 70 yards.

The information provided is preliminary and is subject to change as the event continues to be evaluated and reviewed by the NWS.

Sunday’s tornado spent 11 minutes cutting a path of destruction on the ground in Aguada before going out to sea.

Financial Oversight and Management Board Executive Director Robert Mujica, at left

Attorney Carlos Gorrín Peralta

Landfilled ash controversy is again the focus at an onsite hearing

Company responsible for the dumped fuel waste is a no-show in Humacao

By RICHARD GUTIÉRREZ richardsanjuanstar@gmail.com

The year 2023 has seen plenty of community controversies regarding environmental issues in Puerto Rico, and the eastern region is no exception.

The company Applied Energy Systems (AES) from Guayama has deposited coal ash in a landfill located on highway PR-923 in the Buena Vista neighborhood of Humacao. Due to adverse effects on air and water quality, and the health concerns the situation has brought to the community, residents of the area are not happy with the way EC Waste, the company that manages the landfill, has handled things. That is why Buena Vista community leaders and residents showed up at a House onsite hearing Tuesday led by Reps. Sol Higgins Cuadrado of the Popular Democratic Party, who chairs the House Health Committee, Mariana Nogales Molinelli of the Citizen’s Victory Movement and Luis Pérez Ortiz of the New Progressive Party. Officials from the island Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), Vanesa del Moral, the Humacao regional director from the Lands Division, and attorney Samuel Acosta, an adviser, also participated in the hearing.

“We had another public hearing in Guayama regarding the ash topic,” Higgins Cuadrado told the STAR. “Back then, we visited Guayama under a different resolution, [but] even if this hearing is specifically about Humacao, we’re still talking about the same topic, the coal ash, with this resolution. The people of Humacao are searching specifically for the same thing as the people of Guayama -- complete verification of the waste management of this coal ash performed by the company EC Waste.”

Higgins Cuadrado said the main reason why the DNER was asked to take part in the hearing was so they could inform the community on whether or not EC Waste is doing the right thing by depositing the ash in the landfill. The lawmaker also told the STAR that “EC Waste has excused themselves from this public hearing.”

“They did not attend. However the House committee will hold another hearing where they will summon EC waste again,” she said. “Even though they are excused from this viewing, they are obligated to go to the House of Representatives and answer questions regarding this issue.”

“They said they couldn’t be present because some of the executives were on vacation,” Higgins Cuadrado added. “However, when we have the next public hearing they have to come. They are not getting off easily.”

The DNER officials noted throughout the hearing that the coal ash issue is nothing new. Ever since 2002, the AES coal-fired plant has been generating some 300,000 tons of

coal waste in the form of ash every year. According to AES documents, between 2004 and 2011, more than two million tons of carbon ash were used in Puerto Rico in various municipal landfills, urbanizations, construction sites and commercial centers as fill material for roads and thereby were directly deposited into agricultural lands and aquifers. The DNER states that the ash is highly dangerous and toxic, something that has been reiterated and demonstrated through various studies and public reports.

More than a decade ago, in 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) commissioned a study by Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. Researchers analyzed ash samples taken directly from the AES facility in Guayama, and their analysis confirmed the toxicity of the ash. In some cases the ash sample exceeded EPA’s recommended safety levels by thousands of times. For many years, the ash from the AES plant was deposited in Humacao landfills, where EC Waste used it as an alternative coverage material to solidify non-dangerous solid wastes.

Buena Vista is not the only neighborhood suffering the effects of the dumping of coal ash. Nearby communities such as Candelero, Miradero, Palacios Sol and Palacios del Mar, among others, have also been severely affected, according to previous reports, by the estimated hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic ash deposited in the landfill.

Many Humacao residents were present at the hearing, and speakers expressed their concerns regarding the effects of the ash.

“I’ve been a resident of this community ever since I was born; however, my family lineage has been here since 1884. Our property is just about north of EC Waste landfill,” Buena Vista resident María Márquez said. “We have presented our

worries to you, the legislators, to the mayor, to the Department of Natural Resources and to the EC Waste landfill themselves about the public health situations we as a community are currently facing.”

“Toxic vapors, foul smells and ash deposits are out of control and are impacting our health and quality of life,” she added. “We had initially filed a complaint to authorities regarding the foul smells and EC Waste’s hours of operation, which are around dawn, which is a detriment to our tranquility. As a community we performed a census in November 2022, where we found multiple health conditions in our residents such as cancer, respiratory conditions, Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons. In January we found multiple skin conditions. Resolution 948 contemplates a health study for Buena Vista after the ash had been deposited in the landfill, it is important to include Palacios Del Sol and Palacios del Mar. We request that the study start with interviewing the people who are sick and family members of the deceased.”

Márquez also stated that regulatory agencies must also inspect the deposit, processing and stocking of methane gas.

Residents say the ash is not only affecting their health but also their food supply.

“The environmental deterioration of the past 10 years has been evident. It has caused arable lands to stop producing food, and even when they do, the crops become sick, the trees become sick because of all the environmental damage, all citrus fruits have vanished because trees have gotten sick,” local resident Sol Pagán said. “This has been damaging to our food supply and sustainability, and it represents a negative economic factor, because now we are forced to buy fruits and vegetables, which are essential to our diet.”

“I have seen the health of my community affected greatly, especially the youth with different types of cancers, a growing number of people with Alzheimer’s and plenty of skin conditions,” Pagán added. “I’ve lived here for a long time and I can assure you these conditions were not prevalent in our community before.”

Members of the Health Committee of the island House of Representatives heard from residents of Humacao, who are not happy with the way EC Waste, the company that manages a landfill in their town, has handled the dumping of coal ash from the AES power plant in Guayama. (Richard Gutiérrez/The San Juan Daily Star)

Governor: DDEC has been more efficient than the IRS in the control of Law 22 or Law 60

By THE STAR STAFF

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Tuesday that in his opinion, the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC) “has been more efficient” than the federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in exercising control over Law 22 or Law 60, which allow tax exemptions for foreigners who move to Puerto Rico.

According to news reports, the IRS is allegedly investigating 100 tax decree recipients who receive benefits under those laws but do not live on the island.

“So we are talking about 100, in this case around 5,000 active decrees have been granted here; that is, active taxpayers who have those decrees,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “The last time the matter

was inquired about, we are talking about 2,500, because many, even though they obtained the decrees for one reason or another, left the island.”

“So the Department of Economic Development and Commerce has already canceled more than 300 decrees,” he added. “So if anything, it’s been more active than the Internal Revenue Service, but I welcome the Internal Revenue Service.”

According to the governor, the Department of Economic Development and Commerce also reviews local requirements such as permanent residence, making donations as required by law and the purchase of goods on the island.

What the Internal Revenue Service is investigating, Pierluisi said, is Section 933 of the Internal Revenue Code.

“American citizens residing in Puerto Rico do not pay federal taxes on their income in Puerto

Rico,’ he said. “It is that which Section 933 of the Internal Revenue Code so provides. Now, that section applies to permanent residents in Puerto Rico, that is. Any person who is benefiting from that section to avoid paying federal taxes on their income on the island, who does not permanently reside here, is violating the law. So residing here is not just living here half the year plus one day, no. You also have to show that this is really your home. For example, if you have children, that your children go to school here, that if you work, the office where you work or the company where you work is here.”

“But the Internal Revenue Service is watching over them and if any of them moved here, [and] they obtained decrees and they really have not been residing here permanently, then they are exposed to the Internal Revenue Service taking action on the matter,” the governor said.

Under new order, condo complaints to be evaluated in DACO region of origin

By THE STAR STAFF

The interim secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO by its Spanish acronym), Lisoannette González Ruiz, announced on Tuesday the creation of a new protocol to be followed by the Special Division for Adjudication of Condominium Complaints that will empower regional offices to evaluate complaints.

“At DACO we are always vigilant with regard to consumer rights. One area in which we are constantly identifying viable alternatives to streamline procedures is horizontal property,” González Ruiz said in a written statement. “To support these efforts, I signed Administrative Order 2023-004, which, among other things, decentralizes the evaluation process for condominium complaints, empowering the agency’s five regions, Arecibo, Caguas, Mayagüez, Ponce and San Juan, to address these disputes. This will make the process more expeditious.”

“Our regional offices have the resources and first-class professionals to deal with complaints associated with condominiums,” she added. “What we are looking for here is to make it easier for conflict resolution. The director of the Special Division for Adjudication of Condominium Complaints, Christine Auger Pinzón, and her work team have the capacity and experience to make the processes faster, always ensuring the rights of all those involved.”

According to the new order, the director of Special Division for Adjudication of Condominium Complaints will have the responsibility of assigning the cases directly to the administrative judges of the special division according to the region to which the case belongs. Each regional office will adjudicate the condominium cases that are filed under its region. In the cases belonging to the San Juan Region, all the administrative judges of the special division will be assigned randomly by the director so that there is an equitable assignment of cases.

Meanwhile, if multiple condominium complaints are filed where more than one regional office may have jurisdiction and their consolidation proceeds, the matter will be referred to the attention of the director, who will take into consideration the place of residence of the majority of the plaintiffs and will determine whether or not the consolidation as such proceeds.

After the resolution of a complaint has been issued, if one of the parties goes to the appellate

forum, it will fall to the litigation division of the regional office that issued the corresponding resolution to attend to the administrative review, except if the case belongs to the regional office of San Juan, but was treated in another. In this situation, the administrative review will be handled by the litigation division of the San Juan regional office.

Similarly, if a petition to enforce order is filed, it must be addressed by the regional office that issued the resolution, except when the case belongs to the San Juan region.

Law 129-2020, better known as the Puerto Rico Condominium Law, as well as its two subsequent amendments (Law 83-2021 and Law 50-2023), are the basis for the regulation of horizontal property in Puerto Rico.

The law is the basis for the development of the New Condominium Regulation 9383, which went into force on June 6, 2022 as the regulatory platform for horizontal property under the jurisdiction of DACO.

Summer 2023 Paso Fino Festival comes to Guayama on Sunday

By THE STAR STAFF

Guayama Mayor O’brainVázquez Molina and the Propaso Horsemen’s Association announced the celebration of the Summer 2023 Paso Fino Festival this Sunday, July 22, at 10 a.m. at the emblematic Parque Dulce Sueños (Sweet Dreams Park) in Guayama.

“This is going to be a great family activity with great attendance due to the value that we place in Guayama on our sporting traditions, such as the paso fino horse,” the mayor said.

“The friends of the Propaso Horsemen’s Association have prepared a very well-organized program with some 45 categories from Mini Amazons to 5 years old, to the Foals and

Horses Championship, passing through Riders and Amazons of different ages, Colts and Fillies. It is going to be a spectacular day and we invite you all.”

Guayama, on the island’s southern coast, is recognized worldwide for keeping alive the promotion of the paso fino as a sport and cultural tradition of Puerto Rico, since the

prominent former mayor Don Genaro Cautiño Insúa brought the mother mare of the horse Dulce Sueño, considered the father of the Paso Fino breed and symbol of that breed, to the municipality in the 1920s.

For additional information and registration, those interested can contact 787-5091993.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi

Interim Consumer Affairs Secretary Lisoannette González Ruiz

DeSantis, Haley and Pence attack Democrats in speeches supporting Israel

By JAZMINE ULLOA

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida earlier this week sharply criticized the Biden administration’s policies on Israel, calling them “disgraceful,” seeking to highlight his proIsrael credentials as he goes head-to-head with former President Donald Trump for evangelical voters.

In Washington at the Christians United for Israel Summit, an annual gathering of conservatives with ties to the Israeli right wing, DeSantis also vowed to never waver on Israel’s claim to Jerusalem and to forcefully oppose the boycott-Israel movement that he said promoted prejudice against Jewish people.

Three Republican presidential candidates, including DeSantis, were scheduled to appear at the event, which unfolded as President Joe Biden on Monday invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to the White House and was set to meet in Washington later this week with Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president. The Netanyahu government has long cultivated its ties with evangelical Christians, whose beliefs that Israel is special to God has led many to hold hawkish views in support of the Jewish state.

“You’re free as a person to have whatever views you want,” DeSantis told the crowd. “But when you concoct a movement that focuses all of your ire at the only Jewish state in this world, at the exclusion of all these other things,” he added, “that is antisemitism.”

DeSantis never once mentioned the progressive Democrats who have said they will boycott a speech by Herzog to a joint session of Congress today. But he used his speech to emphasize his strong support for Israel and attack White House policies, as many conservatives have sought to portray Democrats who criticize Israel as anti-Zionist or even antisemitic.

His Republican presidential rivals who also spoke at the event — Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and a United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration, and former Vice President Mike Pence — took direct aim at the progressive Democratic congresswomen who have pushed for a shift in thinking about the Mideast conflict, focusing the debate on human rights.

Haley attacked Biden over how long it took to extend a White House invitation to Netanyahu after he reentered office in December. In callbacks to the public fights between Trump and the “Squad,” she singled out Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who is planning to skip the Herzog speech, and said “the Democratic Party is the definition of extreme.” She added, “It’s time to censure the Squad and get antisemitism out of America for good.”

Antisemitism has been on the rise in recent years. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-shot Democratic presidential candidate, who has been invited by House Republicans to testify on Capitol Hill on censorship, falsely claimed recently that the COVID-19 virus was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, prompting accusations of antisemitism and racism.

And top House Democrats have been rushing to reject comments from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who described Israel as “a racist state” at a progressive conference over the

weekend.

In a statement Sunday, Jayapal, who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, sought to clarify her remarks. “I do not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist,” she said. “I do, however, believe that Netanyahu’s extreme right-wing government has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies and that there are extreme racists driving that policy within the leadership of the current government.”

On Monday at the summit in Washington, Pence criticized Jayapal, Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota for using what he described as “antisemitic tropes” and “antisemitic remarks.”

“The words by these congresswomen are a disgrace,” Pence said, adding that “they are beneath the dignity of the relationship” between the United States and Israel. “President Biden and every Democrat member of Congress should denounce them and denounce them today.”

Omar in 2019 apologized for implying that American support for Israel was fueled by money from a pro-Israel lobbying group, remarks that drew swift condemnation from fellow Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to Congress, has also faced criticism from Republicans and pro-Israel Democrats for calling Israel an “apartheid regime.”

Coming out in support of Jayapal on Monday, Tlaib said,

“The Israeli government is committing the crime of apartheid.” “Apartheid is a racist system of oppression,” she added. On Monday, DeSantis, who received loud applause and a standing ovation, rejected a two-state solution establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel that has been at the basis of peace talks for decades but has proved difficult to achieve. And he denounced efforts that he argued used “the economy and business to impose a radical left-wing agenda” on Israeli policy.

“The way they treat a strong ally like Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he said of the Biden administration, “what they’re trying to do to shoehorn Israel into bad policies has been disgraceful.”

Loyalty Finance LLC

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida denounced efforts that he argued used “the economy and business to impose a radical left-wing agenda” on Israeli policy.

Smoke pollution from Canadian wildfires blankets US cities, again

York City and Long Island were expected to be unhealthy only for sensitive groups. Air quality across the region was worsening by 6:30 p.m. Monday, with parts of the city and state clocking more than 100 on the air quality index.

“New Yorkers should once again prepare for smoke from the wildfires in western Canada to impact our state’s air quality this week,” Hochul said in a statement, adding that officials were activating emergency notifications on roads and public transit systems and making sure that masks were available for distribution in counties across the state.

The air quality index in Rochester started at 141 early Monday, while Buffalo’s was at 116, but those readings were improving in both cities by late afternoon. New York City officials said that conditions, which are considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, could persist for the initial part of the week.

The index runs from 0 to 500; the higher the number, the greater the level of air pollution. An AQI 101 or more is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, and 201 or more is considered very unhealthy for anybody.

So far, the air quality warnings were not as bad as they were in early June, when there were readings above 400 on the East Coast, signaling a hazardous level.

By CHRISTINE HAUSER and CLAIRE MOSES

Smoke from wildfires in western Canada drifted across the Midwest and the Northeast of the United States earlier this week, blotting out blue sky and sun and blanketing dozens of cities with unhealthy air that triggered warnings to limit time spent outdoors.

It was the second time in less than a month that the borderless impact of climate change could be felt with a breath. In June, heavy smoke from Quebec wafted into the East Coast, and blew from New York City, past Washington, as far west as Minnesota.

This week, as nearly 900 wildfires burned across Canada, the smoke came from fires in the western part of the country, billowing into its southern neighbor across a wide trail.

By 7 p.m. Eastern time, nearly 70 million people in 32 states and the District of Columbia were affected by the shifting, migrating smoke, according to estimates based on information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and LandScan, a population database.

“Unfortunately, the wildfire smoke will begin to make a

Andeno Co

return to the region to start the new week,” according to the National Weather Service in the Philadelphia area.

Air quality alerts, ranging from moderate to very unhealthy, were issued by government agencies from Montana to the Dakotas and parts of other states, including Nebraska, Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, North Carolina and along the Northeast.

Residents were advised to take precautions, from limiting outdoor activities to covering up with masks. In Chicago, where the air quality deteriorated through the weekend, Mayor Brandon Johnson warned children, older residents and those with heart or lung disease to limit outdoor activity.

“We are acutely aware that the recent weather events prominently impacting our city this summer are the direct result of the climate crisis,” he said.

Air quality advisories were also in effect across parts of Massachusetts.

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York on Sunday issued air quality health advisories for Monday. The air quality in parts of upstate New York was expected to reach unhealthy levels for all residents, while conditions in the Lower Hudson Valley, New

But by 10 p.m. Eastern time Monday, cities across the Midwest and East were reporting some of the worst air quality in the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Billings, Montana, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, had an AQI of 161, while the Cleveland area was at 157. Conditions continued to improve through the afternoon.

The forecast is expected to cause “unhealthy for all” conditions in the areas closest to the Canadian border, according to AirNow, a website run by the EPA, which oversees air quality across the United States.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said its advisory was in effect through Monday. In the southwestern region of the state, residents were told to limit use of their vehicles, to refrain from mowing lawns and to avoid burning firewood and yard waste.

Local officials also advised residents to limit outdoor activity or using their cars, and to wear masks. The message was repeated from Buffalo — where Mayor Byron Brown told residents to take precautions — to Chicago, where an air quality alert was in effect through Sunday night.

In Pennsylvania, where the Department of Environmental Protection issued a statewide “code orange” alert, officials suggested residents and businesses help by limiting burning of leaves, trash and other materials, and avoiding the use of gas-powered lawn and garden equipment.

Wildfire smoke from Canada is forecast to linger through Tuesday, propelled by northwesterly winds, the weather service said.

Early last month, the level of particulate matter in the air from smoke became so unhealthy that many U.S. cities set records. At points, it was hazardous to breathe everywhere from Minnesota and Indiana to sections of the mid-Atlantic and the South. Visibility decreased to startling degrees in cities, including New York, Toronto and Cincinnati. In some places, smoke from the fires blanketed the sky in an orange haze. That smoke could be traced to wildfires burning in Quebec.

The Duquesne Incline is seen ascending Mount Washington as smoke from Canadian wildfires hangs over the U.S. Midwest and parts of the East Coast, creating hazy skies, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 28, 2023.

Georgia Supreme Court rejects Trump effort to quash investigation

By DANNY HAKIM

In a ruling earlier this week, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected a long-shot attempt by former President Donald Trump’s legal team to scuttle an investigation into election interference weeks before indictment decisions are expected.

The pronouncement from the court was both unanimous and swift, coming just three days after Trump’s lawyers submitted their filing. They had sought a court order that would throw out the work of a special grand jury in Atlanta and disqualify Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, from the proceedings. She has been the prosecutor in charge of the investigation into whether Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia.

Most of the court’s nine justices were originally appointed by Republican governors; thus far, the case has played out in Superior Court in Atlanta.

Trump’s lawyers had conceded in their filing that they were up against long odds and had identified “no case in 40 years” where the court had intervened in the way they were seeking. In their ruling, the justices said the Trump team had “not shown that this case presents one of those extremely rare circumstances in which

this court’s original jurisdiction should be invoked, and therefore, the petition is dismissed.”

They also said that Trump’s lawyers had not presented “either the facts or the

law necessary to mandate Willis’ disqualification.”

Trump’s lawyers had previously sought to scuttle the investigation with a motion, filed in March, to quash much

of the evidence that Willis’ team had collected since the investigation began in early 2021 and to take Willis off it. But the Superior Court judge handling the case, Robert C.I. McBurney, has yet to rule.

“Stranded between the supervising judge’s protected passivity and the district attorney’s looming indictment, petitioner has no meaningful option other than to seek this court’s intervention,” the lawyers wrote in their filing to the state’s high court Friday.

The lawyers could not be reached immediately Monday; the district attorney’s office had no immediate comment.

Willis has signaled that any indictments will come in the first half of August; she recently asked judges in a downtown Atlanta courthouse not to schedule trials for part of that time as she prepares to bring charges. The investigation has examined whether the former president and his allies illegally interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia, where Trump lost narrowly to Joe Biden.

The special grand jury heard evidence for roughly seven months and recommended indictments of more than a dozen people; its forewoman strongly hinted in an interview with The New York Times in February that Trump was among them. To bring any charges, Willis must now seek indictments from a regular grand jury.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s relatives condemn his comments once more

By MAGGIE ASTOR

Several members of the Kennedy family have condemned a bigoted conspiracy theory from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suggested that the coronavirus was “ethnically targeted” to spare Jews and Chinese people.

In comments at a recent event in New York City, a recording of which was first published by The New York Post, Kennedy said: “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” He added, “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not.”

His sister Kerry Kennedy called his remarks “deplorable and untruthful” and said they did not represent the principles

espoused by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the organization she leads — named after their father, former attorney general and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy.

His brother Joseph Kennedy II issued a similar statement, telling The Boston Globe: “Bobby’s comments are morally and factually wrong. They play on antisemitic myths and stoke mistrust of the Chinese. His remarks in no way reflect the words and actions of our father, Robert F. Kennedy.”

And former Rep. Joseph Kennedy III wrote on Twitter Monday afternoon: “My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong. I unequivocally condemn what he said.”

Kennedy rejected criticism of his comments Sunday, saying in a lengthy Twitter post, “The insinuation by @nypost and others that, as a result of my quoting a peer-reviewed paper on bio-weapons, I

am somehow antisemitic, is a disgusting fabrication.” (The paper he referred to did not support the claims he made.)

It was far from the first time that Kennedy’s relatives felt compelled to disavow his words or actions.

Once an environmental lawyer known for his work to clean up the Hudson River, Kennedy — now a long-shot candidate running against President Joe Biden for next year’s Democratic nomination — has become a leading purveyor of anti-vaccine misinformation. Long before the coronavirus pandemic, he helped popularize false claims of a connection between childhood vaccines and autism, and since COVID vaccines became available, he has sought loudly and frequently to cast doubt on their well-documented safety.

Last year, Kennedy suggested that

unvaccinated Americans would soon be more persecuted than Anne Frank, who was murdered by the Nazis. Several of his siblings criticized him for that comment, as did his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, who called it “reprehensible and insensitive.”

He has advanced many other conspiracy theories as well, including claiming that there is a link between antidepressants and mass shootings (there isn’t) and that Republicans stole the 2004 presidential election (they didn’t).

Despite his promotion of misinformation and some policy views more aligned with the Republican base than the Democratic one, Kennedy is polling relatively strongly — between 10% and 20% in several surveys, nowhere near enough to overtake Biden, but nonetheless striking numbers against an incumbent.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Turning Point Action conference, in West Palm Beach, Fla. on Saturday, July 15, 2023. In a ruling on Monday, July 17, 2023, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected a long-shot attempt by Trump’s legal team to scuttle an investigation into election interference weeks before indictment decisions are expected.

Electric vehicle prices fall as automakers raise production

now available need to be recharged after traveling 200 to 250 miles. Uncertainty about finding charging stations and how long it takes to charge the vehicles can put off some people.

Sales have become particularly sluggish for high-priced luxury models — a segment of the market that has a surfeit of options from the likes of Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche and Lucid Motors. Many of these cars cost $75,000 to $160,000.

“I think there was a lot of hype about EVs, and people did their research and realized these are premium vehicles and they’re not cheap,” said Rick Ricart, president of Ricart Automotive, which owns nine new-car franchises in Dublin, Ohio. “And there’s been some pullback.”

Ricart said his family’s Ford store had a top-of-the-line F-150 Lightning Platinum truck on sale for $92,000 for more than two months. “A year ago, it would have been sold by now,” he said.

Another group of electric vehicles that are struggling to find buyers are those that no longer qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate change law. The credit is available only on cars that are assembled in North America and that include a certain percentage of battery materials from the region or from U.S. trade partners.

By NEAL E. BOUDETTE

After struggling to find enough batteries and other parts for the past couple of years, automakers are finally beginning to churn out large numbers of electric cars and trucks. More than 30 new models will arrive in showrooms this year.

What they need now are more customers.

While sales of electric vehicles are increasing — they climbed about 48% in the second quarter from a year earlier — they are not rising fast enough to keep pace with the number of vehicles rolling off assembly lines. And inventories of unsold vehicles are starting to pile up.

More than 90,000 battery-powered cars and trucks are sitting on dealer lots, four times as many as a year ago, according to Cox Automotive, a market research firm. That’s enough to last 103 days at the current rate of sales, compared with about 50 days for the industry as a whole.

Manufacturers “are having a ‘Field of Dreams’ moment,” said Jonathan Gregory, a senior manager of economic and industry insight at Cox. “They have built EV inventory, but now they wait for buyers to come.”

In view of this unbalanced supply and demand, automakers are cutting prices and offering more incentives. On Monday, Ford Motor Co. reduced prices of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck by $6,000 to nearly $10,000, or as much as 17% on some versions. The company is also offering discounted interest rates of 1.9% to 3.9% on certain loans for Lightning purchases.

These moves follow several rounds of price cuts by Tesla, the dominant seller of electric cars. Tesla’s price reductions earlier prompted Ford to lower prices of its Mustang Mach-E electric sport utility vehicle, although that hasn’t brought Mach-E inventory back in line with sales.

At the end of June, Ford dealers had 16,400 of that model in stock — about 2,000 more than they sold in the first six months of the year.

While many consumers express interest in electric vehicles, they are often not ready to go through with a purchase. Many people have been put off by high prices of electric cars and are waiting for them to cost no more than comparable gasoline models — something that could be hastened by recent price cuts.

Other car buyers have concerns about how far these cars and trucks can travel on a full charge. Many models

In addition to those restrictions, electric sedans have to sell for $55,000 or less to be eligible for credits, and SUVs, pickup trucks and vans have to sell for $80,000 or less.

Purchases of Ford’s Lightning trucks can make buyers eligible for the $7,500 credit, and the company is planning to sell a lot more of the pickups in the coming months. The company temporarily halted production this year to upgrade its assembly line and increase output. By the fall, the company expects its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center near Detroit to be able to churn out 150,000 Lightnings a year, triple its current production capacity.

The company’s decision to lower prices may also have something to do with the growing competition in the electric vehicle business. Tesla said Saturday that it had started producing its much-delayed Cybertruck pickup, and General Motors is expected to soon begin delivering an electric version of the Chevrolet Silverado truck.

Ford’s decision to cut prices unnerved investors who feared it would hurt profits, and its stock price fell 6% on Monday.

Ford said the Pro model of the F-150 Lightning now had a list price of $49,995, a reduction of $9,979. The XLT 312A model with an extended range battery was cut $8,879, to $69,995. The top-of-the-line Platinum extended-range model will sell for $91,995, or $6,079 less than its price last week.

As a result of price cuts, most Lightning models will cost less than $80,000, making them eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit.

A Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck on the production line at the company’s plant in Dearborn, Mich., on Jan. 25, 2022. Competition in the electric vehicle business is growing more intense.

Dow, S&P 500 rise after upbeat earnings from big banks

The Dow and benchmark S&P 500 crept higher on Tuesday after some of the country’s top lenders including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America reported upbeat earnings for the second quarter.

Bank of America added 3.1% as the lender posted a 20% surge in second-quarter profit, and Morgan Stanley gained 4.8% after beating analysts’ expectations for quarterly results.

“So far the banks have come out fairly well, which is not all that unexpected,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth.

Markets are still reeling from China’s raft of unimpressive data and with the economic calendar now light, worries over a stuttering post COVID-19 recovery in the world’s second-biggest economy are likely to linger as Europe wakes up.

The anaemic Chinese recovery has cast a shadow over global markets, particularly in Europe, where consumer, technology, industrials and materials sectors all have significant exposure to China.

That means investors are likely to have a mixed appetite for European stocks.

Focus will be on Europe’s luxury firms, which took a beating on Monday after underwhelming earnings from Cartier owner Richemont, dragging the pan-European STOXX 600 index lower.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down for second straight day after data on Monday showed China’s economy faltered in the second quarter, cranking up pressure on policymakers to deliver more stimulus.

On Tuesday, China announced a series of measures aimed at boosting consumption of household consumer goods and services.

Meanwhile, speculators have amassed their biggest long position in sterling in dollar terms since Brexit. The party in the pound though is unlikely to last, hedge funds and investors say, citing untamed inflation and weak growth.

U.S. Federal Reserve’s rapid interest rate hikes helped some of the largest U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, record a profit boost that pointed towards a resilient economy.

“But we can’t really assume that it’s going to be the same (upbeat results) for all companies across the board,” said Pavlik.

PNC Financial Services lowered its forecast for fullyear net interest income (NII) on Tuesday, while brokerage Charles Schwab posted a smaller-than-expected drop in quarterly profit.

Shares of Charles Schwab jumped 13.2%, leading gains on the S&P 500, and those of PNC rose 2.6%.

Overall earnings across industries are expected to de-

MOST ASSERTIVE STOCKS

PUERTO RICO STOCKS COMMODITIES CURRENCY

cline 8.1% for the quarter, according to Refinitiv data.

The S&P 500 banks index has fallen 3.9% so far this year, in the aftermath of a banking crisis that took down three lenders and pummeled the sector, underperforming the S&P 500 index that has notched a 17.8% gain in the same period.

In early trading on Tuesday, the banking index was up 1.1%.

Lockheed Martin added 1.1% after the weapons maker

raised its annual profit and sales outlook on strong demand for military equipment, stoked by ongoing geopolitical uncertainties.

At 09:50 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 141.63 points, or 0.41%, at 34,726.98, the S&P 500 was up 3.12 points, or 0.07%, at 4,525.91, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 43.61 points, or 0.31%, at 14,201.34.

Eight of the top 11 S&P 500 sectors advanced with industrials leading gains, while technology stocks fell 0.6%.

Wall Street rallied last week after consumer prices and producer prices data provided evidence that the economy had entered a disinflation phase, stoking hopes that the U.S. Federal Reserve will soon end its monetary policy tightening.

Spanish vote threatens efforts to recover Franco’s victims

By CONSTANT MÉHEUT

When she first heard of a project to exhume and identify the remains of hundreds of Civil War victims — her grandfather possibly among them — Ángela Raya Fernández said she was “filled with hope, a lot of hope.”

Ever since she was a girl, she had heard stories about how her father’s father, José Raya Hurtado, was executed during the Spanish Civil War, his body ignominiously dumped in a ravine by forces loyal to Gen. Francisco Franco. She had only ever known him from black-and-white photos: round glasses, a receding hairline and a resolute gaze.

“We’ve long hoped that somebody could find him and give him a dignified burial,” said Raya, a soft-spoken, 62-year-old librarian.

But with general elections Sunday and polls predicting a right-wing victory, Raya and her family, along with thousands of others, fear that years of efforts to find their loved ones may suddenly grind to a halt.

The conservative Popular Party, which grew partly from Francoist roots, has pledged to repeal a memory law passed last autumn under the current Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, aimed at accelerating the exhumations. A possible alliance between the conservatives and the far-right Vox party, which has long opposed attempts to address the crimes of the past, has only heightened these fears.

“It would be a catastrophe,” Raya said, “a huge step backward.”

The to and fro over the memory law reflects how the traumas of Spain’s 1936-39 Civil War and Franco’s subsequent dictatorship, which ended with his death in 1975, still divide the country today.

To some, Franco, a nationalist, consolidated Spain’s postwar economic growth and served as an anti-communist bulwark. To many others, his rule was one of repression, marked by mass executions, exile for thousands and the abduction of children.

An estimated 100,000 people were executed by Franco’s supporters during and after the Civil War, and buried in more than 2,000 mass graves scattered across the country.

No one dared disturb those sites in a country where Franco’s legacy has long been left unexamined. Conservatives, in particular, have argued that exhumations would only reopen old wounds.

For the left, the silence has been anything but therapeutic, even enraging. During the dictatorship, Spaniards were forbidden to talk about the killings. An amnesty law, passed in 1977, hoped to draw a line under the crimes of the past, but in effect made forgetting a crucial part of the effort to heal a divided nation in transition to democracy.

“It was a culture of silence,” said Agustín Gómez Jiménez, 49, a health worker who recounted how his father had long refused to even show a picture of his own father, executed in 1936.

Gómez said it took his sister rummaging through their father’s belongings to finally find some pictures, five years ago. One of them shows their grandfather on a beach, holding hands with his small, soon-to-be-orphaned son. “I have goose bumps just thinking my father hid the photos. He was

so traumatized,” he said.

The first efforts to deal with the mass graves began in 2007, when a center-left prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, passed a “law of historical memory” that lent government support to exhumations.

But the legislation was slow to take effect and when the conservative Popular Party took power in 2011, the conservatives promptly defunded the law.

It took another decade, the commitment of Spanish leftwing-controlled regions and last year’s law — which created a census and a national DNA bank to help locate and identify the remains — for the exhumations to finally gain momentum.

Such efforts are evident in Viznar, a small, whitewashed village perched in the mountains overlooking Granada. For three years, a team of archaeologists has been digging in the ravine where Raya’s and Gómez’s grandfathers were buried along with about 280 other victims, including possibly Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.

On a recent morning, the researchers were hunched over a 3-by-13-foot pit, using brushes and small blades to delicately remove the earth covering eight skeletons. Their spines and femurs were interlaced, a sign that bodies had been dumped one upon the other. Several skulls were pierced by round holes, evidence that the victims had been shot in the head.

“It’s a page of our history that was blank and that we’re writing today,” said Francisco Carrión Méndez, the archaeologist coordinating the project, standing beside the grave. Many relatives, he explained, want to find their loved ones and rebury them because “their dignity was stolen.”

Carrión pointed to photos of the victims that families had hung on nearby pines: a university rector with slicked-back hair; an imposing-looking barmaid. “They shouldn’t be forgotten,” he said.

Not everyone agrees. At the entrance of the ravine, a sign paying tribute to the victims has been defaced by graffiti reading “¡Viva Franco!” To which someone responded: “Fascism must not be discussed, it must be destroyed.”

“In Spain,” García Lorca once wrote, “the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.”

To date, the remains of 75 people have been recovered in Viznar. The passage of time and lack of records about the

killings make identification difficult, so researchers are using bone samples to perform DNA tests in a Granada laboratory. The first results are expected this fall.

But many relatives worry it will be too late.

“Who’s responsible for the samples? Who?” Francisca Pleguezuelos Aguilar, 73, anxiously asked a perplexed forensic expert during a recent visit to the laboratory.

Pointing at a window behind which two lab assistants in white overalls were showing the DNA testing process to families, Pleguezuelos said she worried that the conservatives would block the study of the samples if they win this week’s general elections.

She wasn’t the only one afraid. “They’ll paralyze all the projects,” said María José Sánchez, a great-niece of the barmaid who was killed, her eyes swollen with tears. “The curtain is about to fall again.”

A spokesperson for the Popular Party suggested that exhumations could continue after the elections, saying that “relatives have the right to claim the bodies of their loved ones.”

But many relatives said they remembered how Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s previous conservative prime minister, boasted of having cut public funding for the 2007 memory law to zero.

The possibility of a national alliance between the conservative Popular Party and the hard-right Vox party — which polls suggest will be the only way for the right to secure a majority in parliament — has only exacerbated the fears of victims’ families.

In recent weeks, they have been looking anxiously at local governing coalitions forged between the two parties following regional elections in May: they almost always included plans to clamp down on memory projects.

“The central government is our last bulwark, our Alamo fortress,” said Matías Alonso Blasco, who represents families in the Valencia region, where the right recently took political control. “If it falls, it’s over.”

Several representatives of Vox declined to comment for this article.

In the Valencia region, the new right-wing coalition said, “the norms that attack reconciliation in historical matters will be repealed.” Many took it as a reference to the 2017 local memory law that has helped excavate about two-thirds of the area’s 600 mass graves.

Many of the bodies were recovered from the cemetery of Paterna, a suburb of Valencia. There, some 2,200 people were shot by Franco’s firing squads against a wall that is still pockmarked with bullet holes. So numerous are the mass graves that they have been given numbers.

Standing between two wooden signs marked 100 and 101, Marilyn Ortíz Bono said the body of her grandfather had yet to be identified because the remains found in the grave where he is believed to have been buried had decayed too much.

Ortíz said that shortly after Vox gained power in the Valencia region, she sent a sample of her DNA to a statefunded laboratory, hoping to get the identification process completed before the general elections.

“I haven’t heard back from them,” she said. “I’m afraid I never will.”

An old Spanish Republican flag lies on a mass grave in the cemetery in Paterna, Spain, on June 26, 2023.

Iran steps up policing of women who violate strict dress code

By VIVIAN YEE and LEILY NIKOUNAZAR

Iran is once again deploying police officers on the streets to enforce its conservative dress code for women, which many have flouted since the protest movement that rattled the country began last fall, according to state news media and social media posts.

Months into the protests, Iran quietly withdrew the morality police from the streets in an apparent concession to try to calm the nationwide upheaval against the government. The protests began last September after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in custody after the morality police accused her of violating the dress code and arrested her on a Tehran street.

A spokesman for Iran’s police force, Gen. Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi, said Sunday that effective immediately, police officers would begin patrolling to “deal with those who, unfortunately, regardless of the consequences of dressing outside the norm, still insist on breaking the norm.” He added that the patrols would “expand public security and strengthen the foundation of the family.”

He said the police would first warn people caught breaking the hijab law governing dress, which requires women to cover their hair and wear long, loose clothing that hides the shape of their bodies. Those who still refused to comply, he said, would be prosecuted.

It was unclear whether the authorities were again deploying the morality police — a force that an official said in December had been dismantled — or were requiring the regular police to do what the morality police had once done.

The mass anti-government demonstrations focused at first on the mandatory hijab law, then expanded to encompass a variety of grievances, including other social restrictions, corruption, soaring inflation, a perpetually limping economy and political repression. The movement morphed into the biggest challenge in decades to Iran’s entire system of authoritarian clerical rule.

Women tore off their headscarves and burned them, dancing in front of the flames. Many refused to put them back on even after the protests dissipated amid a violent government crackdown, in which thousands of protesters were arrested, hundreds killed and at least seven executed. University students chanted, “To hell with morality police!”

For months, the government largely looked the other way as bare heads proliferated across Iranian cities, hemlines got shorter and more Western-style clothing appeared in

the streets.

But the hijab is too important a symbol of Iran’s ultraconservative Islamic system of government for its clerical leadership to let go entirely, and while some conservatives called for compromise, others urged the government to do more.

Earlier this year, authorities began shutting down businesses that they accused of serving customers who were not wearing the hijab, and announced they would use surveillance cameras to track women who were violating the dress code, among other enforcement measures.

In recent weeks, several celebrities have faced prosecution for breaking the law, including Azadeh Samadi, an actress who appeared unveiled at a funeral two months ago, according to local news reports. She was banned from social media and ordered to see a psychologist to secure written proof that she was not a sociopath.

Another woman caught driving without a hijab in Varamin was sentenced to a month of washing and preparing corpses for burial, the reports said.

After Sunday’s announcement, it was not long before the promised patrols appeared to reemerge. That evening, several photos of police officers and the white vans they use to transport detainees to law enforcement centers were published on Gershad, an application and Twitter account initially created by anti-government activists that crowdsources user reports of police patrols so people can avoid those areas. Users had spotted the vans around Tehran, Iran’s capital, as well as in the cities of Kermanshah and Shiraz.

Gershad said on Twitter that one user had sent in a photo Sunday of two female police officers standing by a white van outside a mall in eastern Tehran. They warned passing women about wearing their hijabs improperly

before entering the mall, it said.

State news media pushed back on such reports in an apparent attempt to downplay the new measure.

Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency, said that “under no circumstances” would the vans of the morality police return to the streets, though it acknowledged that police would once again enforce the hijab law.

If a video appeared on social media purporting to show police officers forcing people into vans, Tasnim said, “it is either fake or from an archive.” The report went on to suggest that the purpose of such videos would be to undermine the government.

Yet, marked with the morality police’s logo or not, the vans are widely viewed with fear and anger by many Iranians. One such video sparked outrage on social media when it went viral over the weekend. It showed a woman in a chador — the long black cloak commonly worn by conservative Iranian women and female officers of the morality police — pulling a woman who was not

wearing her headscarf toward a van.

“Help, help,” the woman who is being pulled shouts in the video.

But Javan, a newspaper affiliated with Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, declared the video “fake” Monday, saying it and others like it “were distributed to create confrontation between women and the government.”

For many Iranian women, the broader confrontation over the hijab is already resolved — decisively in their favor. There is no going back to the days before the protests, they have said repeatedly in recent months.

Shiva, 44, a translator in Tehran who asked to be identified only by her first name to avoid legal repercussions, said she expected the new crackdown to play out differently in different neighborhoods, depending on how socially liberal they already were.

“How long will we endure this push and pull?” she said. “The taboo of the veil has been broken in our society. On the other hand, the regime is brutal.”

In one indication of how inflamed the hijab issue has become, Iranian news media and social media alike were abuzz Monday about the violent arrest of Mohammad Sadeghi, a theater actor who had been vehemently criticizing the new crackdown on an Instagram livestream at the moment of his arrest.

“If my friend, my sister and my mother want to wear clothes in a certain way, that has nothing to do with you,” Sadeghi said, addressing the government and calling for resistance.

Soon after, police raided his home, setting off a tussle during which he tried to escape out a window while screaming for help. It was no good: Sadeghi was soon taken into custody.

Iranian police officers patrolling the streets of the capital, Tehran, on Sunday. It was unclear whether the authorities were again deploying the morality police, or were requiring the regular police to take on that role.

Mandela goes from hero to scapegoat as South Africa struggles

By LYNSEY CHUTEL

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela is everywhere. The country’s currency bears his smiling face, at least 32 streets are named for him and nearly two dozen statues in his image watch over a country in flux.

Every year on July 18, his birthday, South Africans celebrate Mandela Day by volunteering for 67 minutes — painting schools, knitting blankets or cleaning up city parks — in honor of the 67 years that Mandela spent serving the country as an anti-apartheid leader, much of it behind bars.

But 10 years after his death, attitudes have changed. The party Mandela led after his release from prison, the African National Congress, is in serious danger of losing its outright majority for the first time since he became president in 1994 in the first free election after the fall of apartheid. Corruption, ineptitude and elitism have tarnished the ANC.

Mandela’s image — which the ANC has plastered across the country — has for some shifted from that of hero to scapegoat.

While Mandela is lionized around the world, many South Africans, especially young people, believe that he did not do enough to create structural changes that would lift the fortunes of the country’s Black majority. White South Africans still hold a disproportionate share of the nation’s land, and earn 3 1/2 times more than Black people.

To enter the courthouse in Johannesburg where he works, Ofentse Thebe passes a 20foot sculpture of a young Mandela as a boxer. He said that he deliberately avoids looking at it, for fear of turning into “a walking ball of rage.”

“I’m not the biggest fan of Mandela,” said Thebe, 22. “There’s a lot of things that could have been negotiated for better when it came to providing freedom for all South Africans in ’94.”

One of his main gripes about the economy is the lack of jobs. The unemployment rate is 46% among South Africans ages 15 to 34. Mi-

llions more are underemployed, like Thebe. He studied computer science at the university level, never receiving a degree. The best job he said he could find was selling funeral policies to the staff of the court.

The maze of courtrooms, with marbled pillars and fading signs, was closed on a recent day because of a citywide water shortage. Days before, the courthouse was shut because the power was out. Blackouts across the country are routine.

Faith in the future is collapsing. Seventy percent of South Africans said in 2021 that the country is going in the wrong direction, up from 49% in 2010, according to the latest survey published by the country’s Human Sciences Research Council. Only 26% said they trusted the government, a huge decline from 2005, when it was 64%

In most places, Mandela’s name is associated not with these failures, but with triumph over injustice. There are Mandela statues, streets or squares from Washington to Havana to Bei-

jing to Nanterre, France. This week, the South African government plans to unveil yet another monument, in his ancestral home, Qunu, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.

But when news of the new Mandela monument came across her social media feed, Onesimo Cengimbo, a 22-year-old researcher and aspiring filmmaker, just rolled her eyes.

“Maybe the old people are still buying it, but we’re not,” Cengimbo said. “It’s actually becoming a little bit annoying that when it comes to elections, they’re not really doing anything different, they’re just showing up Mandela’s face again.”

During the tumultuous transition from apartheid, children of color were told by their families that Mandela was just one of the many leaders fighting for their freedom. But after he triumphantly emerged from prison in 1990, toured the world and led the country to democracy, he became a singular hero.

On the playground, children jumped rope and sang, “There’s a man with gray hair from far away, his name is Nelson Mandela.”

For those who got the chance to be in his presence, it left an indelible mark.

In the staff area in the basement of the Sheraton Pretoria Hotel, Selinah Papo scanned a wall of photographs of VIP guests until she found a black-and-white image of Mandela in 2004.

“It was like he was golden,” said Papo, grinning. Nearly 20 years ago, she said, she was among a group of housekeepers who welcomed Mandela with a praise song in the lobby. The memory was still so vivid that she burst into song and did a little two-step dance.

Papo, 45, lived through Mandela’s heyday. She worked her way up in the hospitality industry as international hotel chains returned to South Africa. She studied via correspondence, supported her siblings through school and eventually bought a house in what was once a whites-only suburb.

Today, the strangling cost of living and rolling blackouts have dimmed her optimism about South Africa, but she does not blame her hero.

“Those who came after should have fixed it,” she said.

Even some of the memorials to Mandela have fallen on hard times. A Johannesburg bridge named for him that crosses over dozens of stalled trains on rusting tracks is a hot spot for muggers. A crack has begun to split at the base of the country’s largest monument to Mandela: a 30-foot bronze statue in Pretoria, South Africa’s executive capital.

On a bleak winter morning, Desire Vawda watched a group of South Korean tourists take pictures beside the monument. He said he was killing time after protests over unpaid scholarships and tuition fees shut down his college campus.

Vawda, 17, belongs to a generation that knows Mandela only as a historical figure in textbooks and films.

To him, Mandela’s fight to end apartheid was admirable. But the huge economic gap between Black and white South Africans will be on his mind when he votes for the first time next year, he said.

“He didn’t revolt against white people,” Vawda said. “I would have taken revenge.”

Outside the library of Nelson Mandela University in the coastal city of Gqeberha, Asemahle Gwala said that when he was a student, he spent hours sitting on a bench next to a life-size statue of Mandela. Students would sit in the statue’s lap, or dress up the statue with clothes and lipstick.

Gwala, now 26, said he took it as a reminder that Mandela was human — not the commercial brand he has been turned into.

South Africans, he said, would identify more now with Mandela if they could see him not as a statue and monument but “as a human being that wanted to just change his world.”

A statue depicting Nelson Mandela on July 12, 2023 outside a prison in Paarl, South Africa, where Mandela was held for 14 months until his release in February 1990.

Why we should politicize the weather

By PAUL KRUGMAN

After officially beginning his presidential campaign, Ron DeSantis was asked about climate change. He brushed the issue aside: “I’ve always rejected the politicization of the weather.”

But we absolutely should politicize the weather. In practice, environmental policy probably won’t be a central issue in the 2024 campaign, which will mainly turn on the economy and social issues. Still, we’re living in a time of accelerating climate-related disasters, and the environmental extremism of the Republican Party — it is more hostile to climate action than any other major political party in the advanced world — would, in a more rational political debate, be the biggest election issue of them all.

First, the environmental background: We’re only halfway through 2023, yet we’ve already seen multiple weather events that would have been shocking not long ago. Globally, last month was the hottest June on record. Unprecedented heat waves have been striking one region of the world after another: South Asia and the Middle East experienced a life-threatening heat wave in May; Europe is now going through its second catastrophic heat wave in a short period of time; China is experiencing its highest temperatures on record; and

much of the southern United States has been suffering from dangerous levels of heat for weeks, with no end in sight.

Residents of Florida might be tempted to take a cooling dip in the ocean — but ocean temperatures off South Florida have come close to 100 degrees, not much below the temperature in a hot tub.

And although the rest of America hasn’t gotten that hot, everyone in the Northeast remembers the way smoke from Canadian wildfires led to days of dangerously bad air quality and orange skies.

But extreme weather events have always been with us. Can we prove that climate change caused any particular disaster? Not exactly. But the burgeoning field of “extreme event attribution” comes close. Climate models say that certain kinds of extreme weather events become more likely on a warming planet — for example, what used to be a heat wave we’d experience on average only once every few decades becomes an almost annual occurrence. Event attribution compares the odds of experiencing an extreme event given global warming with the odds that the same event would have happened without climate change.

Incidentally, I’d argue that extreme event attribution gains credibility from the fact that it doesn’t always tell the same story, that sometimes it says that climate change wasn’t the culprit. For example, preliminary analyses suggest that climate change played a limited role in the extreme flooding that recently struck northeastern Italy.

That was, however, the exception that proves the rule. In general, attribution analysis shows that global warming made the disasters of recent years much more likely. We don’t yet have estimates for the latest, stillongoing series of disasters, but it seems safe to say that this global concatenation of extreme weather events would have been virtually impossible without climate change. And this is almost surely just the leading edge of the crisis, a small foretaste of the many disasters to come.

Which brings me back to the “politicization of the weather.” Worrying about the climate crisis shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But it is, at least in this country. As of last year, only 22% of Americans who considered themselves to be on the political right considered climate change a major threat; the left-right gap here was far larger than it was in other countries. And only in America do you see things such as Texas Republicans actively trying to undermine their own state’s booming renewable energy sector.

The remarkable thing about climate denial is that the arguments haven’t changed at all over the years: Climate change isn’t happening; OK, it’s happening, but it’s not

such a bad thing; besides, doing anything about it would be an economic disaster.

And none of these arguments are ever abandoned in the face of evidence. The next time there’s a cold spell somewhere in America, the usual suspects will once again assert that climate change is a hoax. Spectacular technological progress in renewable energy, which now makes the path to greatly reduced emissions look easier than even optimists imagined, hasn’t stopped claims that the costs of the Biden administration’s climate policy will be unsupportable.

So we shouldn’t expect record heat waves around the globe to end assertions that climate change, even if it’s happening, is no big deal. Nor should we expect Republicans to soften their opposition to climate action, no matter what is happening in the world.

What this means is that if the GOP wins control of the White House and Congress next year, it will almost surely try to dismantle the array of green energy subsidies enacted by the Biden administration that experts believe will lead to a major reduction in emissions.

Like it or not, then, the weather is a political issue. And Americans should be aware that it’s one of the most important issues they’ll be voting on next November.

Wreckage in Fort Myers, Fla., on Sept. 29, 2022, one day after Hurrican Ian made landfall.

EL CAPITOLIO – El presidente de Luma Energy, Juan Saca, compareció el martes ante la Comisión de Energía de la Cámara de Representantes para presentar los avances en proyectos eléctricos y destacó el aumento en la contratación de celadores en la compañía.

Saca resaltó que Luma Energy actualmente cuenta con una fuerza laboral de más de 4,000 empleados, incluyendo a 935 celadores, de los cuales 657 están adiestrados para trabajar con líneas energizadas. Este incremento impresionó al presidente de la Comisión, Luis Raúl Torres Cruz, quien recordó que el anterior presidente de Luma, Wayne Stensby, había indicado una cifra de 350 celadores.

Luma ha sometido 369 proyectos a la Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA), representando una inversión de 10 mil mi-

BAYAMÓN – La alcaldesa Karilyn Bonilla Colón, visitó hoy el Centro de Conservación de Manatíes del Caribe, institución sin fines de lucro, ubicada en las facilidades de la Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico (UIPR) en Bayamón. En dicha instalación de dedican al cuidando y mimando a Taikú, la bebé manatí rescatada el pasado domingo en Salinas. Además están atendiendo otros manatíes, así como tortugas y pelícanos, entre otros animales. El Centro sirve al gobierno como centro de rescate y rehabilitación de fauna silvestre y acuática desde el 1989.

Taikú, que en idioma taíno significa ‘espíritu bueno’, tiene menos de un mes de nacida, según estiman los especialistas del Centro, y requiere de cuidados especializados para su sobrevi-

llones de dólares, la mayor en la historia del gobierno federal en Puerto Rico. De estos, 49 proyectos están en la fase de construcción, según Saca. Sin embargo, no proporcionó el costo individual de los proyectos en ejecución, información solicitada por el presidente de la

Comisión.

En su estrategia de mejorar el servicio, la empresa ha instalado más de 1,500 dispositivos automatizados y de distribución para identificar interrupciones del servicio de forma más rápida y reducir su impacto. Para el año fiscal 2024, la compañía planea instalar más de 5,000 dispositivos de automatización.

Las principales razones de interrupciones de servicio son la vegetación que impacta las líneas eléctricas, equipos arcaicos y la falta de optimización al sistema con nueva energía. Saca mencionó que se han despejado 3,316 millas de vegetación que impactan las líneas eléctricas y aún falta despejar aproximadamente 12,500 millas.

Saca prometió que en el próximo mes de agosto y los meses subsiguientes, se anunciarán importantes proyectos que buscan estabilizar y transformar el sistema eléctrico. Como parte de su plan de comunicación, ofrecerán actualizaciones cada 60 días sobre los avances de los proyectos.

vencia, crecimiento y eventual devolución a su hábitat. El costo de todo el proceso, que se estima en cerca de tres (3) años, necesita de muchos recursos humanos, tecnológicos, veterinarios y económicos que supera los $100,000 por año por cada manatí.

“Hoy estamos visitando las facilidades para aumentas las formar en que podamos ayudar en los trabajos. Hay varias compañías que aportan en metálico y en especie, como productos agrícolas. La Legislatura también aporta con fondos. La UIPR aporta con las facilidades y utilidades. Es mucho el trabajo y este Centro de Conservación de Manatíes del Caribe trabaja también en educación ambiental a estudiantes”, señaló la Alcaldesa. El Municipio de Salinas y la Legislatura Municipal aprobaron una aportación inicial de $10,000 para ayudar a paliar los gastos del Centro.

Los trabajadores y voluntarios se distribuyen en turnos para atender a los animales rescatados 24 horas, los 7 días de la semana.

Por su parte, el director de la institución Dr. Antonio Mignucci Giannoni, señaló que el costo anual de mantener el Centro está en los $750,000. Las personas interesadas en aportar al Centro de Conservación de Manatíes del Caribe, pueden hacerlo mediante PayPal /manatipr.org y ATH Móvil / Negocios CentrodeManaties. También pueden llamar al 787-400-2782 en horas laborables. En el portal www.manatipr.org. hay información adicional sobre las labores que realiza la institución.

“Nosotros constantemente hemos estado en defensa de nuestros ecosistemas. Nuevamente hacemos un llamado a los dueños de embarcaciones para que al disfrutar de las zonas costaneras, deben respetar la biodiversidad. Es imperativo aplicar sin excusas todas las medidas de seguridad para proteger a los manatíes en su hábitat. Por ejemplo, en el Municipio hemos identificado de ejemplares manatí bien cerca de los botes en la Marina de Salinas se supone que nadie los moleste. Hay que continuar educando y fiscalizando”, finalizó Bonilla Colón.

POR EL STAR STAFF

Salinas apoya iniciativas del Centro de Conservación de Manatíes, alcaldesa Karilyn Bonilla visita a bebé manatí rescatada.

Aumento en la contratación de celadores y nuevos proyectos eléctricos según presidente de Luma Energy

For ‘Oppenheimer,’ these fans go to great lengths for just 30 screens

By MARC TRACY

On Friday morning, Vasili Birlidis and three friends will pile into a rented car in Gainesville, Florida, and drive 10 hours round-trip to see a movie that will be playing on thousands of screens across the country, including in their own town.

But this is not just any movie. And more important, they are not traveling for just any screen.

It’s “Oppenheimer,” the new biopic about the man who spearheaded the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, and Birlidis, 27, insists on seeing it at the Mall of Georgia outside Atlanta on opening day because that is the closest the movie is being shown in IMAX 70-millimeter.

Many movie aficionados consider that format the gold standard, and Christopher Nolan, the writer and director of “Oppenheimer,” made it to be seen that way. But the film is available in IMAX 70-millimeter at just 30 screens in the world, 19 of them in the United States. None of those sites are in Gainesville. Or Chicago, where Ayethaw Tun, 30, lives; he is driving to Indianapolis to see it. Or Rome, where Federico Larosa, 34, lives; he is flying to London.

If you see an IMAX theater option for “Oppenheimer,” odds are it is not 70-millimeter film but a digital projection. This format, in which “Oppenheimer” is available on more than 700 screens globally, has much to recommend it: high resolution, excellent sound. Like IMAX 70-millimeter, digital IMAX has a different aspect ratio than standard theaters, meaning you will get a taller image. Imagine watching E.T. and Elliott bicycling past the moon, but you also see the night sky above the moon and all the way to the ground.

To film buffs who are buffs, specifically, of film — of movies shot and projected with a physical, photochemical product — comparing IMAX 70-millimeter to IMAX digital, let alone standard digital, is like comparing lightning to the lightning bug.

“It’s how much of the image you’re missing if you see it on another screen,” said Birlidis, a former theater manager. “To be able to see the full film the way the director intended,” he added, “and see it on film, which is a dying breed, and at one of 30 theaters on the planet — that’s pretty special.”

Nolan acknowledged in an interview that the vast majority of moviegoers will not

see “Oppenheimer” in what he considers the optimal way. “I am of the first or second generation of filmmakers for whom it was absolutely clear that the majority of people were going to see their work on television, after the fact,” he said. The first time he saw the 1982 film “Blade Runner,” one of his favorites, he added, was on a pirated VHS tape.

But Nolan, who brought to our interview two kinds of film stock and a flip book the IMAX company made for him to illustrate film’s superior visual detail over digital, is evangelical about the format. He explained that IMAX 70-millimeter negatives are roughly 10 times the size of those for 35-millimeter film, for decades the theatrical standard that digital projection aspired to supplant, resulting in a crisper, clearer image. He can cite several IMAX 70-millimeter destinations off-the-cuff. (The AMC Metreon in San Francisco is “a wonderfully huge screen.”) He knew Brooklyn has one of the roughly 100 theaters showing “Oppenheimer” in ordinary 70-millimeter film — an “absolutely beautiful” print, he said.

Despite the comparatively few theaters showing the most advanced formats, he argued, the effort to make it available at all was worth it to him as well as to audiences, who can expect to pay a premium (an evening ticket to see “Oppenheimer” in IMAX 70-millimeter film in Manhattan costs nearly $30).

“It’s like getting a nice dinner rather than going to Jimmy John’s,” Julian Antos, the executive director of the Chicago Film Society, said, referring to the Midwestern sandwich chain.

“The event, epic size, quality of that trickles down to the excitement for the film in all other mediums, down to when somebody’s watching on their telephone,” Nolan said. “They have different expectations of what a film that has been distributed in that way is. And so it’s always been important beyond the sheer number of screens.”

IMAX has come to stand for an entire experience: IMAX certifies theaters for stadium-like seating, viewing angle and darkness. The film itself is projected onto a huge screen — the one at the AMC Lincoln Square in Manhattan is 97 feet by 76 feet — that dominates your peripheral vision.

Nolan’s are practically the only feature films these days that both use IMAX film cameras and are shown using IMAX projectors. (Several recent movies shot partly with IMAX cameras, including last year’s “Nope,” were not projected on IMAX 70-millimeter.)

For “Oppenheimer,” theaters are trotting out most of the 48 working IMAX 70-millimeter projectors left in the world. These mammoth machines can drag an “Oppenheimer” copy — 53 reels that together weigh 600 pounds and hold footage that would run 11 miles —

across their 15,000-watt lamps. The theaters call into service 60 projectionists with special training, some of them retired.

“Chris has a particular affinity — and he’s almost a unicorn in this regard — for IMAX film,” Rich Gelfond, IMAX’s chief executive, said. “Without Chris, certainly, there wouldn’t be as many as exist today.”

After his 2005 action movie “Batman Begins,” screened in digitally remastered IMAX, Nolan’s follow-up, “The Dark Knight” (2008), was the first Hollywood feature shot partly with IMAX cameras. He used them for the opening set-piece, a daring bank heist masterminded by Heath Ledger’s the Joker, and showed a reel to studio executives. “They were absolutely thrilled,” Nolan said. “Once you see it, you understand it kind of in your bones.”

Almost every Nolan movie since has used IMAX cameras. “Dunkirk” (2017) is roughly two-thirds IMAX, and, as in both his 2020 drama “Tenet” and now “Oppenheimer,” what is not IMAX was shot in traditional 70-millimeter. If you are seeing a Nolan film in IMAX, you might notice how the image toggles between filling up the whole screen and letterboxing to fill just the middle.

Unlike many Nolan movies, “Oppenheimer” is dominated not by action spectacle, but by tense conversations. Nolan said he and his cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, realized IMAX was “a wonderful format for faces” and even for the cramped committee room where a good deal of “Oppenheimer” takes place. “The screen disappears,” Nolan said. “So you’re in intimate space with the subjects.” (The filmmakers also helped develop the first black-and-white IMAX film expressly for certain scenes.)

Nolan argued that his passion for how his movies are made and displayed was justified by their influence over the viewer’s ultimate experience, even if the average filmgoer might not consciously register the difference.

“I have to believe I wouldn’t care about it as much if it didn’t have an emotional effect,” Nolan said. “There’s a favorite tactic of studio executives,” he added, “which is to say, Well, at the end of the day, isn’t it all about story? To which you say, Well, no, otherwise we would be distributing audiobooks or radio plays. In the last analysis, it is not all about story. It’s about the moving image, it’s about cinematic storytelling, and the greatest movies made could only be films.”

Frames from “Oppenheimer” on film at the AMC Lincoln Square in Manhattan, July 7, 2023. The IMAX 70-millimeter format is usually associated with action, but Christopher Nolan says his biopic benefited from the tall image.

The San Juan Daily Star

By IRIS EDÉN SANTIAGO Special to The STAR

The heritage of Dior: Quiet brilliance

ior is always that welcoming moment of calm in between runways of bold and loud fashion. A champagne sorbet in a sea of sparkling waters.

Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2023 collection, presented at the Musée Rodin in Paris, was a parade of classic shapes with emphasis on structure and construction. It is an ode to complexity in simplicity. Models seemed to float on the runway wearing ethereal looks in a restrained, lowkey, high-impact palette of colors like white, nude, beige, gray, black, silver and gold. A very soft palette, light and basic. But then, there is nothing basic about Dior. Is there?

When fluffy macrame, guipure lace and clear glass embellishments transform neutral shades into show-stopping looks, you know it is a collection to be taken seriously. This is the power of haute couture in its purest form. There is glamour in simplicity, ladies.

We liked the pleated blouses, sheer tops, column dresses, high-waisted skirts and business jackets worn with long maxi skirts and plain sheaths. Especially loved the strategic use of fishnet, metallic threads and the contrast of crisp white tops modeled with sequined bottoms and textured skirts in muted gold.

Chiffon, poplin, lamé, lurex, gauze and tweed were some of the textiles combined with tiny pearls, small crystal beads and barely there sequins to create dramatic yet understated fabulous looks that only speak of that silence luxury-savvy women in high circles are drawn to.

The House of Dior notes state the show is a final appreciation of the “ineffably contemporary creations by Chiuri, fusing the allure of classical costume with the lives and expectations of the women of today, all interpreted through the endless expressive possibilities Dior provides. Recalling contemporary incarnations of the goddesses of antiquity, the collection rethought the codes and conventions of classical costume. Employing all kinds of ‘Dior savoir faire,’ the resulting pieces possess a uniquely calm grace, even when dense with decoration, in serene and timeless tones.”

“By perpetuating the cult of the goddess and reinterpreting the found ing emblems of antiquity, the défilé becomes a contemporary ritual, il lustrating the strength and fragility of femininity, which supports and sus tains the community we form.”

LEGAL NOTICE

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO LIME HOMES, LTD.

Plaintiff, Vs. ELIZARDO MATOS CRUZ

Defendant(s)

Civil No. 3:20-CV-01024. (ADC). FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE AND COLLECTION OF MONIES. NOTICE OF SALE.

To: ELIZARDO MATOS CRUZ. URB. CAPARRA HILLS, I-3 CALLE NOGAL, GUAYNABO, PR 00968.

THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

WHEREAS: On March 10, 2023, this Court entered Default Judgment in favor of Plaintiff, against Defendant. On June 14, 2023, 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 LIME HOMES, LTD., and ordered to pay the Plaintiff the principal sum of $307,352.52, plus interest at 5.25000% per annum from October 1st, 2017, which will continue to accrue interest at the contractual rate. The defendant also owes, and the Court ordered to pay LIME HOMES, LTD. 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 $23,400.00 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 parties 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: URBANA: Solar 3 bloque I del plano de inscripción de la Urbanización Caparra Hills en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, con un área de 657.636 metros cuadrados. Lindando al NORTE, en 30.670 metros con solar 4; por el SUR, en 30.00 metros con solar 2; por el ESTE, en 23.809 metros con solar 8 y por el OESTE, en 20.01 metros con Calle 2. Consta inscrita al folio 191 del tomo 186 de Guaynabo, finca número 12779, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico de Guaynabo. WHEREAS: The property is subject to the following lien: HI-

POTECA en garantía de pagaré a favor de Popular Mortgage Inc., o a su orden, por la suma de $234,000.00 con intereses al 8 3/4% anual y vencimiento 4 de febrero de 2022. Constituida por la Escritura 37 otorgada en San Juan el 29 de enero de 2000 ante la notario Mireya Ocasio García, e inscrita al folio 217 del tomo 1416 de Guaynabo, finca 12779, inscripción 15ª. Senior Lien: None. Junior Lien: None. 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 $234,000.00 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 $156,000.00. 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 $117,000.00 (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 the JULY 28, 2023 AT 10:00

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 the AUGUST 5

2023 AT 10:00 AM, in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150, Federal Building, Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. Should the second judicial sale set hereinabove be unsuccessful, the THIRD JUDICIAL SALE of the property described in this Notice will be held on the AUGUST

12 2023 AT 10:00 3 AM, in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150, Federal Building, Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 20 day of June 2023. JOEL RONDA FELICIANO, SPECIAL MASTER.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE MAYAGÜEZ

LEGACY MORTGAGE

ASSET TRUST 2019-PR1

Parte Demandante Vs. SAMUEL ROSARIO NIEVES

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: SG2022CV00036.

Salón Núm.: (207). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA “IN REM”. EDICTO DE SUBASTA.

ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: SAMUEL ROSARIO NIEVES: Y AL PÚBLICO EN GENERAL:

El Alguacil que suscribe, certifica y hace constar que en cumplimiento de Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Mayagüez, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América. Todo pago recibido por el (la) Alguacil por concepto de subastas será en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del (de la) Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Todo derecho, título, participación e interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Parcela marcada con el número

36 en el plano de parcelación de la comunidad rural Sabana Eneas del Barrio Sabana Eneas del término municipal de San Germán, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 0.1298 cu3erdas equivalentes a 510.24 metros cuadrados. En lindes: por el NORTE, con la parcela número 37 de la comunidad; por el SUR, con la parcela 35 de la comunidad; por el ESTE, con la calle número 3 de la comunidad; y por el OESTE, con la parcela número 17 de la comunidad. Enclava una casa de madera y zinc, destinada a vivienda. Consta inscrita al folio 1 del tomo 394 de San Germán, finca número #13,101, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de San Germán. La propiedad objeto de ejecución está localizada en la siguiente dirección: Barrio Sabana Eneas, 240 (36) Calle B, San Germán, P.R. 00683. Se informa que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravamen posterior, una vez sea otorgada la escritura de venta judicial y obtenida la Orden y Mandamiento de cancelación de gravamen posterior. (Art. 51, Ley 2102015). En relación a la finca a subastarse, se establece como tipo mínimo de licitación en la Primera Subasta la suma de $71,992.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca #387, otorgada en San Germán, Puerto Rico, el día 23 de noviembre de 2007, ante la notario Mónica Marie Carretero Rodríguez, e inscrita al folio 133 vuelto del tomo 582 de San Germán, finca número 13,101, inscripción 6ta y última. La PRIMERA SUBASTA, se llevará a cabo el día 24 DE AGOSTO DE 2023 A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en mis oficinas sitas en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Mayagüez, el tipo mínimo para la primera subasta es la suma de $71,992.00. Si la primera subasta del inmueble no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 31 DE AGOSTO DE 2023 A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo sitio y servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes del precio pactada para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $47,994.66. Si la segunda subasta no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 7 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023 A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar y regirá como tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta la mitad del precio pactado para la primera, o sea, la suma de $35,996.00. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo, para con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante

el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: La suma global de $48,360.73, la cual se desglosa a continuación: la suma principal de $47,119.73, con intereses a 11.127% anual, desde el 5 de febrero de 2020, hasta el presente y los que se continúen acumulando hasta su total y completo pago, más la suma diferida por la cantidad de $1,241.00, la cual no genera intereses, más los cargos por demora que se corresponden a los plazos atrasados desde la fecha anteriormente indicada a razón de la tasa pactada de 5% de cualquier pago que éste en mora por más de quince (15) días desde la fecha de su vencimiento, más una suma equivalente a $7,199.20, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otra suma que resulte por cualesquiera otros adelantos que se hayan hecho la demandante, en virtud de las disposiciones de la escritura de hipoteca y del Pagaré hipotecario. Para más información, a las personas interesadas se les notifica que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal, durante las horas laborables. Este EDICTO DE SUBASTA, se publicará en los lugares públicos correspondientes y en un periódico de circulación general en la jurisdicción de Puerto Rico. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los referentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente Escritura de Venta Judicial y el Alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días, de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Se informa que la propiedad objeto de ejecución se adquiere libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Expedido en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, a 14 de junio de 2023. NATALIA P. ALTIERI ACEVEDO, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #218.

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE FAJARDO

MWPR, LLC

Demandante V. JUAN EMILIO SOTO BENITEZ, ANAMARI REY HERNAIZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES

Demandado (s)

Civil Núm.: NSCI201300594. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. AVISO DE VENTA EN PÚBLICA SUBASTA.

A: JUAN EMILIO SOTO BENITEZ, ANAMARI REY HERNAIZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALESY AL PUBLICO EN GENERAL:

El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior, Centro Judicial de Fajardo, Fajardo, Puerto - {243 Pueblo} Rico, a los demandados y al publico en general les notifico que, cumpliendo con un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que se ha liberado en el presente caso por el Secretario del Tribunal de epígrafe con fecha 16 de mayo de 2023 y para satisfacer la Sentencia dictada el 14 de marzo de 2014, la cual se archivo en autos y notifico el 19 de marzo de 2014, en donde se condenaba a la parte demandada a satisfacer la suma total de $152,564.09 de principal, mas intereses al 5.875% anual desde el 1 de diciembre de 2012 hasta el saldo total de la deuda y completo pago, y otros gastos o adelantos pactados y garantizados, incluyendo la suma de $17,300.00 por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, procederé a vender en publica subasta, al mejor postor en pago contado y en moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, en cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal, todo derecho, título e interés que hayan tenido tengan o puedan tener los deudores demandados en cuanto a la propiedad bien inmueble que se describe a continuación: Dirección de la Propiedad: CONDOMINIO LA COSTA EDIFICIO C APT. C-4 FAJARDO PR 00738. URBANA: PROPIEDAD

HORIZONTAL: Apartamento residencial de forma irregular localizado en la segunda planta del edificio C del Condominio La Costa del término municipal de Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Apartamento número C-4, área neta de 1,317.00 pies cuadrados equivalentes a 122.40 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con el apartamento D-3, en una distancia de 45’04” equivalentes a 13.82 metros;

por el SUR, colinda con el apartamento C-3, en una distancia de 45’04”, equivalentes a 13.82 metros; por el ESTE, colinda con espacio aéreo en una distancia de 37’00” equivalentes a 11.28 metros; y por el OESTE, con espacio aéreo y área común que da acceso al vestíbulo en una distancia de 37’0”, equivalentes a 11.28 metros. El apartamento consta de un nivel y está dividido en los siguientes elementos: sala-comedor y puerta de entrada con acceso al vestíbulo del edificio, cocina, área de lavandería, balcón, tres cuartos dormitorios con sus closets, unidos por un pasillo central, dos baños, uno con acceso al pasillo central y del segundo ubicado dentro del área del cuarto dormitorio principal. Contiene un calentador de agua y gabinetes de cocina. Le corresponde a este apartamento dos espacios de estacionamientos marcados con los números 41 y 42. Le corresponden a este apartamento en los elementos comunes generales del condominio el 0.00783%. Consta inscrita en Karibe de Fajardo, Registro de la Propiedad de Fajardo, finca número 21,464. La finca antes descrita afecta un gravamen preferente que se describe a continuación:

HIPOTECA: En garantía de un pagaré a favor de Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma de $173,000.00, intereses al 5.875% anual y a vencer el 1 de abril del año 2035, según consta de la escritura #18, otorgada en San Juan, el día 31 de marzo de 2005, ante el Notario Jose A. Crespo Rivera, inscrito en Karibe de Fajardo, finca #21,464, inscripción 2da. La finca antes descrita afecta un gravamen posterior objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: ANOTACION DE EMBARGO: A cuyo favor aparece una anotación de embargo, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Fajardo, caso civil NSCI201300594 por concepto Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca, por la vía ordinaria seguido por RNPM, LLC versus Juan Emilio Soto Benítez y Anamari Rey Hernaiz, por la suma de $152,564.09 Anotado en Karibe de Fajardo, finca #21,464, anotación A. Que con el importe de dicha venta se habrá de satisfacer a la parte demandante las cantidades adeudadas hasta donde alcance, según la Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, por el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Fajardo. Para la finca antes descrita la primera y única subasta se llevará a efecto en mi oficina en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Fajardo, Fajardo, Puerto Rico, el día 10 DE OCTUBRE DE 2023

A LAS 3:00 DE LA TARDE. Se le advierte a los licitadores que la adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el mismo acta de la adjudicación en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica y para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de todas (s) aquella (s) persona (s) que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de los licitadores y en público en general y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general dos (2), y por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones. Además, en aquellos casos en que el demandado contra quien se ejecute la sentencia haya comparecido al pleito, el promoverte de la ejecución deberá notificar a dicho demandado vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo y a su representación legal de haberla. En los casos en que el demandado no haya comparecido, la notificación será vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida. Se le advierte a todos los interesados queque todos los documentos relacionados con la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como la de la subasta, estarán disponibles para ser examinados en la Secretaría del Tribunal. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titulación y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si lo hubiere al crédito de ejecutante, continuaran subsiguientes entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. 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 en conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Y para conocimiento de los demandados, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, expido el presente Aviso para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes. 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,

secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, el Lcdo. Kenmuel J. Ruiz

López cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección kenmuel.riuz@orf-Iaw.com y a la dirección notificacionesorflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy día 25 de mayo de 2023.

LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. KATHERINE CARRASQUILLO HERNÁNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SAN JUAN ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC

COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC

Parte Demandante Vs. JANET MERCADO FRET

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV11279. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.

A: JANET MERCADO

FRET - PARC HILL

BROTHERS 411D CALLE 4 #33, SAN JUAN, PR 00924.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Natalie Bonaparte Servera cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección

natalie.bonaparte@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@ orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO

BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, hoy día 31 de mayo de 2023. En SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, el 31 de mayo de 2023.

GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. BRENDA BÁEZ ACABA, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE TOA BAJA ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC

COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC

Parte Demandante Vs. MARIELI

LOPEZ MORALES

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: TB2023CV00076. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.

A: MARIELI

LOPEZ MORALESPO BOX 1304, TOA BAJA PR 00951.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Natalie Bonaparte Servera cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección natalie.bonaparte@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@ orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO

BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Puerto Rico, hoy día 31 de mayo de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 31 de mayo de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ALBA BRITO

BORGEN, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN MCALINDON CORPORATION

Demandante V. POPULAR MORTGAGE

INC JOHN DOE Y/O RICHARD ROE

Demandado(a)

Civil: BQ2023CV00030. Sala: 501. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: POPULAR MORTGAGE

INC JOHN DOE Y/O RICHARD ROE. (Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 5 de julio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha 10 de julio de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 10 de julio de 2023. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. NEREIDA QUILES SANTANA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA

TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Parte Demandante Vs. MARÍA DE LOURDES

CALERO MARÍN; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV11180.

(604). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA - IN REM. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: MARÍA DE LOURDES

CALERO MARÍN.

LA SECRETARIA que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 10 de

julio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 60 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 14 de julio de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 14 de julio de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL.

ELSA MAGALY CANDELARIO CABRERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA DE SAN JUAN RUTH

MERCEDES MARTE

Demandante Vs. PEDRO RAMÍREZ

NEGRÓN JOSÉ ANTONIO

RODRÍGUEZ NEGRÓN

RICARDO RAMÍREZ

NEGRÓN; VERÓNICA

RAMÍREZ NEGRÓN; JANITZA AMALIA RAMÍREZ MERCEDES

Demandados

Civil Número: SJ2023CV05709. (901). Sobre: DIVISIÓN DE COMUNIDAD HEREDITARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R.

A: PEDRO RAMÍREZ

NEGRÓN. 2709 20TH ST., ZION, ILLINOIS 60099. JOSÉ ANTONIO RAMÍREZ

NEGRÓN. 3002 GILBOA AVE., ZION, ILLINOIS 60099.

VERÓNICA RAMÍREZ

NEGRÓN. 2709 21TH ST., ZION, ILLINOIS 60099.

RICARDO RAMÍREZ

NEGRÓN. 3002 GILBOA AVE., ZION, ILLINOIS 60099.

JANITZA AMALIA

RAMÍREZ MERCEDES. 4829 S CALHOUN ST., FORT WAYNE, INDIANA 46807.

MIDLAND MORTGAGE. P.O. BOX 268888, OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA 73126. POR LA PRESENTE: se le emplaza y requiere para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva a la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), a Ia cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si. usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, entiende que procede.

Lcdo. Manuel Izquierdo Encarnación Nombre de abogado de la parte demandante Número ante el Tribunal Supremo 8573

Dirección : P.O. Box 21411, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00928-1411 Teléfono 787-282-6734 miel1980@gmail.com Correo electrónico EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 11 de julio del 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MYRIAM RIVERA VILLANUEVA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN ORIENTAL BANK

Demandante Vs CARLOS R. VIERA DOMENECH Demandado (a) Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV11049. Sala: 504. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: CARLOS R. VIERA DOMENECH. EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 27 de junio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sen-

tencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha 12 de julio de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 12 de julio de 2023. Griselda

Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria Regional. E. Diomarys Alcántara Félix, Secretaria Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA

MTGLQ INVESTORS, L. P. Demandante V. SUCESION DE TEOFILA NOBOA GERRA COMPUESTA POR

YENNIFEL PEÑA NOBOA, JESSENIA ANTONIA

PEÑA NOBOA Y JOSE

BENJAMIN CHAVALIER

NOBOA Y LA SUCESION DE ANTONIO GIL PEÑA

FRIAS COMPUESTA POR YENNIFEL PEÑA

NOBOA, JESSENIA ANTONIA PEÑA

NOBOA, RAUL PEÑA

SALCEDO, RUDI PEÑA

SALCEDO Y LUIS PEÑA

COMO HEREDEROS

CONOCIDOS Y FULANO DE TAL, FULANA DE TAL, ZUTANO DE TAL, ZUTANA DE TAL, HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS A, B Y C DE LA SUCESION; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; HONORABLE SECRETARIO DE JUSTICIA DEL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO; HONORABLE SECRETARIO DE HACIENDA DEL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO

Demandado(a)

Civil: CA2020CV01977. (404).

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA

POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: SUCESION DE TEOFILA NOBOA GERRA COMPUESTA POR

YENNIFEL PEÑA NOBOA, JESSENIA ANTONIA

PEÑA NOBOA Y JOSE

BENJAMIN CHAVALIER NOBOA Y LA SUCESION DE ANTONIO GIL PEÑA

FRIAS COMPUESTA POR YENNIFEL PEÑA NOBOA, JESSENIA ANTONIA PEÑA NOBOA, RAUL PEÑA SALCEDO, RUDI PEÑA SALCEDO Y LUIS PEÑA COMO HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS Y FULANO DE TAL, FULANA DE TAL, ZUTANO DE TAL, ZUTANA DE TAL, HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS A, B Y C DE LA SUCESION.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)

EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 7 de julio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha 12 de julio de 2023. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 12 de julio de 2023. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA. MYRIAM I. FIGUEROA PASTRANA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. SANTANDER MORTGAGE CORPORATION POR CONDUCTO DE SU SUCESOR EN DERECHO FIRSTBANK

PUERTO RICO, LORELL CRESPO MIRANDA

T/C/C LOREL CRESPO

MIRANDA, GLENN

QUIÑONES RIVERA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR

AMBOS, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL

PAGARÉ Demandado(a)

Civil: BY2023CV02010. Sala: 505. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: GLENN QUIÑONES

RIVERA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA CON LORELL CRESPO MIRANDA T/C/C LOREL CRESPO MIRANDA

A LAS SIGUIENTES DIRECCIONES:

URB. PALACIOS DE MARBELLA, 903 CALLE MAGALLANES, TOA ALTA PR 00953-5200 Y 3737 CASTLE PINES IN APT 4412, ORLANDO, FL 32839-3560, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ. (Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 11 de julio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha 11 de julio de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 11 de julio de 2023. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. MILITZA MERCADO RIVERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. SUCESIÓN DE JUAN

CASTRO MORALES COMPUESTA POR LYDIA FEBO RODRIGUEZ

T/C/C LYDIA FEBO DE CASTRO POR SÍ Y EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA, JOHN PATRICK CASTRO FEBO, IVETTE XIOMARA CASTRO FEBO, CELINDA CASTRO MARTÍNEZ Y DALERYS MARIE

CASTRO NEVÁREZ Y LA SUCESIÓN DE VÍCTOR CASTRO FEBO COMPUESTA

POR DALERYS MARIE

CASTRO NEVÁREZ, FULANO DE TAL, FULANA DE TAL, ZUTANO DE TAL, ZUTANA DE TAL, A, B Y C COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; SECRETARIO DEL DEPARTAMENTO DE HACIENDA; SECRETARIO DEL DEPARTAMENTO DE JUSTICIA

Demandados

Civil Núm.: DCD2016-0501. (402). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria. AVISO DE VENTA EN PÚBLICA SUBASTA. Yo, MARIBEL LANZAR VELÁZQUEZ, Alguacil Supervisor de la División de Subastas del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, a los demandados y al público en general les notifico que, cumpliendo con un Mandamiento que se ha librado en el presente caso por el Secretario del Tribunal de epígrafe con fecha 8 de noviembre de 2022 y para satisfacer la cantidad adeudada de $94,427.89 de principal mediante Sentencia dictada en el caso de autos el 7 de julio de 2017, y notificada y archivada en autos el 3 de agosto de 2017 y publicada mediante edicto en el Periódico “The San Juan Daily Star” el 10 de agosto de 2017, vendiendo en pública subasta la propiedad que se describe a continuación: Bo. Amelia, 31 Calle José de Diego, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00965-5376. URBANA:

SOLAR MARCADO CON EL NÚMERO DOS (2) de la Manzana “B” del plano preparado por la Autoridad sobre Hogares de Puerto Rico, hoy Corporación de Renovación Urbana y Vivienda de Puerto Rico, para su proyecto de solares denominado Zenón Díaz Valcárcel PRH-once (PRHA-11), radicado en el Barrio Pueblo Viejo Amelia del término municipal de Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de TRESCIENTOS QUINCE METROS CUADRADOS QUINCE CENTIMETROS CUADRADOS (315.15 MC). EN LINDES: por el NORTE, con el solar B-uno (B-1) de la mencionada Urbanización, distancia de veintitrés metros sesenta y cuatro centímetros (23.64 m); por el SUR,

con la servidumbre de paso de la Calle doce (12) de dicho proyecto, distancia de veintiocho metros con dieciséis centímetros (28.16 m); por el ESTE, con el solar E-Tres (E-3) de la susodicha Urbanización; por el OESTE, con la servidumbre de paso de la Calle veinte (20) del mencionado proyecto, distancia de doce metros noventa y ocho centímetros (12.98 m). Contiene una casa. Consta inscrita al folio número doscientos treinta y cinco (235) del tomo número trescientos cuarenta (340) de Guaynabo, finca número diecisiete mil quinientos cuarenta y cinco Bis (17,545 Bis), en el Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guaynabo. Con el importe de dicha venta se habrá de satisfacer a la parte demandante las cantidades adeudadas, en el caso de epígrafe, que se desglosan de la siguiente forma: $94,427.89 de principal, 6.75% de intereses, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda, $499.64 de cargos por mora, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. El tipo mínimo para la subasta será la suma de tasación pactada, la cual es $110,700.00 según la escritura de hipoteca para la propiedad descrita. De declararse la subasta desierta, se procederá a una segunda subasta y servirá de tipo mínimo de 2/3 del precio mínimo antes mencionado; $73,800.00. Si tampoco hubiere remate ni adjudicación en esta segunda subasta, se procederá a una tercera subasta, en la cual regirá como tipo mínimo ésta la 1/2 del precio mínimo antes mencionado; $55,350.00. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a cabo el 7 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA. De no comparecer postor alguno se llevará a efecto una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el 14 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA. De no comparecer postor alguno se llevará a cabo una TERCERA SUBASTA el 21 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA. La subasta o subastas antes indicadas se llevarán a efecto en mi oficina, localizada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón. Se advierte a los licitadores que la adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el mismo acto de la adjudicación en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica y para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda(s) aquella(s) persona(s) que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de los licitadores y el público en general y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general, una vez por semana durante el término de

dos (2) semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, y para su fijación en tres (3) lugares públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como, la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía y se le notificará además a la parte demandada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores, previa orden judicial dirigida al Registrador de la Propiedad de la sección correspondiente para la cancelación de aquellos posteriores. Se les advierte a todos los interesados que todos los documentos relacionados con la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como la de la subasta, estarán disponibles para ser examinados, durante horas laborables, en la Secretaría del Tribunal. 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; entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Y para conocimiento de los demandados, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, expido el presente Aviso para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes. Librado en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 12 de julio de 2023. MARIBEL LANZAR VELÁZQUEZ, ALGUACIL PLACA #735.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SAN JUAN FINANCE OF AMERICA

REVERSE, LLC

Demandante Vs. SUCESIÓN DE LUCIANO DELGADO

VÁZQUEZ, T/C/C

LUCIANO DELGADO COMPUESTA POR CARMELINA CORREA

QUINONES, T/C/C

CARMELINA CORREA DE DELGADO, T/C/C

CARMELINA CORREA, T/C/C/ C. CORREA, MARÍA DEL CARMEN

DELGADO CORREA, LINA DEL CARMEN DELGADO CORREA, LUCIANO DELGADO CORREA, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO MIEMBROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS; CARMELINA CORREA

QUINONES, T/C/C

CARMELINA CORREA DE DELGADO, T/C/C

CARMELINA CORREA, T/C/C/ C. CORREA; MARÍA DEL CARMEN DELGADO CORREA; LINA DEL CARMEN DELGADO CORREA; LUCIANO DELGADO CORREA; EL CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS

MUNICIPALES; Y LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA

Demandados

Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV03439.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA - IN REM. EDICTO DE SUBASTA.

Al: PÚBLICO EN GENERAL.

A: SUCESIÓN DE LUCIANO DELGADO VÁZQUEZ, T/C/C LUCIANO DELGADO COMPUESTA POR CARMELINA CORREA QUINONES, T/C/C CARMELINA CORREA DE DELGADO, T/C/C CARMELINA CORREA, T/C/C/ C. CORREA, MARÍA DEL CARMEN DELGADO CORREA, LINA DEL CARMEN DELGADO CORREA, LUCIANO DELGADO CORREA, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO MIEMBROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDO; CARMELINA CORREA QUINONES, T/C/C CARMELINA CORREA DE DELGADO, T/C/C CARMELINA CORREA, T/C/C/ C. CORREA; MARÍA DEL CARMEN DELGADO CORREA; LINA DEL CARMEN DELGADO CORREA; LUCIANO DELGADO CORREA; EL CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES; Y LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA.

Yo, JUAN A. SANTANA GARCÍA, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, a los demandados, acreedores y al público en general con interés sobre la propiedad que más adelante se describe, y al público en general, por la presente CERTIFICO, ANUNCIO y HAGO CONSTAR: Que el día 07 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, sita en mi oficina 4to piso, Oficina

del Alguacil de Subastas en el Centro Judicial de San Juan, Puerto Rico, procederé a vender en Pública Subasta, al mejor postor, la propiedad inmueble que más adelante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se ordenó por la vía ordinaria mediante Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, la cual se notificó y archivó en autos el día 15 de marzo de 2023. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría durante horas laborables. Que en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta a celebrarse, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA para la venta de la susodicha propiedad, el día 14 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 21 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado. Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que ha sido liberado por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, en el caso de epígrafe con fecha de 16 de junio de 2023, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble y que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número tres del Bloque “B” del Plano de Inscripción Final de la Urbanización Mansiones de Río Piedras, antes denominada Urbanización Montesanto, del Barrio Cupey de Río Piedras, término municipal de San Juan, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de cuatrocientos cincuenta y cinco metros cuadrados y diez centésimas de otro, en lindes; por el NORTE, en treinta metros, con el solar número dos del Bloque “B”; por el SUR, en treinta metros, con el solar número cuatro del Bloque “B”; por el ESTE, en quince metros diecisiete centésimas, con la Calle número ocho; y por el OESTE, en quince metros diecisiete centésimas de otro, con el solar número catorce del Bloque “B”. Propiedad número 6,168, inscrito al folio 111 del tomo 184 de Río Piedras Sur. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección IV de San Juan. Dirección de la Propiedad: 1790, (3-B) Astromelia St. Mansiones de Rio Piedras Dev., San Juan, PR 00926. La subasta se llevará a cabo para satisfacer, hasta donde alcance, el importe de las cantidades adeudadas a la parte demandante conforme a la sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: $146,756.46 de balance principal del préstamo, con intereses ajustable al 3.418% anual, la cual se acumulan para un total de $170,974.23 a la fecha de 2 de junio de 2022, y los

cuales continúan acumulándose; la cantidad líquida estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; más recargos acumulados hasta la fecha en que se pague la deuda; más cualquiera suma de dinero por concepto de contribuciones, primas de seguro hipotecario y riesgo, así como cualesquiera otras sumas pactadas en la escritura de hipoteca, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. La hipoteca a ejecutarse en el caso de epígrafe fue constituida mediante la escritura número 740, otorgada el día 6 de diciembre de 2013, San Juan, Puerto Rico, ante el Notario Público Lizbet Avilés Vega y consta inscrita al folio 123 del tomo 662 de Río Piedras Sur, finca número 6,168, Registro de la Propiedad de Rio Piedras Sur, Sección IV de San Juan. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta del inmueble antes descrito será la suma de $318,000.00 según se establece en la escritura de hipoteca antes relacionada. En caso de que el inmueble a ser subastado no fuera adjudicado en su primera subasta se ordena la celebración de una segunda subasta de dicho inmueble, en la cual, la cantidad mínima será una equivalente a 2/3 parte de aquella, o sea la suma de $212,000.00; desierta también la segunda subasta de dicho inmueble, se ordena la celebración de una tercera subasta en la cual, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, es decir la suma de $159,000.00. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el importe de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación, entiéndase efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad no está sujeta a gravámenes anteriores y/o preferentes según surge de las constancias del Registro de la Propiedad en un estudio de título efectuado a la finca antes descrita. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor que se cele-

brarán las subastas en las fechas, horas y sitios señalados para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviniere o se les invita a satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, otros cargos y las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Entiéndase: Hipoteca Revertida en garantía de un pagaré a favor del Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $318,000.00, con intereses al 3.418% anual, vencedero el día 6 de marzo de 2088, constituida mediante la escritura número 741, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 6 de diciembre de 2013, ante la notario Lizbeth Avilés Vega, e inscrita al folio 123 del tomo 662 de Río Piedras Sur, finca número 6,168, inscripción 5ta. Una vez efectuada la venta de dicha propiedad, el Alguacil procederá a otorgar la escritura de traspaso al licitador victorioso en subasta, quien podrá ser la parte demandante, cuya oferta podrá aplicarse a la extinción parcial o total de la obligación reconocida por la sentencia dictada en este caso. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Si el producto de la venta fuere insuficiente para satisfacer la cantidad reclamada, se procederá a la ejecución de la sentencia en contra de la parte demandada por el remanente de las sumas no satisfechas, mediante embargo y venta en ejecución de cualesquiera otros bienes propiedad de la parte demandada en cantidad suficiente para dejar cubierta y totalmente satisfecha a la parte demandante cualquier deficiencia o parte insoluta de la sentencia dictada a su favor según dispuesto en la sentencia dictada en este caso. Se dispone, conforme con la sentencia dictada en este caso que, una vez efectuada la subasta y vendido el bien inmueble, los adjudicatarios sean puestos en posesión del mismo dentro del término de veinte (20) días por el Alguacil de este Honorable Tribunal y los actuales poseedores lanzados del referido inmueble. De ser ello necesario, el Alguacil podrá diligenciar el Acta de Subasta que se expida en horas laborales, de día, los 5 días de la semana y podrá romper cualquier cerradura o candado que dé acceso al inmueble objeto de este desalojo. Y para la concurrencia de licitadores y para el público en general, se publicará este Edicto de acuerdo con la ley, mediante edicto, en un periódico de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, una vez por semana, por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, y para su fijación en tres (3) luga-

res públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía, y se le notificará además a la parte demandada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto de Subasta para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 23 de junio de 2023. JUAN A. SANTANA GARCÍA, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE SAN JUAN.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SAN JUAN REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING, LLC Demandante V. SUCESIÓN DE HERNAN ROMAN SASTRE T/C/C HERNAN F. ROMAN SASTRE COMPUESTA POR MARITZA ROMAN CRUZ, NILDA ROMAN CRUZ, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO MIEMBROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS, Y SUCESIÓN DE HERNAN ROMAN CRUZ COMPUESTA

POR CHRISTIAN ROMAN, JONATHAN ROMAN, JEAN PAUL ROMAN, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO MIEMBROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS; SUCESIÓN DE NILDA CRUZ DE ROMAN T/C/C NILDA CRUZ RIVERA T/C/C NILDA A. CRUZ RIVERA COMPUESTA

POR MARITZA ROMAN CRUZ, NILDA ROMAN CRUZ, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO MIEMBROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS, Y SUCESIÓN DE HERNAN ROMAN CRUZ COMPUESTA

POR CHRISTIAN ROMAN, JONATHAN ROMAN, JEAN PAUL ROMAN, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO MIEMBROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS

Honoring the last of the ‘Boys of Summer’

By TYLER KEPNER

It is the first inning, you might say, and Carl Erskine does not have his best stuff. A camera crew has set up in his living room, and a filmmaker, Ted Green, gently tries to guide Erskine through a short speech. This is hard work for the old Brooklyn Dodger, who needs several takes.

Erskine apologizes; he is not at his sharpest, he says. But when he gets it, he nails it, as he was bound to do. There has always been something inviting about Erskine, a welcoming look that draws you in warmly and melts away the decades.

“He’s a 96-year-old guy,” Green says, “with 12-year-old eyes.”

Soon the eyes are dancing and the memories come rushing back. An interview starts and the game rolls along, like a no-hitter at Ebbets Field (he threw two), complete with the playing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” — on harmonica. Erskine keeps one beside the lamp on the end table, an out pitch he can always reach.

“When we have music, he’ll pick up the harmonica,” says Betty Erskine, 95, from her blue easy chair on the other side of the table from her husband. “If it’s in the wrong key, he lays it back down. But if it’s right, he’ll play along.”

Erskine plays an original piece, “The Stan Musial Blues,” that he wrote for the hitter he faced more than any other, often without luck. Musial, who died in 2013, played his own harmonica at the Hall of Fame ceremonies every July. Erskine is not a member, but this weekend he will have his day in Cooperstown, New York.

On Saturday, a day before Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen are inducted into the Hall, Erskine will receive the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award, named for the pioneering Negro leagues star, which is given every three years for positive contributions to baseball’s impact on society.

Deep in winter for the last of Dodgers players chronicled in the book “The Boys of Summer,” Erskine remembers it all with childlike wonder.

“As a kid growing up, your imagination takes you to a lot of places, and so I always dreamed of places like this,” said Erskine, the only living player from the 1955 World Series, when Brooklyn won its only crown. “Never really thought it would happen — but then it did happen, and that made it so amazing. It’s like, ‘Was that me?’”

As a minor leaguer, Erskine talked curveball grips with Mordecai Brown, who was

better known as Three Finger Brown. As a young major leaguer on Oct. 3, 1951, he bounced the curve while warming up in the bullpen at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan. The Dodgers then called for another pitcher, Ralph Branca, who gave up Bobby Thomson’s famous pennant-winning homer for the Giants.

Stardom followed for Erskine: a 20-win season, a 14-strikeout game in the World Series (Mickey Mantle fanned four times), the no-hitters. He made the first start for the Dodgers in Los Angeles in 1958 and threw a strike with the first pitch.

Erskine’s arm finally gave out the next June, a time so distant that the union had 49 states and the majors just 16 teams. He and Betty had seen so much history, with so much more to come, and in 1960, they decided to experience it all in Anderson, Indiana, their shared hometown.

“They’d say, ‘Where is Anderson?,’ and I’d say, ‘Well, it’s on the White River between Moonville and Strawtown,’” Erskine said, laughing softly. “Anderson was always just a good, solid place to raise your kids.”

That decision, as much as his baseball career, pointed Erskine on the path to this weekend’s honor. His original post-career plan had been to move to New York and work as an athleticwear representative for Van Heusen, the apparel company. But the family stayed in Anderson when Jimmy, the fourth Erskine child, was born with Down syndrome in April 1960, a time when many families struggled with society’s attitudes toward children with intellectual disabilities.

“The assumption right in the beginning

was, of course, you’re going to take him to some institution,” Erskine said. “And Betty says, ‘No, no, he goes home with us.’ And that was it from the beginning, Day 1. So we never considered anything but Jimmy going with us.”

The Erskines became a trusted resource for families with similar challenges; Gary, their second child, said several family friends went into careers in special education. Carl volunteered with the Special Olympics for more than four decades — recruited by its founder, Eunice Kennedy Shriver — and a vocational training program in Muncie is named in his honor.

In speeches, Erskine would bring a World Series ring and a Special Olympics medal, noting the greater significance of the latter. Along the way he came to recognize the similarities between his Brooklyn teammate Jackie Robinson and Jimmy. Both thrived in settings that would once have shunned them. His short book about them, “The Parallel,” is being developed for use in Indiana public schools.

When Erskine became involved with a youth organization, the Wildcat Baseball League — motto: “Everybody makes the team” — in the 1960s, Robinson went to Fort Wayne to help promote it, with Ted Williams and Bob Feller.

“I know that anything that Carl Erskine would be associated with has to be a very fine thing,” Robinson told the crowd. “Carl talked about our relationship on the Brooklyn baseball club, and it’s a friendship that I’ll cherish, and I’ll always cherish, for as long as I can remember.”

Green, the filmmaker, uses that clip in his Erskine documentary, “The Best We’ve Got,” which had its premiere last summer in Anderson and will be shown at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum this month. The title comes from Mitch Daniels, the former governor of Indiana, who used it while giving Erskine the state’s highest honor, the Sachem Award for achievement and moral virtue, in 2010.

“For the characteristics we’re talking about, the ones that I would like to think people here — not just here, but in a place like Indiana — respect and revere, he’s the best,” Daniels said in an interview. “He was living these things decades before people invented these buzzwords. They were somehow either born and instilled in him.”

They were instilled, in a graphic way, when Erskine’s father, Matt, took him to Marion, Indiana, in 1930, the morning after a mob had stormed a jailhouse and hung two Black prisoners. Matt Erskine wanted his son to see the effects of hate.

The sight of a bare tree branch and remnant of a noose has been seared in Carl Erskine’s consciousness ever since. In a state that once counted about 30% of the male population as dues-paying members of the Ku Klux Klan, Erskine grew up with a Black best friend, Johnny Wilson — a distinction, he said, that should earn him no special accolades.

“I lived in a mixed neighborhood and I knew a lot of outstanding Black families, hard-working families, and Johnny was a buddy,” Erskine said. “I ate at his house, he ate at my house, and we were just very, very close. I never noticed the color of the skin. It never played a part in our relationship. So it’s hard for me to take any credit for that, because it just came natural for me.”

Two of Erskine’s children, Gary and Susie, will represent him in Cooperstown, part of a sprawling family that includes five grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, including a girl named Brooklyn.

Erskine’s name will be on permanent display at the Hall of Fame by the Buck O’Neil statue, just down a hallway and around the corner from the plaque gallery. That room honors the most hallowed Brooklyn names — Robinson, Campanella, Snider, Reese, Hodges and more — and, to Erskine, sends a subtle but powerful message he has spent his life promoting.

“There’s one key factor about the plaques around that room at the Hall of Fame,” Erskine said. “They’re all bronze. They’re all the same color.”

Retired Major League Baseball pitcher Carl Erskine at his home in Anderson, Indiana, on June 30, 2023. (Kaiti Sullivan/The New York Times)

Lionel Messi gives MLS first taste of the weight of his star

By JAMES WAGNER

Just before 9 p.m. Sunday, the greatest soccer player of his era, and maybe the greatest of all time, walked across a makeshift stage in his new home stadium. He hugged the owners of his new team, including former star David Beckham. As he held his new jersey — a pink No. 10 — Lionel Messi grinned and looked up at the crowd and the fireworks.

If it has felt like a dream that Messi, who won the World Cup in December as Argentina’s captain and who has claimed seven Ballons d’Or as the world’s best player, chose Inter Miami of MLS as his team for the twilight of his career, his unveiling event was proof that, yes, this has actually happened.

“Before anything, I want to give thanks to Miami for this reception and the kindness since I arrived to the city,” Messi said in Spanish in his first public comments since his monumental deal, which runs through the 2025 MLS season, was announced Saturday. “To be honest, I’m very emotional and very happy to be here in Miami and to be with you.”

For two minutes, Messi, 36, spoke directly to the Inter Miami fans who chanted his surname throughout the night at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, about 30 miles north of downtown Miami. Messi’s introduction was called La PresentaSíon, the presentation in Spanish, but

English and Spanish on Apple TV, MLS’ first-year streaming partner, with a few glitches, purposefully coincided with halftime of the CONCACAF Gold Cup final, which Mexico won 1-0 over Panama.

Before Messi addressed the crowd, Mas and Beckham spoke. Beckham, an Englishman who famously signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy of MLS in 2007, read his prepared comments from his cellphone, sprinkling in some Spanish. Mas used both languages for the entirety of his address. Miami, after all, is the unofficial capital of Latin America, and Florida has the largest Argentine community in the United States.

“I know that the people of South Florida will take you all into their hearts,” Beckham said. “We are building a special club here at Inter Miami, a club that represents this special place and its people.”

with “Sí”

(“Yes”) emphasized. And in typical South Florida fashion, it took place in the rain.

In choosing Miami, where he already owns property, Messi turned down a chance to play in Saudi Arabia, where a team had offered him significantly more money. He also declined the possibility of returning to Barcelona, where he signed at 13, won every major trophy and wanted to remain before moving to Paris-St. Germain in 2021.

Long before Messi’s time in France

came to an unceremonious end this summer, the owners of Inter Miami had dreamed of bringing him to South Florida. The event Sunday, and the weeks leading up to it, have shown how much of a jolt Messi has already provided to the franchise, the region and soccer in the United States.

“There will always be a before and after Lionel Messi,” said Jorge Mas, a Cuban American billionaire and managing owner of Inter Miami, which played its inaugural season in 2020.

“We are recipients of the legacy of the greatest player in the world that started at Newell’s Old Boys, went to Barcelona, ended at PSG,” Mas continued, listing Messi’s previous teams, including his youth team in Argentina. “But today it sits in the hands of Inter Miami and its fans. This is our moment. Our moment to change the football landscape in this country.”

The rain subsided by the time Messi spoke, but a torrential downpour hindered the early festivities and flooded parts of this interim stadium. (Inter Miami hopes to move to a proposed new stadium near Miami International Airport in 2025.) On Sunday, the 19,000-seat stadium certainly didn’t have the size or energy of Camp Nou in Barcelona or Parc des Princes in Paris, but most fans donned team or Messi gear. One shirtless fan waved a huge flag featuring Messi in an Argentina jersey. Argentina jerseys were the second most popular clothing choice, with a few fans wearing Messi’s Barcelona shirt.

The celebration, broadcast globally in

Before Messi appeared, Beckham introduced the team’s second marquee signing of the summer, Sergio Busquets, Messi’s former teammate at Barcelona. Busquets spoke, too, but briefly. The night, imperfect and all, belonged to Messi.

Not known for being loquacious, Messi was concise Sunday. Wearing a white Inter Miami T-shirt and jeans, Messi thanked the team’s ownership group for making him and his family feel welcome. He said he hoped fans would keep watching and growing with the team.

“I have a lot of desire to start training and to compete,” said Messi, who joins a team in last place in the MLS’ Eastern Conference. “I came with a desire to always compete and want to win.”

Messi also thanked his teammates, several of whom were on the field.

“I’m very happy to have chosen to come to this city with my family and to have chosen this project,” he said. “I don’t have a doubt that we’ll enjoy it and we’ll have a good time and beautiful things will happen.”

After Messi handed over the microphone, a video played on the big screen featuring many celebrities, such as retired Argentine basketball star Manu Ginóbili and Miami residents Gloria and Emilio Estefan, welcoming Messi to town and wishing him luck. Then the families of Messi and the owners joined them onstage for photos. Musical acts followed.

Afterward, Messi signed autographs for fans in the stands. Tuesday was his first official training session with his teammates, and Friday will be his first game. This is his new home.

Lionel Messi’s deal with Inter Miami runs through the 2025 M.L.S. season.

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Aries (Mar 21-April 20)

All your relationships may be enhanced by an increased sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others, Aries. You may provide melancholy friends with a sympathetic ear, or you may give assistance in resolving problems. Rest assured that your efforts won’t go unappreciated. You will probably grow closer to those who mean the most to you now, including the very special person in your life.

Taurus (April 21-May 21)

Expect to minister to the needs of colleagues and family members today, Taurus. People may need to draw on your insight into human nature in order to understand themselves and others. Your common sense could prove invaluable. In the process of sharing your wisdom, you might also shed some light on emotional situations of your own. You could surprise yourself.

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Today you might feel especially creative and intellectually inspired, Gemini. You could discuss your ideas with others. The process of communication could open up new doors in your mind, and result in some fascinating insights concerning whatever you’re pursuing. Sometime in the course of your conversations, don’t be surprised if you find that one of your friends needs a sympathetic ear.

Cancer (June 22-July 23)

A close friend or member of your household could be having money problems, Cancer, and might want to draw upon your business sense in order to make sense of the situation and find ways to put it right. As you’re likely to be feeling especially sensitive to the needs of others, you could be of valuable assistance to this person and anyone else who needs some insight.

Leo (July 24-Aug 23)

Heightened intuition could lead to some interesting conversations, Leo. Others could be blown away by your insights into their thoughts, feelings, and desires. You could also feel more expressive than usual. You might want to channel some of that inspiration into writing, speaking, or some other form of selfexpression. Reading could prove especially valuable at this time.

Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)

Your intuition and inspiration could enhance your artistic talents, Virgo. A powerful drive to express the stories, pictures, or music in your mind could result in your spending as much of the day as you can jotting down your thoughts and ideas. You might spend most of your free time alone as a result.

Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)

Moving ahead is the key for today, Libra. You should feel very optimistic and excited about your goals. You’re probably confident that you will reach them and all will go well. This positive attitude spills over into your personal relationships. You should be in just the right frame of mind to encourage your friends to go for their own dreams and give them whatever assistance they need.

Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)

Inspiration is the key for today, Scorpio. You may feel highly motivated to move on with what others consider impossible. Impossibility has never stopped you before, and you aren’t likely to let it stop you now. You’re more likely to consider all contingencies carefully in order to make them work. Friends could be inspired by your vision and determination and follow your example.

Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)

An increased understanding of different cultures as well as curiosity about the people who live there might spur you to learn more about those places. Friends or groups could be involved in some way. You may channel a lot of energy into intellectual activities and inspire others to do the same. Take a walk at some point during the day. You will need to clear your head.

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)

The opportunity to increase your income could spur you on to channel more energy and inspiration into career matters, Capricorn. Some intense dreams could reveal a lot about you and your motivation, which might increase your self-awareness and make everything easier for you. The drive to succeed in material and spiritual matters is likely to play a powerful role in everything you do.

Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)

You might have the desire for travel, perhaps to visit a friend who lives far away, Aquarius. You may actually set the wheels in motion to make it happen. Social events could take up your time this evening, and you could meet some interesting people. A friend might need a sympathetic ear. Today you’re especially sensitive to others, so be prepared to hear a sad story. Otherwise, your day should go well.

Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)

Today you might hear about opportunities to increase your income, Pisces, either in your current employment, a new job, or perhaps by a project of your own. You may channel a great deal of energy and inspiration toward this end. Others may want to pitch in and help you. You’re likely to feel energetic and optimistic. This can work in attracting still more new opportunities.

Speed Bump