Monday Mar 20, 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.

Authorities investigating cyberattack on water authority that compromised client, employee data

By THE STAR STAFF

The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), the Office of Innovation and Technology Services (PRITS), and the FBI in San Juan are actively working to solve a cyberattack carried out against the water authority last week, PRASA Executive President Doriel Pagán Crespo and PRITS Executive Director Nannette Martínez Ortiz announced Sunday.

“Last week, there was a computer security incident, specifically [a] cybersecurity [breach] against the authority’s platforms,” Pagán Crespo said. “Since the incident was detected, we have been working with the relevant authorities, the FBI and CISA [the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency], specifically. Likewise, PRASA immediately activated its security protocols.”

So far, and as part of the investigation’s findings, officials confirmed that customer and employee information was compromised. However, the attack did not impact critical infrastructure due to the segmentation of the PRASA networks, they said.

Martínez Ortiz established that “as part of the sound governmental administration established by this government, we have agreements with the FBI where they are integrated immediately, and we share information in addition to receiving input on the protocols and the analysis of the evidence.”

The criminal organization responsible for the attack has already been identified at the national level.

“But unfortunately it is an aspect that we continue to handle globally due to how we handle information,” the PRITS executive director said. “At the moment, we are continuing to analyze the possible impact, the attack vector and its scope to issue a more detailed communication to the affected users.”

“Because this is an ongoing investigation, we cannot comment further,” Pagán Crespo said. “However, we assure all our clients that the services offered by the authority are still functional, and we continue working to provide quality and efficient service.”

“We encourage all of our customers to access their accounts and change their passwords regularly on the PRASA platform and all platforms with accounts,” she added.

The officials invited all citizens to visit the page https:// www.protegetusdatos.pr.gov to avoid becoming a cyberattack victim.

“As the investigation progresses and we can give more detailed information, impact and next steps, we will be sharing up-to-date information,” PRASA said in a press release.

Files charged in Las Golondrinas protest shooting case

By THE STAR STAFF

Justice Secretary Domingo Emanuelli Hernández announced recently that the Aguadilla Prosecutor’s Office filed charges against César A. Toledo Mantilla, the private security guard who allegedly shot a protester near Las Golondrinas cave.

Toledo Mantilla faces charges of attempted murder, illegally firing a firearm, and risk to public order or safety by firing a gun in an open space, all violations of the Penal Code of Puerto Rico and the Weapons Law.

After the defendant accepted the court’s determination, Judge Rolando Matos found cause for arrest and set bail at $30,000. The judge scheduled a preliminary

hearing for April 3 in Aguadilla Superior Court.

“The Public Ministry is prepared to prove this case because it results from a thorough and responsible investigation” the Justice secretary said. “Cases are taken to court when ready to meet the rigor and quantum of evidence required by our judicial process.”

According to the investigation, on Jan. 29, protesters began arriving at the Hacienda Pier property around noon. After several incidents between the people protesting in the area and security guards, employees of the company SJA Security Police Inc. and Toledo Mantilla fired an unknown number of shots, causing the situation to become more violent as protesters entered the area. Subsequently, police officers asked the protesters several times to leave the area, but some refused. Six people were arrested.

Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority Executive President Doriel Pagán Crespo

First PR Miss Universe Marisol Malaret dies at 73

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

Abeauty queen who later became a popular television hostess, Puerto Rico’s first Miss Universe Marisol Malaret Contreras died on Sunday, according to various press reports. She was 73.

The cause of death was not immediately reported.

Her father’s untimely death and her mother’s chronic illness forced Malaret to work from a very young age, holding down jobs such as cleaning houses. At the time she entered the Miss Puerto Rico

pageant, at the urging of make-up artist Carmen Andino, she was working as an executive secretary for the Puerto Rico Telephone Company.

Her stunning beauty, with auburn hair and blue-green eyes, made Malaret a crowd favorite in Puerto Rico and she went on to win the Miss Universe title at the Miami Beach Auditorium in Miami Beach, Florida on July 11, 1970.

Following the pageant, Malaret received one of the biggest receptions at San Juan’s Isla Verde International Airport, now Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport. The New York Times reported that “50,000 turned out to honor a Queen.”

She was also invited to the White House for a visit in the Oval Office with then-President Richard Nixon.

Malaret went on to pose for countless fashion and entertainment magazine covers and also acted as a motivational speaker for young women and young business leaders

Malaret was married three times: to former model Butch James; to musician Corky Storman, with whom she had her only child, her daughter Sasha; and engineer Frank Cué.

Malaret has a five-year-old granddaughter, as well as one brother and five half-siblings.

Renowned portrait painter Rodón dies at age 88

By THE STAR STAFF

Francisco Rodón, an artist known as the father of modern portraiture in Puerto Rico, died in his sleep early Saturday at age 88 in San Juan, according to press reports.

Rodón was a portrait and landscape painter who was named the island’s most important 20th-century painter during the Seville Expo ’92 world’s fair in Spain.

He joined the likes of 18th-century painter José Campeche and the 19th century’s Francisco Oller as the most important painters of their respective centuries.

Rodón was born in San Sebastián in 1934, and in his youth studied in Mexico, France and Spain.

He was known as a landscape and portrait painter and painted portraits of such illustrious figures as the famed Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, Cuban choreographer and

Owner of Auto Germana arrested in DR

By THE STAR STAFF

The Dominican Republic Attorney General’s Office reported Sunday that it had detained three former officials of the past government of Danilo Medina Sánchez including Donald Guerrero, owner of Puerto Rico’s Auto Germana, during several raids carried out in different sectors of Santo Domingo.

The Dominican Prosecutor’s Office told the press that among those arrested are former ministers Gonzalo Castillo, Public Works and Communications, and José Ramón Peralta, Administrative of the Presidency; and Guerrero, of the Treasury, who are also part of the Political Committee of the Dominican

Liberation Party (PLD).

According to reports, the arrests were carried out for interrogation purposes in cases of corruption in the past administration.

The Anti-Fraud Unit of the comptroller general accuses Guerrero and other individuals in an alleged corruption network that defrauded the Dominican Republic of more than 17 billion pesos (around $314.5 million) in an alleged land expropriation scheme.

Castillo, who was a presidential candidate for the PLD in the 2020 elections, is being investigated for the contracting without bidding of 38 companies for the purchase of asphalt concrete for an amount of 11.5 billion pesos ($212.75 million).

dancer

A Rodón portrait of Puerto Rico’s first democratically elected governor, Luis Muñoz Marín, unveiled in Puerto Rico in 1977, was placed with much fanfare in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 1995.

“To me it is a great honor that this remarkable man who did so much for Puerto Rico and what he meant for Puerto Ricans is here at the National Gallery,” Rodón told NBC News at the time. “To be here and show this work of art is truly one of my life’s greatest privileges.”

“This is definitely my memoir,” said Muñoz Marín, who died in 1980, of the portrait. “It captures the feeling in a stage of my life where I look back and I am saddened not to have done or not being able to do much more than I have already done.”

Alicia Alonso and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru.

Marisol Malaret

Francisco Rodón

Donald Guerrero

Off-the-grid solar project in Adjuntas hailed as first step to energy independence

By THE STAR STAFF

Hundreds of people participated Saturday in Adjuntas in the “Marcha del Sol (Sun March): Puerto Rico Triumphs,” a movement to create renewable energy microgrids independent of the island power grid operated by the private consortium LUMA Energy.

“We are causing a systemic change in the way energy is generated in the country,” said Dr. Arturo Massol Deyá, the associate director of Casa Pueblo, in a written statement. “In this way we have redefined the sun as the primary source of energy; in fact, as an example for other municipalities, the country and the Caribbean. It has been a rough road, but one made possible by the strength of community self-management and the solidarity of hundreds of people.”

At the event, two microgrids of the Adjuntas Pueblo Solar Project, developed by Casa Pueblo, Honnold Foundation and the Solar Energy Community Association (ACESA by its Spanish initials), were inaugurated.

The system, which provides 172 kilowatts of solar power and one megawatt of storage through two megabatteries that

are unique in Puerto Rico, enables the energy independence of 13 businesses located on the periphery of the public square. In addition, it promotes economic activation, retention and generation of jobs, and energy resilience in times of crisis, the system’s developers said.

Adjuntas Pueblo Solar was developed over a period of four years, thanks also to donations from Rivian and REC Group, and the organization Empowered by Light.

The construction of the microgrids was completed and now the testing and operational adjustments phase has begun. Eventually, the system will allow merchants to become independent from LUMA Energy. ACESA will act as the administrator, sell electricity to merchants and allocate part of the income to the realization of new solar projects in the municipality, with special attention to benefiting low-income people.

“Now it is up to all of us to oversee that network, to do it with quality and to give back to our people what they have given us in service for so many years,” ACESA President Gustavo Irizarry said. “We’re not going to pay LUMA, we’re going to pay ACESA. And we are going to govern where that money goes.”

NMEAD chief is among 7 notable recipients of honorary distinctions from UPR

By THE STAR STAFF

As part of a tradition that exalts people whose professional careers have been exemplary and of immeasurable value to society, the Río Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) held the Academic Distinctions Ceremony on Friday to honor seven figures in the fields of science, public service and planning, including the commissioner of the Bureau of Emergency Management and Disaster Administration (NMEAD by its Spanish acronym), Nino Correa Filomeno, who received a degree from the School of Social Sciences.

The event — framed in the celebration of the 120th anniversary of UPR’s founding — was held in two sessions in the Río Piedras Campus Theater. During the morning ceremony, the distinction of professor emeritus was awarded to Drs. Rafael Arce Quintero, Nicholas Van Liew Brokaw and John P. Richard Thomas -- the first, from the Department of Chemistry; the second, from the Department of Environmental Sciences; and the third from the Department of Biology, all of which are in the School of Natural Sciences.

In addition, Dr. John A. Soderquist, who also was a member of that school’s faculty, was recognized as professor emeritus post mortem as part of the Department of Chemistry.

In the afternoon ceremony, the degree of doctor honoris causa -- the highest honor conferred by UPR -- was awarded to Correa Filomeno on behalf of the School of Social Sciences, as well as the distinctions of professor emeritus to Dr. Carmen M. Concepción Rodríguez and that of distinguished professor to Dr.

Maritza Barreto Orta, both from the Graduate School of Planning. “Each of the honorees, from their respective fields of academia and public service, have lived their vocations with excellence, always at the service of our students and the island, with exemplary careers that today our alma mater recognizes with a deep sense of duty, pride and satisfaction,” UPR Río Piedras Campus Chancellor Dr. Angélica Varela Llavona said. “Duty, because the enormous magnitude of their professional careers demand it; pride, because we have had the privilege of considering them as our own; and satisfaction, for the immense joy we feel when we recognize their achievements and give them -- through these distinctions -- the enhancement and dimension they really possess.”

Emily Teitsworth, the director of the Honnold Foundation, stressed meanwhile that in the 10 years of its existence, the Adjuntas Pueblo Solar Project has been the largest community project the foundation has supported financially.

New Fortress Energy subsidiaries, Weston agree on 150 MW power deal for Palo Seco

By THE STAR STAFF

New Fortress Energy Inc. (NFE) has announced that its Puerto Rico subsidiaries, NFE Power PR LLC and NFEnergia LLC, have entered into agreements with Weston Solution Inc. for the installation and operation of 150 megawatts (MW) of power generation at the Palo Seco Power Plant in Toa Baja as well as the supply of natural gas.

Weston has won a task order to supply the temporary power generation to support the overall mission of the island’s grid stabilization at the Palo Seco plant under its U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Omaha Rapid Disaster Infrastructure contract. The 150 MW of dual-fuel generators are expected to enable maintenance and repair work of Puerto Rico’s power system and grid, according to a statement.

“We are pleased to partner with Weston and support this critical mission to improve grid stability in Puerto Rico,” said Wes Edens, chairman and CEO of NFE. “The federal government is providing much-needed resources to Puerto Rico’s recovery and this project will help enable the transition to a cleaner, more affordable and reliable energy system.”

NFE is the parent company of Genera PR, which has the 10-year contract to operate and maintain the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s legacy power plants.

Bureau of Emergency Management and Disaster Administration Commissioner Nino Correa Filomeno

Two microgrids of the Adjuntas Pueblo Solar Project, developed by Casa Pueblo, Honnold Foundation and the Solar Energy Community Association, were inaugurated at Saturday’s event in Adjuntas.

Mujica: PR has a long way to go before fiscal board can make its exit

By THE STAR STAFF

Significant work remains to be done before Puerto Rico will be able to meet the conditions for the Financial Oversight and Management Board to end its tenure on the island, the oversight board’s executive director said in a recent letter to Congress.

The law that created the oversight board, the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), states that “[t]he purpose of the Oversight Board is to provide a method for a covered territory to achieve fiscal responsibility and access to the capital markets.”

Section 209 of PROMESA states that the oversight board will terminate when the territorial government “has adequate access to short-term and long-term credit markets at reasonable interest rates” and “for at least four consecutive fiscal years … has developed its Budgets in accordance with modified accrual accounting standards” and expenditures “during each fiscal year did not exceed revenues.”

PREPA, which PROMESA defines as part of the legal definition of the territorial government, still needs to complete its debt restructuring. PREPA’s budget must include restructured debt payments for it to qualify as having developed its budget under the required modified accrual accounting standards, Robert Mujica, the executive director of the oversight board, said in a letter to Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The government has not yet produced audited financial statements for fiscal years 2021 and 2022, making it difficult to know whether expenditures in those years were less than actual revenues on a modified accrual basis, Mujica noted

in the letter.

“The government’s lack of integrated financial systems and inability to close its books on a monthly or quarterly basis also inhibit the Oversight Board’s ability to use alternate verification techniques to evaluate this parameter,” he said. “Full implementation of an integrated enterprise resource planning system and a properly staffed legislatively authorized Office of the CFO would go a long way toward instilling the fiscal discipline and financial controls needed to meet this requirement under PROMESA eventually.”

Fiscal year 2022, which ended on June 30, 2022, was

the first fiscal year that included debt payments under the Commonwealth Plan of Adjustment. It was also the first fiscal year for which the government provided the oversight board with a General Fund budget that the board could certify as compliant with the Fiscal Plan.

“The government added incremental expenses throughout the year without proactively identifying resources to fund those costs,” Mujica pointed out in the letter. “During fiscal year 2022, the Oversight Board reviewed at least five laws that would have increased annual costs by more than $312 million outside of the certified budget.”

For the current 2023 fiscal year, the island Legislature did not submit a timely and compliant budget to the oversight board for certification, forcing the board to certify a budget, he said.

Further, the government continued passing laws during the fiscal year that reduced revenues or increased expenditures without identifying ways to pay for that incremental cost.

“Similar to last year, unless action is taken, the government may find itself unable to demonstrate PROMESA’s Section 209 provision that expenditures did not exceed revenues during the fiscal year,” Mujica said.

The government’s reliance on off-budget resources to supplant ongoing operating expenses remains a significant risk to budget balances, the oversight board official said. The government has repeatedly used one-time federal funding for recurring operating payments, including salary enhancements for public sector employees, he noted.

“Given the preceding work which the government and the Oversight Board is undertaking, it is premature to attempt to forecast when the Section 209 statutory conditions will be satisfied,” Mujica said.

Judge stays lawsuits against Law 60 beneficiary facing federal criminal charges

By THE STAR STAFF

Ajudge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has stayed lawsuits filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission and by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against Avraham Eisenberg, who is facing criminal charges for orchestrating and carrying out a scheme to fraudulently obtain some $110 million in cryptocurrency.

Judge Laura Tiangco Schofield granted requests from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to stay the civil cases because they have the potential to affect the criminal case against Eisenberg, a beneficiary of local Act 60 tax incentives (formerly Act 20 and 22) who was arrested in December in Puerto Rico.

“The stay sought by the Government will conserve this Court’s time and resources, because the outcome of the criminal case is likely to have a significant impact on what issues are ultimately in dispute in the civil cases,” the judge said in a ruling March 13. “Moreover, allowing discovery in the civil cases to proceed without restriction risks giving the defendant, Avraham Eisenberg, the tools to improperly obtain impeachment material regarding the Government’s witnesses, circumvent the criminal discovery rules, and improperly tailor

his defense in the criminal case.”

The civil suits were filed in January.

Eisenberg, who described himself as a digital art dealer, was charged for stealing cryptocurrency from a Solana blockchain-based decentralized cryptocurrency exchange called Mango Markets and its investors. Mango Markets allowed investors to buy and sell perpetual futures contracts, including perpetuals based on the relative value of Mango Markets’ native crypto token, MNGO, and a crypto stablecoin called USDC.

The indictment says that on or about Oct. 11, 2022 , Eisenberg deceptively used two accounts on Mango Markets that did not appear to the public to both be controlled by him, but were in fact controlled by him, to sell himself, from himself, a large number of MNGO Perpetuals. Eisenberg then made a series of large purchases of MNGO using USDC with the objective of artificially increasing the price of MNGO relative to USDC and, in turn, the price of MNGO Perpetuals on Mango Markets.

The purchase achieved the desired effect, causing the price of MNGO Perpetuals on Mango Markets to rise approximately 1,300%. As the price of MNGO Perpetuals on Mango Markets rose due to the manipulative purchasing by Eisenberg, the apparent value of the MNGO Perpetuals that

Eisenberg had purchased from himself also rose.

“Because Mango Markets allows investors to borrow and withdraw cryptocurrency based on the value of their assets on the platform, the artificial increase in the value of the MNGO Perpetuals Eisenberg had purchased from himself allowed him to borrow, and then withdraw, approximately $110 million worth of various cryptocurrencies from Mango Markets, which came from deposits of other investors in the Mango Markets exchange,” according to the indictment.

The defendant also faces a civil lawsuit filed by Mango Markets.

According to the Daily HODL, Eisenberg used a technique used by hackers to artificially inflate “the trading volume of a low-liquidity token on a DeFi protocol, which is designed to spike the token’s price.”

“Chainalysis notes that hackers will often use flash loans to secure the initial capital needed to inflate the token’s trading volume, then trade the designated token for a more stable crypto asset after pumping up the price,” the publication notes.

Daily HODL also noted that there were 41 separate attacks in 2022, and pointed to last October’s $100 million exploit of Mango Markets, which was launched in 2021, as a prime example of what that kind of hack looks like.

Robert Mujica, executive director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico

Biden and McCarthy are on a collision course in a divided government

By KATIE ROGERS and ANNIE KARNI

Anyone wondering how a Democratic president and the newly installed Republican speaker of the House would work together got their first real preview this month, when President Joe Biden released a budget that Republicans vowed to torpedo and Speaker Kevin McCarthy signed his first bill — one the president has promised to veto.

In a pair of dueling events, McCarthy accused Biden of being “woke” with his promise to veto a bipartisan effort to prevent retirement fund managers from assessing a company’s cultural values before investing. From Philadelphia, Biden called on McCarthy to unveil a GOP budget plan: “Lay it down,” Biden said.

McCarthy responded by calling the president’s proposal “completely unserious.”

With that, the collision course between the two men, whose relationship over the next few months will among be the most important in Washington, appears to be set.

Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, has rosily called legislative politics “the art of the possible.” But with McCarthy publicly refusing to raise the nation’s borrowing cap without serious spending cuts and Biden refusing to negotiate on the debt ceiling at all, a feverish messaging battle has replaced functional legislating, for now, as the United States runs the risk of defaulting on its debt.

During a private Democratic Senate lunch this month, Biden told the group that the speaker was in an “interesting position” — a comment that drew laughs from the crowd — and recounted his January meeting with McCarthy at the White House.

“He was basically saying he was going to hold the debt ceiling hostage,” Biden told the crowd, according to a person in the room. “And we’re just not going to play that game.”

For his part, McCarthy had a different take on the meeting: “He said he would not negotiate with me. Now he just spent an hour with me in the Oval Office,” McCarthy crowed to Fox News host Sean Hannity.

At a celebration for McCarthy at the Conrad Hotel in Washington in January, according to two attendees, the brand-new speaker told people of advice he had taken to heart from Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., when it came to high-stakes negotiating: In a game of chicken, you have to throw the steering wheel out the window and

crash the car.

The relationship between the president and the speaker of the House defines what can be accomplished in Washington — in short, they need each other to demonstrate to the public that government, even a divided one, can function. But when they are from different parties, that relationship quickly becomes combustible.

Biden and McCarthy have built a fragile relationship since Biden’s vice presidency, when McCarthy would visit for occasional breakfasts during his tenure as majority leader. Similar in background — both come from middle-class families and overcame speech impediments early in life — the two men have had a strained relationship over the years.

After his first meeting at the White House after Biden became president, McCarthy told reporters that he didn’t think “anybody is questioning the legitimacy” of Biden’s election. That comment ignored the fact that just hours earlier he had voted along with the majority of his conference to oust former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from her leadership position because of her criticisms of Trump and his false claims about election fraud.

In a later interview with the conservative podcast “Ruthless,” McCarthy, 58, poked fun at Biden, adding to the caricature that the oldest

president ever to serve in office is doddering. He said Biden, 80, claimed to have fixed the problems at the country’s southern border and was more interested in giving out sweets.

“He said, ‘Oh no, I fixed it. It was broken; I fixed the border,’” McCarthy said. “Then he asked me if I wanted a cookie. Oh no, he was very excited. ‘I fixed the border,’ then at the end, ‘Do you want a cookie? I’ll get you a cookie.’” He added: “He was very proud of his cookies.”

Privately, McCarthy has told allies that he has found Biden to be mentally sharp in meetings.

Biden, for his part, has resisted personal attacks but painted broad swaths of the Republican Party as extreme, with McCarthy at the helm.

It took 15 rounds of votes — and concessions to the hard-right flank of his party — for McCarthy to be elected speaker in January. The White House sees that as a sign of his weakness, pointing to the slim majority Republicans hold in the House.

McCarthy’s supporters say they view the process as a sign of his strength and ability to stick things out to get the outcome he desires.

“If Kevin is pleasant and calm and persistent, almost the same principle that he had to endure to become speaker, in the end he’s

going to get an amazing amount done and people are going to be surprised,” said Newt Gingrich, the Republican who antagonized and impeached President Bill Clinton as speaker and whose former chief of staff, Dan Meyer, is now McCarthy’s top adviser.

“He’s a good planner,” Gingrich added. “That’s what people underestimate about Kevin.”

The president has in the past tried to indulge McCarthy’s love of the trappings of congressional leadership. (He enjoyed traveling aboard Air Force One with Trump.) When McCarthy was invited to the state dinner in honor of Emmanuel Macron of France, he called the White House asking for an invitation for his mother. The president quickly obliged, according to two people familiar with the call.

The two had a cordial interaction at Biden’s raucous State of the Union address, shaking hands and smiling at each other — at one point, the speaker appeared to shush the rowdiest members. That cordiality did not extend far beyond the dais: McCarthy’s allies claim that they do not have a functional bond, for which they blame Biden.

“There’s a missed opportunity by the White House to engage with the speaker in a more fulsome way and in a serious way,” Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., said in an interview. “They’re dropping the ball on the relationship that will define the next few years.”

McCarthy has expressed frustration that during his years as minority leader, Biden rarely made any attempt to speak to him and did not mention his name during his inaugural address.

Instead of Biden reaching out, Louisa Terrell, the White House director of legislative affairs, has spoken with the speaker several times since his January meeting with the president, discussing areas where Republicans and Democrats might work together, according to people familiar with those calls. They have talked about issues including manufacturing, control over the supply chain, support for veterans and the fentanyl overdose crisis. The White House also added two more aides to the legislative affairs team this week.

“We think the president’s done a good job of taking very hardened, slim majorities that we had last session, and we were able to kind of find the connective tissue and figure out ways that we could work together,” Terrell said in an interview.

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy talk during the Friends of Ireland St. Patrick’s Day luncheon at the Capitol in Washington, March 17, 2023. The president and house speaker need each other to govern, but a messaging battle has replaced functional legislating as the two spar over the budget and federal debt limit.

Trump claims his arrest is imminent and calls for protests, echoing Jan. 6

By MAGGIE HABERMAN, JONAH E. BROMWICH, BEN PROTESS, ALAN FEUER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

With a New York grand jury indictment likely but its timing unclear, Donald Trump sought to rally supporters to his side, declaring that he would be arrested Tuesday and calling for protests.

Trump made the declaration on his site, Truth Social, at 7:26 a.m. Saturday in a post that ended with, “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

Two hours later, a spokesperson issued a statement saying that Trump had not written his post with direct knowledge of the timing of any arrest, adding that “President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system.”

But Trump’s social media post had immediate impact: Within hours, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, one of the most powerful people in federal government and who partly owes his position to Trump, posted on Twitter that he was calling for investigations into whether federal funds were being used for “politically motivated prosecutions,” a thinly veiled threat to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Prosecutors working for Bragg have signaled that an indictment of Trump could be imminent. But they have not told Trump’s lawyers when the charges — expected to stem from a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star — would be sought or an arrest made, people with knowledge of the matter said. At least one more witness is expected to testify in front of the grand jury, which could delay an indictment, the people said.

One of the people said that even if the grand jury were to vote to indict the former president today, a Tuesday surrender was unlikely, given the need to arrange timing, travel and other logistics.

The statement from Trump’s spokesperson did not explain how he had landed Tuesday as an arrest date. One person with knowledge of the matter said that Trump’s advisers had guessed that it could happen around then, and that someone might have relayed that to the former president.

A lawyer for Trump, Susan Necheles, said that his post had been based on news reports, and accused the Manhattan district attorney’s

office of conducting a “political prosecution.”

Trump, who declared his third presidential campaign in November and is leading his Republican opponents in most polls, faced his first criminal investigation in the late 1970s. He has been deeply anxious about the prospect of an arrest, which is expected to include being fingerprinted, one of the people said.

When the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, was arrested in 2021, Trump watched in horror as television news showed Weisselberg flanked by officers in the courthouse, and the former president said he couldn’t believe what was happening.

Trump’s post Saturday urging his supporters to protest and reclaim the nation carried unmistakable echoes of the incendiary messages he posted online in the weeks before the attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the most notorious of those messages, posted Dec. 19, 2020, he announced on Twitter that he would hold a rally in Washington on Jan. 6. “Be there,” he told his millions of followers. “Will be wild.”

At that rally, on the Ellipse near the White House, Trump told supporters to march to the Capitol, where the certification of the 2020 presidential election was taking place. He is under investigation by federal prosecutors for his activities before the attack.

Investigators later determined that far-right extremist groups as well as ordinary Trump

supporters had read his tweet as a clear-cut invitation. They almost immediately sprang into action, acquiring protective gear, setting up encrypted communications channels and, in one case, preparing heavily armed “quick reaction forces” to be staged outside Washington for the event.

Despite Trump’s unpredictable nature, several members of his legal team have said that they expect him to surrender.

New York officials have been discussing security arrangements at the Manhattan Criminal Court in case of an indictment, according to people with knowledge of the planning, which was first reported by NBC News. Trump is expected to be charged in connection with the hush money payment his former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to porn star Stormy Daniels, who has said she had an affair with Trump.

Cohen made the $130,000 payment to Daniels to bury her story of the affair.

The payment came in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Trump subsequently reimbursed Cohen. Prosecutors are expected to accuse Trump of overseeing the false recording of the reimbursements in his company’s internal records. The records falsely stated that the payments to Cohen were for “legal expenses.”

There have been several signals that charges may be imminent: The prosecutors gave Trump an opportunity to testify, a right afforded to

people facing indictment, and have questioned nearly every major player in the hush money saga in front of the grand jury.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing and denies having had an affair with Daniels.

Any arrest and processing of Trump would probably combine the routine steps that every defendant experiences — fingerprinting, photographing — with the pomp accorded to a former president, whose every move is attended by the U.S. Secret Service.

It is unclear what kinds of accommodations Trump would receive. It is standard for defendants arrested on felony charges to be handcuffed, but an exception could be made. As he awaits his court appearance, it is possible that for security reasons, he would be detained in an interview room or another confined area, rather than in a holding cell. And after Trump is arraigned, he would almost certainly be released without spending any time behind bars, because the indictment is likely to contain only nonviolent felony charges.

Without the platform provided by the White House or the machinery of a large political campaign, it was unclear how many people Trump would be able to reach, let alone mobilize, via Truth Social.

And it remained unclear whether he would repeat his call for action or increase the stakes with more aggressive language. But his political allies made plain this past week that they were preparing for a political war on Bragg.

Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the thirdranking House Republican and another close ally of Trump’s, said Saturday morning that the investigation was an “attempt to silence and suppress the will of the voters who support President Trump and the America First Movement.”

Yet two of Trump’s more bombastic Republican allies, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, declined to repeat his call for protests. Gaetz offered a dismissive analysis of the case on Twitter, and Greene followed by saying, “We don’t need to protest about the Communists Democrat’s planning to arrest” Trump.

The unexpected Saturday morning salvo from the former president provided a preview of the kind of chaos that Bragg is likely to face if he proceeds with an indictment.

Bragg, a former federal prosecutor and deputy New York attorney general, has some history of prosecuting public officials. But he is unaccustomed to dealing with a figure as high-profile, erratic and pugilistic as the former president, and it is unclear how his office will deal with future outbursts from Trump.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at an election campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday, March 13, 2023. With Trump facing indictment by a Manhattan grand jury but the timing of the charges uncertain, he declared on his social media site that he would be arrested on Tuesday, March 21, and demanded that his supporters protest on his behalf.

Wyoming becomes first state to outlaw abortion pills

By DAVID W. CHEN and PAM BELLUCK

Wyoming late last week became the first state to ban the use of abortion pills, adding momentum to a growing push by conservative states and anti-abortion groups to target medication abortion, the method now used in a majority of pregnancy terminations in the United States.

Wyoming’s new law comes as a preliminary ruling is expected soon by a Texas judge that could order the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to withdraw its approval of mifepristone, the first pill in the two-drug medication abortion regimen. Such a ruling, if it stands, could upend how abortion is provided nationally, affecting states where abortion is legal as well as states with bans and restrictions.

Legislation to ban or add restrictions on medication abortion has been introduced in several states this year, including a bill in Texas that would not only ban abortion pills but also require internet service providers to take steps to block medication abortion websites so people in Texas could not view them.

In these states, proposals to block or restrict abortion pills have typically been introduced along with other anti-abortion measures, a reflection of the range of obstacles to abortion these states have tried to erect since the Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in June.

Medication abortion is already outlawed in states that have total bans, since those bans already prohibit all forms of abortion. But Wyoming became the first state to outlaw the use of pills for abortion separate from a total ban.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, signed that state’s abortion pill ban on the same day that he said he would allow another more sweeping measure banning abortion to become law without his signature. That law, which takes effect Sunday, would ban abortion under almost all circumstances, making it a felony to provide an abortion.

“I have acted without bias and after extensive prayer, to allow these bills to become law,” Gordon wrote in a letter to Wyoming’s secretary of state released Friday evening.

Gordon said in the letter that he withheld his signature from the broader abortion ban because he feared it would complicate matters in an ongoing legal battle over an earlier abortion ban passed

by Wyoming

legislators.

The broader ban outlaws medication abortion as well, and the measure that bans abortion pills would mostly have the effect of creating additional penalties for medication abortion providers.

Both laws are likely to be challenged quickly in court by abortion providers, who will seek to prevent the bans from taking effect while the legal challenge proceeds. A previously enacted abortion ban has so far been blocked by the courts after providers and others filed suit claiming that the law violated the Wyoming Constitution’s guarantee of freedom in health care decisions. The newly enacted abortion ban is an attempt to circumvent that constitutional provision by declaring that abortion is not health care.

Wyoming’s abortion pill law would take effect July 1 and would make it illegal to “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion.” Doctors or anyone else found guilty of violating this law would be charged with a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in prison and a $9,000 fine. The law explicitly says that pregnant patients will be exempt from charges and penalties.

Wyoming has only one clinic that provides abortions, Women’s Health & Family Care Clinic in Jackson. It provides only medication abortion, not the surgical procedure.

“The impact of that legislation not only infringes on our constitutional rights, it actually causes harm,” said Dr. Giovannina Anthony, an OB-GYN at the clinic. “Criminalizing evidence-based medicine is really what this boils down to, and that, in the end, honestly, will lead to maternal deaths and horrible outcomes for both mothers and babies.”

Anthony and other health providers are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Wyoming’s previously enacted abortion ban, which the courts have blocked pending review by the Wyoming Supreme Court. On Friday, the same plaintiffs filed a request for a temporary restraining order to block the new broader abortion ban, since that ban would otherwise take effect right away. A hearing on that request is scheduled for Wednesday, and Anthony said she and the other plaintiffs will also be filing a court challenge to the medication abortion ban.

In the meantime, Anthony said, she will be canceling abortion appointments scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.

“The number of women who pursue abortion in a rural state like this is relatively few compared to more highly populated states, but it still is a very chilling effect on our obstetric care,” she said.

Earlier versions of the bill had named specific drugs: mifepristone and two brandname versions of it, as well as misoprostol, the second drug used in the medication abortion regimen.

But doctors testified in objection, pointing out that misoprostol, in particular, had many other medical uses, including helping pregnant patients successfully give birth. The doctors raised concerns that pharmacists would be fearful of stocking any of the drugs, and some Republicans said names of abortion medications could simply be changed to get around the law. As a result, the final language was broadened to outlaw using any medication for abortion without mentioning specific drugs.

At least three other bills have been introduced in 2023 that seek to ban medication abortion. In Iowa, the bill did not make it to a vote before the legislative session ended, and in Hawaii, a Democratic state, the bill seems unlikely to succeed.

A bill introduced in Texas, a state that already bans abortion, includes many provisions that seek to close off any access to pills, including making it difficult for Texas patients to learn about or use abortion services outside of the state. The bill would make it illegal to manufacture, distribute or

“provide an abortion-inducing drug in any manner to or from any person or location in this state.”

Under the other new Wyoming law, the “Life Is a Human Right Act,” performing an abortion or administering abortion medication would be considered a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, and doctors would have their licenses revoked. The law bans abortion with narrow exceptions for rape, incest and dire risks to the pregnant patient’s life or health.

“While other states are pushing an extreme abortion agenda, comparable to North Korea’s and China’s inhumane laws, Wyoming is a pro-life state, affirming that life is a human right and ensuring that women have real support,” said state Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, sponsor of the bill.

The law is intended to replace an existing ban, which is now on hold because of a legal challenge over its constitutionality. How that affects the actions of the Wyoming Supreme Court, though, remains to be seen.

At issue is the definition of health care: Under the Wyoming Constitution, residents have the right to make their own health care decisions. So, the new law stipulates that abortion is not health care.

“Instead of being health care, abortion is the intentional termination of the life of an unborn baby,” the new law states. “It is within the authority of the state of Wyoming to determine reasonable and necessary restrictions upon abortion, including its prohibition.”

Because the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to an abortion, the fight over abortion access is now in the hands of the states.

For Trump and his potential 2024 GOP rivals, It’s all about Iowa

By TRIP GABRIEL

Donald Trump was in Iowa last Monday. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida made his first visit the previous week. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., have each made recent trips. And Saturday, former Vice President Mike Pence spoke at a forum on foreign policy.

Even as Democrats have chosen to snub Iowa in 2024, the state has never loomed so large for Republicans in the presidential nominating race. For one Republican, it has taken on a do-or-die feel — the first real-world test of the strength or vulnerability of Trump.

No former president has sought to regain the White House in modern times. A loss or even a less-than-convincing win for Trump in the state’s caucuses, the kickoff contest for Republicans early next year, would signal a nearly fatal weakness for his campaign, according to GOP strategists in and out of the state. For that reason, both his challengers and Trump himself are paying extra attention to Iowa.

“I don’t see a formula where Trump loses Iowa, and it doesn’t really wound him and his chances as a candidate,” said Terry Sullivan, who managed Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Even though Trump easily carried Iowa in the general elections of 2016 and 2020, Republican activists in the state said a 2024 caucus victory was not assured for him, although he remains the front-runner.

Last week, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll found that Trump’s appeal was eroding: If he is the nominee in 2024, only 47% of Iowa Republicans would definitely support him in the general election. That was a doubledigit decline from the 69% who in 2021 said that they would definitely support him.

“For the former president, winning the Iowa caucuses is everything,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential leader of the state’s evangelical voters. “If he loses, it’s ‘game on’ to the nomination” for everyone else, he said. “If he wins the Iowa caucuses, there’s nobody stopping him.”

After Democrats decided that Iowa’s nearly all-white, largely rural population was not representative and substituted South Carolina as the kickoff state for their 2024 primaries, Republicans are embracing the state’s traditional role as a proving ground.

The Trump campaign has hired experienced state leaders and plans to build an Iowa caucus infrastructure that signals its wish for a

do-over of 2016, when Trump was shocked to finish second in the caucuses.

Back then, the politically inexperienced reality TV star had believed that big crowds at his rallies would easily translate into a surge of caucusgoers. Instead, he lost to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Trump was so angry that he flew out of Iowa without thanking his local staff, baselessly tweeting later that Cruz had won because of “fraud” — a preview of his approach after losing reelection in 2020.

Trump advisers said they did not intend to repeat the mistakes of 2016. “We have a serious political operation in the state of Iowa, run by and coordinated with extraordinarily competent professionals who know what they’re doing,” said Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. “We’re doing that because, one, we’re serious, and two, we’re in it to win it.”

Trump has hired as his state director Marshall Moreau, who managed the upset victory last year of Iowa’s Republican attorney general. He also hired as his director of early voting states Alex Latcham, a former political director of the Iowa Republican Party. Latcham witnessed close-up the bumbling Trump effort in 2016.

In 2016, Trump’s Iowa staff members — including a former “Apprentice” contestant — signed up volunteer organizers but failed to teach them how to reach caucusgoers or even to provide literature to leave at their doors. The Trump headquarters in suburban Des Moines, Iowa, was dark many nights when rivals had scores of volunteers working the phones.

Trump advisers said things would run differently this time. They pointed to Trump’s first visit to Iowa on Monday as a 2024 candidate. The campaign said it was following up on the names and emails of thousands of people who registered to attend and filled the packed hall, seating 2,400, in Davenport, Iowa.

“The real work of the campaign starts when the president is wheels up,” Latcham said. “We’re going to continue to engage these people constantly every single day up until February.”

Trump has also bowed to campaign traditions he once eschewed. At his Davenport appearance, he took unscripted questions from the audience for 20 minutes. Before the rally, he made an unannounced visit to a Machine Shed restaurant, a popular Iowa chain.

One of Trump’s rivals, Haley, a former United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration, has twice visited Iowa since en-

tering the race last month, and on both visits, she engaged voters at length, leaning into the one-on-one campaign style that helped her win elections as South Carolina governor.

Drop-ins at restaurants are a not-so-subtle way in which Trump’s 2024 advisers mean to draw a contrast with his likely chief rival, DeSantis, who is combating a reputation for woodenness.

“In the past, the big rallies worked,” said LaCivita, the senior Trump adviser. “It’s a different campaign most definitely than it was in 2016. It’s a different time. We’re going to do a mix of retail politics and large-scale rallies.”

Vander Plaats, the leader of evangelical voters, who make up a large Republican bloc in Iowa, said many were wide open to an alternative to Trump.

“My fear, along with a lot of other people’s fears, is, we’re concerned about how America has largely made up its mind about Donald Trump,” he said. “I think it’s time to get behind the next leader who can win in 2024.”

Vander Plaats said evangelicals had not forgotten that Trump blamed the broad Republican losses in the 2022 midterms on candidates’ putting too much focus on the “abortion issue.”

“It showed a character thing with Trump that he cast the blame on the pro-life movement,” Vander Plaats said. “If you’re trying to win the Iowa caucuses, I would not put that base under the bus.”

Should Pence enter the race, as widely expected, the Trump campaign could have a problem cutting into the former vice president’s appeal among evangelical voters. And Pence may adopt a strategy of camping out in Iowa — spending most of his time in the state to make a strong caucus showing.

On Saturday in Des Moines, Pence reiterated at a foreign policy forum his view that America must support Ukraine, setting himself crosswise with Trump and DeSantis, both of whom have said the Russian invasion is a regional matter of no vital U.S. concern. “Anybody that thinks Vladimir Putin is going to stop if he takes Ukraine has what we say in this part of the country another thing coming,” Pence told Iowans.

The former vice president also defended Trump’s call Saturday for protests to “take back” the country if, as expected, Trump is indicted in Manhattan — a call that echoes Trump’s incendiary messages before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Pence, speaking to reporters, called the potential indictment “politically charged” and said people have a right “to express the frustration that they feel,” while urging protesters to be peaceful. Pence recently said that Trump will be “accountable” to history for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Asked Saturday if the former president should be prosecuted if he broke the law, Pence said, “No one is above the law. I’m confident President Trump can take care of himself.”

The foreign policy forum attracted Pence supporters as well as detractors. “Even though he may not have the excitement of some of the other candidates, he’s a very good person,” David Payer, 70, said of Pence. “He’s got this rock-solid foundation that he stands on that I can respect and appreciate.”

Davis Heywood, a retired roofer in a “Trump 2024” hat, said he was disappointed by what he saw as Pence’s efforts to put daylight between himself and the former president over Jan. 6, Ukraine and other issues.

For years, Pence acted as if the “best thing of his whole life was being vice president under President Trump,” Heywood said. “All of a sudden, he’s talking different than what he talked before.”

Mark Kearon, 42, wears a hat with pins from every Donald Trump campaign event he has attended, outside of the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on March 13, 2023.

Sandy Hook families are fighting Alex Jones and the bankruptcy system itself

bankruptcy system that makes the survival of businesses a priority and has so far given Jones an advantage in court.

Although Infowars has estimated revenues of some $70 million a year — hardly a mom-and-pop shop — Jones was able to file for Chapter 11 under the more lenient bankruptcy rules of the Small Business Reorganization Act, known as Subchapter V. The law first took effect in early 2020 but was soon broadened to assist small businesses struggling during the pandemic.

Unlike in a traditional Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Subchapter V gives creditors like the Sandy Hook families virtually no say in a restructuring plan, nor can they file a competing plan. They can challenge Jones’ ap-

proach, but an impasse in talks could result in liquidation of the company, putting them in line to collect a fraction of the damages.

A liquidation would end Infowars, but Jones would be free to start another company just like it.

“We’re doing well in Chapter V,” Jones said on Infowars in September, misstating the name of the rule. “Whatever judgments they have can’t shut us down. Whatever profit there is in the future, these jerks get, but who cares? We’re still on air.”

Last month, Jones’ lawyers submitted a statement of his personal financial affairs prefaced by five pages of disclaimers saying that Jones did not fully remember where he

Continues on page 12

By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON and EMILY STEEL

Infowars conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones, who faces more than $1.4 billion in legal damages for defaming the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, has devised a new way to taunt them: wriggling out of paying them the money they are owed.

Jones, who has an estimated net worth as high as $270 million, declared both business and personal bankruptcy last year as the families won historic verdicts in two lawsuits over his lies about the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

A New York Times review of financial documents and court records filed over the past year found that Jones has transferred millions of dollars in property, cash and business deals to family and friends, including to a new company run by his former personal trainer, all potentially out of reach of creditors. He has also spent heavily on luxuries, including $80,000 on a private jet, bodyguards and a rented villa while he was in Connecticut to testify at a trial last fall.

“If anybody thinks they’re shutting me down, they’re mistaken,” Jones said on his new podcast last month.

The families now face a stark reality.

It is not clear whether they will ever collect a significant portion of the assets Jones has transferred. So their ability to get anything remotely close to the jury awards is inextricably tied to Jones’ capacity to make a living as the purveyor of lies — including that the shooting was a hoax, the parents were actors and the children did not really die — that ignited years of torment and threats against them.

Lawyers for Jones said in a filing late last year that “any argument that Jones must give up his public life, or discontinue public discourse, is contrary to supporting his ability to fund a plan and pay creditors.”

Mark Bankston, the families’ Texas lawyer, does not disagree. “There’s a chance we’re going to be forced into a situation where we’re going to be checking to see how Infowars is doing every month to figure out if our clients are getting paid or not,” he said.

Earlier this month, Jones offered to pay the families and his other creditors a total of $43 million over five years as part of a bankruptcy plan, which lawyers for the families immediately dismissed as laughable and riddled with financial holes. The judge ordered Jones to fill in the gaps in his financial disclosures by the end of the month.

But Jones’ continued obfuscation about his net worth has given him leverage over the families, who are also fighting a U.S.

Firefighters pay their respects to those killed in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 15, 2012. Alex Jones started spreading conspiracy theories soon after the shooting.

The San Juan Daily Star Monday, March 20, 2023 11

From page 11

holds bank accounts, how many trusts he had set up over the past decade and the whereabouts of his 2022 W-2 form documenting his wages. He has not filed a federal income tax return since 2020.

Jones continues to appeal daily to his audience to buy more of the diet supplements and other products he markets on air and to donate to Infowars, saying the Sandy Hook families are “puppets” in a plot by his political enemies to bleed him dry. His lawyers have said in court that Infowars’ business is booming.

Jones and a dozen members of his legal team did not respond to questions from the Times about his finances or his bankruptcy cases.

Earlier this month, the families asked the judge to order Jones to pay them the full jury awards, with no possibility for settlement over a lesser amount — in legal terminology, to make Jones’ debts to the families “non-dischargeable” through bankruptcy. The judge has yet to rule.

The families have declined to speak publicly about the case, but lawyers say their filing suggests they have concluded that Jones may never be put out of business, and they are demanding the full amount owed if he is to remain on the air.

“At the beginning, the point of it was to get rid of him,” Bankston said. “And it’s like you realize you can’t get rid of him. He’s like a bad penny. He’ll just keep coming back.”

Odd transactions

Jones founded Infowars in Austin, Texas, around 1999. He broadcast his theories from his house and began producing feature-length, conspiracy-themed videos he sold by mail or gave away. He was bankrolled by his father, a successful dentist who later helped establish Infowars’ diet supplements business, still its most lucrative revenue stream.

In December 2012, only days after the Sandy Hook shooting, Jones began claiming on air that the massacre was a plot by the government to confiscate Americans’ firearms. Traffic to his website surged. Lenny Pozner, the father of Noah Pozner, a 6-year-old who died at Sandy Hook, had to move a dozen times after conspiracy theorists repeatedly posted his home address on the internet.

By 2018, the families had filed three separate defamation lawsuits against Jones, who refused to submit court-ordered evidence. But as court sanctions piled up and the cases began to turn against him, Jones undertook a series of unusual financial transactions.

“There’s too much money coming in” for Jones to be as broke as he claims, Bankston said.

In February 2020, Jones traveled to the Cayman Islands, an offshore tax haven, according to text messages that surfaced during one of the trials, although it is unknown if he conducted any business on the trip. The following year, as judges in two states threatened Jones with default for stonewalling in the Sandy Hook cases, he forged the first of a series of business partnerships with associates.

In October 2021, he made an agreement with a new company, Auriam Services, founded the previous month by Anthony Gucciardi, a wellness and lifestyle blogger who is a friend of Jones and one of his earliest supplements partners. The company was to be an intermediary for credit card processing.

In February 2022, Jones transferred a $3 million home overlooking the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin to his current wife, Erika Wulff Jones.

He struck a contract in July with another new company, Blue Ascension, founded only a few months earlier by his former personal trainer and assistant, Patrick Riley.

On July 29, a parent company Jones fully owns, Free Speech Systems, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the core of the claim was $54 million that Jones said Free Speech Systems — with claimed assets of $14.6 million — owed to PQPR, a company controlled by Jones and his parents.

The Sandy Hook families responded with a lawsuit claiming that Jones was fraudulently moving his assets outside his business, beyond the reach of creditors, and was transferring between $11,000 a day and $11,000 a week, and up to 80% of his supplements sales revenues, to PQPR.

Jones’ lawyers have defended his actions as a way to keep Infowars afloat when other vendors refused to do business with him.

In early August, Jones’ financial empire began to unravel. The Texas jury ordered Jones to pay the parents of the victim nearly $50 million, and two months later, a Connecticut jury awarded the families of eight Sandy Hook victims an extraordinary nearly $1 billion. A judge awarded them almost $500 million more. In December, Jones declared personal bankruptcy.

Both Chapter 11 cases went before a federal bankruptcy judge in Texas, Christopher Lopez, who replaced Jones’ chief restructuring officer for the Infowars case and expanded the powers of a Justi-

ce Department-appointed trustee, Melissa Haselden, to investigate Jones’ finances. A new chief restructuring officer ended the contracts with Auriam and Blue Ascension, but late last year, Infowars asked the court to approve contracts tied to an entrepreneur who had sold products through Free Speech Systems in the past, Charles Cicack.

When a Times reporter called Cicack to ask about his work with Infowars, he claimed ignorance of the relationship and then deleted references to Infowars from his social media accounts.

On Thursday, Haselden subpoenaed Gucciardi and Auriam, demanding that they produce documents detailing financial dealings with Jones.

Tracing assets

It remains unclear how much Jones is actually worth. Recent court documents indicate that he is continuing to transfer real estate to his family, including an adult son.

In late January, under pressure from the bankruptcy court, Jones submitted a personal balance sheet detailing about $5.6 million in total assets, including $368,899 in bank accounts, $682,899 in something called “inventory platinum” and a $2.2 million homestead.

In the February statement of Jones’ financial affairs, the one prefaced with disclaimers about its accuracy, his property was valued at a total of $10 million, including a home, lake house and rural acreage worth $5.4 million. The statement said Jones owned two cars and two boats valued at $274,000 but listed as “unknown” the value

The San Juan Daily Star

of his premarital agreement, eight limited liability companies and several trusts. His stated monthly income was $129,000, but $104,000 of that was from sources that were not disclosed.

“The financial reporting and records are incomplete and the accuracy is uncertain,” Haselden, the Justice Department monitor, said in a court filing.

This past week, Haselden filed a subpoena for documents showing Jones’ cryptocurrency transactions and other financial dealings. The Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked millions of dollars in cryptocurrency donations last year to accounts tied to Jones.

Last month, the families retained an asset-tracing firm to try to unearth more of Jones’ money, a process expected to take months.

So far, the only money Jones has paid in the Sandy Hook matter has been to his lawyers and the courts, as he has run up millions of dollars in legal fees and sanctions for abusing the judicial process. Another trial for damages — potentially on top of the more than $1.4 billion Jones owes — is slated for this year.

“Without question, Jones is pushing the bankruptcy system to its limits,” said Avi Moshenberg, one of the families’ lead bankruptcy lawyers.

A court ruling that Jones must pay the full amount owed would send a strong public message, he added: “What a jury said is unforgivable should not and cannot be forgiven by a bankruptcy court.”

Alex Jones exits the courthouse for a lunch recess after briefly speaking to the media in Waterbury, Conn. on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. While claiming he is broke, Alex Jones has spent heavily on luxuries, including a private jet, bodyguards and a villa with a pool and tennis court.

Plunging bond yields boost stocks’ allure ahead of Fed meeting

US government bond yields fell steeply this week, with some durations marking their biggest drops in decades, as investors bet the Federal Reserve would be likely to ease its aggressive rate rise trajectory to avoid making financial system stresses worse following the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

The volatility in fixed income markets has unsettled investors, and falling yields can reflect expectations that the Fed will cut rates as growth suffers a hit.

At the same time, the drop in yields has so far been a boon for equities, especially tech and other large growth stocks whose relatively strong performance helped support the benchmark S&P 500.

The index finished up 1.4 per cent for the week, with strength in technology stocks outweighing sharp declines in bank shares.

While the banking crisis has stirred recession fears, “it’s the interest rate move that’s a … tailwind for stocks right now,” said Charlie McElligott, managing director of cross-asset macro strategy at Nomura.

The near-term trajectory of yields will is likely to depend on next week’s Federal Reserve meeting. Signs that the central bank may prioritise financial stability and slow or pause its rate increases could pull yields even lower.

Conversely, yields could rebound if the Fed signals that bringing down inflation — which remains high despite rate increases — will continue to be job one.

“The market is not quite sure how the Fed is going to look at this,” said Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions.

For now, futures markets indicate that investors are assigning a 60 per cent probability of a 25 basis point rate increase at the Fed’s March 21-22 meeting, with rate cuts to follow later in the year — a sharp turnaround from the hawkish expectations that prevailed earlier this month.

“For the first time during this Fed tightening cycle, the Fed now has to balance its inflation-fighting credibility with financial market stability,” said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors.

Treasury yields fell to historic lows after the Fed cut rates to support the economy at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, fuelling a stock market rally that saw the S&P 500 double from its March 2020 trough at one point.

As the Fed began tightening monetary policy a year ago to fight inflation, Treasury yields began to rise, offering investors an increasingly attractive alternative to equities. Two-year yields, which recently stood at 3.85 per cent, hit an over 15-year high of 5.08 per cent earlier this month.

The recent drop in rates has helped stocks regain their appeal, according to some measures. The equity risk premium, or the extra return investors expect to receive for holding stocks over risk-free government bonds, has rebounded to where it stood in early January but still remains near its lowest level in over a decade, according to Refinitiv data.

Others show stocks remain expensive by historical

MOST ASSERTIVE STOCKS

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standards.

The S&P 500 trades at 17.5 times forward earnings estimates compared to its historic average price-equity of 15.6 times, according to Refinitiv Datastream.

Defiant Putin visits Mariupol, a city razed by Russian forces

By MATTHEW MPOKE BIGG, IVAN NECHEPURENKO and ANDRÉS R. MARTÍNEZ

President Vladimir Putin of Russia made his first trip to territory captured by his forces since they invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, traveling late Saturday to the ravaged city of Mariupol, where Russia staged some of its most brutal attacks of the war.

The visit appeared to be both a defiant gesture just a day after an international court issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes and a demonstration of Putin’s commitment to the fight before the arrival in Moscow of President Xi Jinping of China, a crucial economic partner to Russia since the invasion began.

Mariupol became a symbol of Ukraine’s agony when Russian forces laid waste to it with artillery starting soon after the invasion. It later evolved into a beacon of Ukrainian resistance as, for weeks, the city’s last defenders endured a bitter siege at a steel plant.

An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said Sunday that Putin’s visit showed a lack of remorse. “The criminal always returns to the crime scene,” the adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, wrote on Twitter.

The Kremlin said that Putin had flown by helicopter to the airport in Mariupol and toured several neighborhoods, spoken with residents and inspected reconstruction sites. Russia’s bombardment reduced much of the city to rubble and some rebuilding is now underway. Images released by Russian television showed Putin touring sites in darkness.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, described the visit as a “full-scale working trip” and stressed that many aspects of it were not planned. There was “no motorcade as such,” he said, adding that Putin had driven himself through the city.

The battle for Mariupol, a port city with a prewar population of about 400,000, was marked by wanton destruction by Russian forces, who bombed a maternity hospital and at times opened fire on apartment buildings with tanks from close range. It also featured the deadliest single assault on civilians during the war, when Russian forces bombed a theater in which residents had taken shelter.

The United Nations said that at least

1,300 died in the battle for the city but that the true toll was likely to have been thousands higher.

The visit to Mariupol by Putin — who now stands accused by the International Criminal Court of presiding over the abduction of Ukrainian children — was his second unannounced trip of the weekend to parts of Ukraine that Russian forces have occupied. On Saturday, he went to Crimea in a visit timed to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the peninsula’s illegal annexation by Russia.

But Mariupol was the closest Putin has come to the front lines since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 — the city is about 50 miles southeast of the town of Vuhledar, where Russian forces sustained heavy losses just weeks ago and where fierce fighting is ongoing.

Zelenskyy has made several visits to

the front line and to recently recaptured parts of the country, including a visit to Bakhmut in December. The embattled city in Donetsk province, which is part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, also has been held up as a symbol of national resistance.

Putin used the false argument that Ukraine was carrying out a “genocide” in Donbas to help justify his decision to launch the full-scale invasion. Mariupol, which is in Donbas, was also home to much of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, a group whose one-time far-right connections allowed Putin to claim that Russia was invading to “denazify” the country.

Putin has set the full capture of Donbas, where Russia has held substantial territory since 2014, as the main objective of a military offensive that began this year. In October, Moscow illegally annexed four of

Ukraine’s provinces, including Donetsk, in a move that was widely condemned.

The timing of Putin’s trip to Mariupol could be interpreted as an affront to the ICC, which on Friday issued the warrant for his arrest. The warrant claims that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia since last year’s invasion. Ukrainian authorities have said that many abducted children were from Mariupol — and Putin’s weekend trip to Crimea notably featured a visit to a children’s center.

Although the ICC warrant could impact Putin’s ability to travel overseas and adds to his isolation from the West, the Kremlin has said it considers the warrant meaningless and vowed not to cooperate.

Mikhail Vinogradov, a political scientist who heads the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation think tank, said Putin’s visit to Mariupol was likely a response to “the ICC warrant and to the criticism that he doesn’t visit combat zones.”

The Kremlin stressed the spontaneity of the visit, possibly to counter recent criticism that events with Putin are “too regulated,” as well as to limit the number of people with awareness of the arrangements ahead of time, Vinogradov said.

On Monday, Putin will host Moscow’s most important ally, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, giving the Russian leader an opportunity to reiterate a theme the Kremlin has emphasized since the war’s start: that international support for Ukraine is limited to Western countries.

China has said the three-day visit by Xi offers Beijing an opportunity to push Putin into peace talks and has hinted that a call with Zelenskyy could follow. But the United States has warned that China is considering whether to provide Russia with weapons for the war as part of a deepening relationship between the two countries. Beijing has rejected the accusation.

There was no immediate comment about Putin’s visit to Mariupol from Zelenskyy, who has vowed to recapture all of the territory lost to Russia, including Crimea. Ukraine’s armed forces are expected to launch an offensive this spring, which some Ukrainian officials have said could involve trying to cut off Crimea from the land that Russia holds in Donbas by pushing south toward the city of Melitopol.

Municipal workers repair fallen power lines at the site of a Russian airstrike in Kostyantynivka, Ukraine on Saturday, March 18, 2023.

A civilian passes municipal workers as they work to repair fallen power lines at the site of a Russian airstrike in Kostyantynivka, Ukraine on Saturday, March 18, 2023.

Russia signals it will take more Ukrainian children, a crime in progress

By MARC SANTORA and EMMA BUBOLA

Russia’s abduction and deportation of Ukraine’s children since its invasion of the country was so welldocumented and terrifying that when Russian forces prepared to withdraw from the southern city of Kherson last fall, doctors at a hospital there hurriedly hid babies and falsified their records.

When Russian soldiers arrived, the staff at Kherson Regional Hospital said the infants were too critically ill to move, Olha Pilyarska, head of its neonatal anesthesiology department, recalled in an interview Saturday.

“They put lung ventilation devices near all the children,” she said.

The efforts saved 14 babies from being swept up in a campaign that has systematically transferred thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia to be resettled in foster families and put on track to become Russian citizens. When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin of Russia last Friday over the forcible deportation of children, it was a powerful recognition of actions that have not only been carried out in full public view, but continue today.

The arrest warrant adds Putin’s name to a notorious list of despots and dictators accused of humanity’s worst atrocities. But this case is unusual in that the charges were announced not years after the abuses began, but effectively in real time. The judges at The Hague cited the need for urgent action because the deportations are “allegedly ongoing.”

Although the court has issued arrest warrants quickly before — against Moammar Gadhafi of Libya, for example — war crimes investigations often take years, meaning that charges are not announced until long after atrocities occur. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was charged in 2009 with war crimes that began in 2003.

But the Russian authorities, far from disguising the deportations, have put the children on display in Red Square photo-ops and at lavish concerts celebrating the war. They have also signaled that more deportations are on the way.

Across southern Ukraine, local Russian proxy leaders are issuing new “evacuation orders” before an expected

Ukrainian military offensive this spring. Such orders have often been a prelude to stepped-up deportations. And about a month ago, Russian forces closed all roads leading from occupied areas into the rest of Ukraine, making it much harder for people to escape. Now, the only open roads head deeper into occupied territory or into Russia.

“Russians are deporting more and more people from the temporarily occupied districts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson,” the Ukrainian National Resistance Center, the government agency that monitors events in occupied Ukraine, said Friday, noting public statements by the local Russian authorities.

More than a year into a war that has turned into a bloody endurance contest, Ukrainian and allied leaders are contending with wavering — though still strong — support for continuing to supply Ukraine with military equipment. Ukrainian officials said the arrest warrant highlighted the moral imperative of the conflict.

“World leaders will think twice be -

fore shaking his hand or sitting with Putin at the negotiating table,” Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, said of the arrest warrant. “It’s another clear signal to the world that the Russian regime is criminal.”

Russia, which like the United States is not a party to the international court, dismissed the warrant as meaningless. Its leaders have made clear that they intend to continue deporting children to Russia in what they have billed as an act of humanitarian compassion.

The court in The Hague also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, the Kremlin’s commissioner for children’s rights, who is the public face of the deportation program. She has spoken proudly about organizing a largescale system for shuttling children out of Ukraine. After the arrest warrant, she vowed “to continue to work.”

Putin, in a televised meeting with Lvova-Belova last month, noted the work approvingly. “The number of applications from our citizens regarding the adoption of children from the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, from the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions is also growing,” he said.

The scale of the deportations in Ukraine over the past year is something not witnessed in Europe in generations.

The United Nations estimates that 2.9 million Ukrainians have moved to Russia since Moscow launched its fullscale invasion, but it is impossible to quantify how many might have gone willingly and how many were forced. That number includes about 700,000 children, according to both Russians and Ukrainians, and most are believed to be with their families.

The exact number of children separated from their parents or orphaned is not known. Russia has acknowledged transferring 2,000 children without guardians; Ukrainian officials say they have confirmed 16,000 cases, although some of them might be with a relative.

“The real,

full number of deportees may be much higher,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said in a statement Friday after the announcement by The Hague.

Russia has carried out the deportations under the guise of rescues, medical rehabilitation initiatives and adoption programs. But the facts have been brought to light by witness accounts, reports by The New York Times and other Western outlets, the Ukrainian news media, independent investigators, the United Nations, and a host of government and rights organizations.

“They committed the crime in plain sight and expressed pride in doing it,” Stephen Rapp, a former ambassador-at-large who headed the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the State Department, said in an email.

The Kremlin has repeatedly used Ukrainian children as part of its campaign to bolster support for the war. When children from a group home fled the Russian bombing of Mariupol early in the war, for example, they were stopped at a Russian checkpoint. Pro-Russian news media crews rushed to the scene, witnesses said, and cameras followed the children as they were whisked deeper into Russiaheld territory.

It was portrayed as a rescue operation.

At the neonatal hospital in Kherson, the staff managed to save most of the children, but two were taken, Pilyarska said.

“Some of children from Kherson are still in Crimea. We can sometimes see them in Russian media,” she said by telephone from the hospital, which had come under shelling in recent days. “The others just disappeared, and we don’t know anything about them.”

A portrait of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a smashed frame late last year outside a police prison in Kherson that Russian forces used to hold and torture Ukrainian prisoners.

Macron faces an angry France alone

By ROGER COHEN

“We have a president who makes use of a permanent coup d’état.” That was the verdict of Olivier Faure, the leader of the French Socialist Party, after President Emmanuel Macron rammed through a bill raising the retirement age in France to 64 from 62 without a full parliamentary vote this past week.

In fact, Macron’s use of the “nuclear option,” as the France 24 TV network described it, was entirely legal under the French Constitution, crafted in 1958 for Charles de Gaulle and reflecting the general’s strong view that power should be centered in the president’s office, not among feuding lawmakers.

But legality is one thing and legitimacy another. Macron may see his decision as necessary to cement his legacy as the leader who left France prepared to face the rest of the 21st century. But to many French people it looked like presidential diktat, a blot on his reputation and a blow to French democracy.

Parliament has responded with two motions of no confidence in Macron’s government. They are unlikely to be upheld when lawmakers vote on them next week because of political divisions in the opposition, but are the expression of deep anger.

Six years into his presidency, surrounded by brilliant technocrats, Macron cuts a lonely figure, his lofty silence conspicuous at this moment of turmoil.

“He has managed to antagonize everyone by occupying the whole of the center,” said Jacques Rupnik, a political scientist. “Macron’s attitude seems to be: After me, the deluge.”

This isolation was evident as two months of protests and strikes that left Paris strewn with garbage culminated on Thursday in the sudden panic of a government that had believed the pension vote was a slam dunk. Suddenly, the emperor’s

doubts were exposed.

Macron thought he could count on center-right Republicans to vote for his plan in the National Assembly, parliament’s lower house. Two of the most powerful members of his government — Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin — came from that party. Republicans had advocated retirement even later, at 65.

Yet out of some mixture of political calculation in light of the waves of protest and spite toward the man who had undermined their party by building a new movement of the center, they began to desert Macron.

Having his retirement overhaul fail was one risk that even Macron the risk taker could not take. He opted for a measure, known as the 49.3 after the relevant article of the Constitution, that allows certain bills to be passed without a vote. France’s retirement age will rise to 64, more in line with its European partners, unless the no-confidence motion passes.

But what would have looked like a defining victory for Macron, even if the parliamentary vote in favor had been narrow, now looks like a Pyrrhic victory.

Four more years in power stretch ahead of Macron, with “Mr. 49.3” stamped on his forehead. He made the French dream when he was elected at age 39 in 2017; how he can do so again is unclear.

“The idea that we are not in a democracy has grown. It’s out there all the time on social media, part conspiracy theory, part expression of a deep anxiety,” said Nicolas Tenzer, an author who teaches political science at Sciences Po university. “And, of course, what Macron just did feeds that.”

The government’s spokesperson is Olivier Véran, who is also minister delegate for democratic renewal. There is a reason for that august title: a widespread belief that over the six years of the Macron presidency, French democracy has eroded.

After the Yellow Vest protest movement erupted in 2018 over an increase in gas prices but also an elitism that Macron seemed to personify, the president went on a “listening tour.” It was an attempt to get closer to working people of whom he had seemed dismissive.

Now, almost one year into his second term, that outreach seems distant. Macron scarcely laid the groundwork for his pension measure even though he knew well that it would touch a deep French nerve at a time of economic hardship. His push for later retirement was top-down, expedited at every turn and, in the end, ruthless.

The case for the overhaul was strong. It was not only to Macron that retirement at 62 looked untenable as lives grew longer. The math, over the longer term at least, simply does not add up in a system where the ratio of active workers to the retirees they are supporting through their payroll taxes keeps dropping.

But in an anxious France, with many people struggling to pay their bills and unsure of their futures, Macron could not make the argument. In fact, he hardly seemed to try.

Of course, the French attitude to a mighty presidency is notoriously ambiguous. On the one hand, the near-monarchical office seems to satisfy some French yearning for an allpowerful state — it was a French king, Louis XIV, who is said

It was legal for President Emmanuel Macron to push through a bill raising the retirement age in France without a full parliamentary vote. But legality is one thing and legitimacy another.

to have declared that the state was none other than himself. On the other, the presidency is resented for the extent of its authority.

Macron seemed to capture this when he told his Cabinet on Thursday, “Among you, I am not the one who risks his place or his seat.” If the government does fall in a vote of censure, Élisabeth Borne will no longer be prime minister, but Macron will still be president until 2027.

“A permanent coup d’état,” Faure’s phrase, was also the title of a book that François Mitterrand wrote to describe the presidency of de Gaulle. That was before Mitterrand became president himself and in time came to enjoy all the pomp and power of his office. Macron has proved no more impervious to the temptations of the presidency than his predecessors.

But times change, social hierarchies fall, and Macron’s exercise of his authority has stirred a strong resentment in a flatter French society at a moment of war-induced tension in Europe.

“There is a rejection of the person,” Tenzer said. The daily newspaper Le Monde noted in an editorial that Macron ran the risk of “fostering a persistent bitterness, or even igniting sparks of violence.”

In a way, Macron is the victim of his own remarkable success. Such are his political gifts that he has been elected to two terms in office — no French president had done this in two decades — and effectively destroyed the two political pillars of postwar France: the Socialist Party and the Gaullists.

So he is resented by the center left and center right, even as he is loathed by the far left and the far right.

Now in his final term, he must walk a lonely road. He has no obvious successor, and his Renaissance party is little more than a vehicle for his talents. This is the “deluge” of which Rupnik spoke: a vast political void looming in 2027.

If Marine Le Pen of the far right is not to fill it, Macron the reformist must deliver the resilient, vibrant France for which he believes his much-contested reform was an essential foundation.

WHO accuses China of hiding data that may link COVID’s origins to animals

By BENJAMIN MUELLER

The World Health Organization rebuked Chinese officials Friday for withholding research that may link COVID19’s origin to wild animals, asking why the data had not been made available three years ago and why it is now missing.

Before the Chinese data disappeared, an international team of virus experts downloaded and began analyzing the research, which appeared online in January. They say it supports the idea that the pandemic could have begun when illegally traded raccoon dogs infected humans at a Wuhan seafood market.

But the gene sequences were removed from a scientific database once the experts offered to collaborate on the analysis with their Chinese counterparts.

“These data could have — and should have — been shared three years ago,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. The missing evidence now “needs to be shared with the international community immediately,” he said.

According to the experts who are reviewing it, the research offers evidence that raccoon dogs — foxlike animals known to spread coronaviruses — had left behind DNA in the same place in the Wuhan market that genetic signatures of the new coronavirus also were discovered.

To some experts, that finding suggests that the animals may have been infected and may have transmitted the virus to humans.

With huge amounts of genetic information drawn from swabs of animal cages, carts and other surfaces at the Wuhan market in early 2020, the genetic data had been the focus of restless anticipation among virus experts since they learned of it a year ago in a paper by Chinese scientists.

A French biologist discovered the genetic sequences in the database last week, and she and a team of colleagues began mining them for clues about the origins of the pandemic.

That team has not yet released a paper outlining the findings. But the researchers delivered an analysis of the material to a WHO advisory group studying COVID’s origins this week in a meeting that also included a presentation by Chinese researchers regarding the same data.

The analysis seemed to clash with earlier contentions by Chinese scientists that samples taken in the market that were positive for the coronavirus had been ferried in by sick people alone, said Sarah Cobey, an epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved in recent research.

“It’s just very unlikely to be seeing this much animal DNA, especially raccoon dog DNA, mixed in with viral samples, if it’s simply mostly human contamination,” Cobey said.

Questions remain about how the samples were collected, what precisely they contained and why the evidence had disappeared. In light of the ambiguities, many scientists reacted cautiously, saying that it was difficult to assess the research without seeing a complete report.

The idea that a lab accident could have accidentally set off the pandemic has become the focus of renewed interest in recent weeks, thanks in part to a fresh intelligence assessment

from the Department of Energy and hearings held by the new Republican House leadership.

But a number of virus experts not involved with the latest analysis said that what was known about the swabs gathered in the market buttressed the case that animals sold there had sparked the pandemic.

“It’s exactly what you’d expect if the virus was emerging from an intermediate or multiple intermediate hosts in the market,” Cobey said. “I think ecologically, this is close to a closed case.”

Cobey was one of 18 scientists who signed an influential letter in the journal Science in May 2021 urging serious consideration of a scenario in which the virus could have spilled out of a laboratory in Wuhan.

On Friday, she said lab leaks continued to pose enormous risks and that more oversight of research into dangerous pathogens was needed. But Cobey added that an accumulation of evidence — relating to the clustering of human cases around the Wuhan market, the genetic diversity of viruses there and now the raccoon dog data — strengthened the case for a market origin.

The new genetic data does not appear to prove that a raccoon dog was infected with the coronavirus. Even if it had been, the possibility would remain that another animal could have passed that virus to people, or even that someone infected with the virus could have transmitted it to a raccoon dog.

Some scientists stressed those points Friday, saying that the new genetic data did not appreciably shift the discussion about the pandemic’s origins.

“We know it’s a promiscuous virus that infects a bunch of species,” said David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, who also signed the May 2021 letter in Science.

For all the missing elements, some scientists said the new findings highlighted just how much information scientists had managed to assemble about the beginnings of the pandemic, including home addresses for early patients and sequence data from the market.

Theodora Hatziioannou, a virologist at the Rockefeller University, said it was critical that the raw data be released. But, she said, “I think the evidence is overwhelming at the moment toward a market origin.”

And the latest data, she said, “makes it even more unlikely that this started somewhere else.”

Felicia Goodrum, an immunobiologist at the University of Arizona, said that finding the virus in an actual animal would be the strongest evidence of a market origin. But finding virus and animal material in the same swab was close.

“To me,” she said, “this is the next best thing.”

Because questions remain about the samples and why the evidence disappeared, some scientists reacted cautiously, saying that it was difficult to assess the research without seeing a complete report.

Humanity is facing a great injustice. The World Bank must respond.

played an active role in making progress in those areas. It has begun to help countries incorporate climate change into their overall economic development plans and should continue this necessary work.

Climate-related funding has already grown in importance at the bank; in fact, some of the poorest countries are already worried that it will cut into funding for basics like education and health care. That’s why additional funding is needed to assure them that taking global action on climate won’t come at the expense of their development. About 36% of the money the World Bank lent last year was classified as climate-related, although questions have been raised about how classifications are made. That comes to nearly $32 billion — a big jump from previous years, but still far short of what is needed.

In 2009, donor countries promised to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 to help lower-income countries with mitigation and adaptation. They only mustered $83 billion, $36.9 billion of which came from multilateral development banks and climate funds, in 2020. Those unfulfilled promises haven’t gone unnoticed. According to Ephraim Mwepya Shitima, chair of the African Group of Negotiators on climate change, many developing countries, including those in Africa, have put forth ambitious plans to curb emissions in the future but have been “hampered by the pledged financial support, which are falling short of expectations.”

will not be easy. But the departure of its former president, David Malpass, who said he will resign in June, might help build confidence in the bank’s climate work. Malpass, who was nominated by the Trump administration in 2019, has been the subject of controversy since his bewildering public refusal last year to acknowledge the role of human activity in extreme weather resulting from climate change.

Ajay Banga, the former CEO of Mastercard, is President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the bank and is likely to be confirmed next month. The leadership change presents an opportunity to clarify the bank’s role and lay out an ambitious vision for its future. Banga, who has recently visited several African countries, has said that he sees the bank’s goals of addressing poverty, shared growth and climate as “intertwined.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who has been at the forefront of calls to overhaul the bank and to elevate the issue of climate, also noted the need for more concessional financing in a recent speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The bank was designed to lend to individual countries to spur economic growth within their own borders, but that model doesn’t work to address global problems like climate change, she said, because the benefits “stretch far beyond the borders of the country where a given project takes place.”

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

It’s one of the great injustices of this era that countries contributing negligible amounts to global carbon emissions are now feeling the most harrowing impacts of climate change. Pakistan, which makes up less than 1% of the world’s carbon footprint, had one-third of its territory underwater in last year’s floods. Parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia are experiencing the worst drought in 70 years of record-keeping, threatening millions with famine, even though the entire continent of Africa contributes less than 4% of global carbon emissions. Small island developing countries such as Papua New Guinea account for less than 1% of global carbon emissions, yet they stand to lose the most when sea levels rise.

The World Bank and the donor countries that control it can do more to step up and tackle this generational challenge. To make the World Bank and other multilateral lending institutions fit for purpose in the 21st century, leaders need to figure out how to raise and leverage the massive amounts of capital that are going to be necessary in the coming years to help countries adapt to and mitigate a changing climate. For years, climate financing took a back seat to the bank’s twin goals of reducing extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Today, it is integral to achieving those goals. Helping the poorest of the poor will increasingly mean ensuring access to drought-resistant seeds and access to water as lakes dry up. In middle-income countries, promoting shared prosperity will increasingly mean expanding access to reliable, affordable clean energy. The World Bank has

Although COVID, inflation and the energy crisis related to the war in Ukraine have strained government budgets everywhere, it would be shortsighted to ignore the significance and potential of investing in climate financing. According to Devesh Kapur, a professor at Johns Hopkins and co-author of a history of the World Bank, raising an additional $100 billion in lending capacity for the World Bank could require donors to put up about $20 billion in cash. The cost to the United States, which holds 16% of shares, would be $3.2 billion, an amount that could be paid out over five years.

Getting new money in the door is important, but it’s not enough. The bank also should adopt new strategies and new rules that will allow it to funnel money more quickly to where it is needed the most and will be used most effectively. For instance, some small island states have per capita incomes that are too high for concessional loans according to World Bank rules, despite their acute vulnerability to climate change. Those rules should be revisited, in some cases, to make sure that climate financing is prioritizing the areas that will make the biggest difference.

The bank should also provide more grants and belowmarket financing related to climate, as Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., has called for. The World Bank and multilateral development banks provided only 15% of their adaptation finance and less than 5% of mitigation finance through grants — a fraction he called “shockingly low.” By comparison, Green Climate Fund, a multilateral climate fund, issued grants 41% of the time for adaptation and mitigation projects.

The transformation that is required at the World Bank

If the benefits of investing in climate change adaptation and mitigation are shared, so should the costs.

SAN JUAN – El presidente del Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), José Luis Dalmau Santiago, juramentó a 11 nuevos presidentes municipales y de precintos.

“Las próximas elecciones son determinantes para el país, por lo que es importante que el PPD tenga un partido fortalecido y unido. El Partido Popular es la única alternativa viable para devolverle a los puertorriqueños la confianza en su gobierno y resolver los problemas que enfrenta el país. Durante los pasados seis años hemos visto la falta de ejecución del PNP. Puerto Rico ha recibido miles de millones de dólares federales, sin embargo, esta administración no ha sido capaz de ejecutar un plan para adelantar o realizar obras”, sentenció Dalmau Santiago en declaraciones escritas.

Los presidentes municipales y de precintos que fueron juramentados

fueron Rosamar Trujillo Plumey en Humacao; Madelyne Roque Hernández en Aibonito; José G. Maldonado Roque en Bayamón; Roberto (Bobby) Ramírez en Cabo Rojo; Norberto (Nini) Torres en Cataño; Orlando Bermúdez Rodríguez en Culebra; Wilbert Rivera Valderrama en Manati; Nelson Cruz Malavé en San German; John Dávila Andino en San Lorenzo; Manuel Calderón Cerame en el precinto 4 de San Juan 4; y Elba Beatriz Rivera Estrada en el precinto 5 de San Juan.

En la juramentación el Presidente del PPD estuvo acompañado del presidente de la Organización de Presidentes Municipales, Fabián Carrión, quien preside el PPD en Aguas Buenas, la subsecretaria del PPD, Nina Valedón, el comisionado electoral, Ramón Torres y comisionado alterno, Jorge Colberg. A los presidentes municipales y de precintos, se les ofreció un taller electoral, político Y financiamiento de campañas.

MAYAGÜEZ – Dos

(2) estudiantes del Centro Residencial de Oportunidades Educativas de Mayagüez resultaron finalistas obteniendo

premios en la Feria Regional de Matemáticas de Puerto Rico, reconocimiento que les asegura el pase para representar a la Isla en la Feria Internacional de Ciencias e Ingeniería 2023 en Dallas, Texas el próximo mes de mayo.

¨Nuestras estudiantes de CROEM, Karina Miranda Casiano y Ana Sofía Cabrera Isaza están entre los primeros premios que otorga la Feria Regional de Matemáticas de Puerto Rico, quienes juntas al conocido profesor de matemáticas Edwin Benvenutti Justiniano lograron conformar el equipo seleccionado para representar a Puerto Rico en la importante Feria Internacional de Ciencias e Ingeniería 2023, que este año se habrá de celebrar en el Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center en Dallas, Texas. De igual forma, los estudiantes Javier Delgado Pérez, Hedielberto Barreto Lebrón y Derek Marrero Cuevas se posicio-

naron como semifinalistas logrando también varios premios especiales. Para nosotros es un orgullo que el programa de matemáticas celebra esta competencia donde nuestros estudiantes presentaron sus proyectos. De hecho, de los tres estudiantes que escoge el Departamento de Educación para representar a Puerto Rico, dos son de CROEM¨, señaló el profesor Milton Tomassini Del Toro, director de CROEM.

La escuela CROEM, especializada en ciencias, matemáticas y tecnología fue fundada por el Dr. Ramón Claudio Tirado en el 1968 y está ubicada en la antigua Base de Radares de la Fuerza Aérea del Ejército de los Estados Unidos en el Cerro Las Mesas de Mayagüez donde participan doscientos cincuenta estudiantes los cuales participan de una experiencia residencial las 24 horas del día en ese Centro administrado por el Departamento de Educación del Gobierno de Puerto Rico. Por su calidad de enseñanza CROEM obtuvo la posición número #1 en la última evaluación realizada por el Departamento de Educación a las escuelas públicas del país.

POR EL STAR STAFF

Dos estudiantes de CROEM logran las primeras posiciones para representar a Puerto Rico en la Feria Internacional de Ciencias e Ingeniería 2023 en Dallas, Texas

PPD juramenta nuevos Presidentes municipales y de precintos

Taylor Swift, pop’s maestro of memory, returns to the stage

By JON CARAMANICA

The most meaningful Taylor Swift recording of the past few years is almost certainly “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault),” as layered and provocative as its title is unwieldy. A revision and expansion of one of her most gutting songs — the original appears on her 2011 breakthrough pop album, “Red” — it dissects a problematic, lopsided and ultimately scarring relationship with forensic detail. It’s a scathing commentary on the ex who inspired the track, and it also has something to say about the version of Swift who first committed this story to song over a decade ago: Swift now understands things that Swift then couldn’t possibly have known.

About halfway through Swift’s threehour performance at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on Friday — the opening night of the Eras Tour, her first roadshow in five years — she was at the center of the long runway stage, elevated on a platform, holding 70,000 people rapt with this tale of righteous fury and anguish. Plenty were singing along with her, but somehow, the accumulated voices sounded like one huge hush, students in awe of the master class.

There were plenty of peaks during this concert drawn from the full arc of Swift’s career — the first of a sold-out 52date national tour that made news for its disastrous rollout of ticket sales — but none quite like this. Throughout the night, she zigzagged between stretches of high-octane hits from older albums and mixed-bag selections from more recent ones — celebration with splashes of duty. What this ambitious and energetic if sometimes scattershot performance underscored, however, was just how many pivots Swift has undertaken in her career, and how the accompanying risks can have wildly different consequences.

In modern-pop parlance, album rollouts are often described as eras, but Swift’s career hasn’t always been that

cleanly delineated. She has made a few key turns over the years, though — on “Red,” when she divebombed into gleaming, centrist pop; on “Reputation,” when she made some of her sleekest and most au courant music; and on “Folklore” and “Evermore,” when she transformed into a woodland fairy.

Songs from “Red,” one of Swift’s most acclaimed albums, arrived mid-show, and they were potent wallops — a jubilant and cheeky “22,” followed by the indignant “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble.” And when Swift, in a one-legged bodysuit embroidered with a snake motif, performed selections from “Reputation,” she showed just how wrongly maligned that album was upon its release. “Don’t Blame Me” was husky and alluring, while “Look What You Made Me Do,” performed in front of dancers trapped in glass boxes dressed as old versions of Swift, brimmed with attitude.

Swift was cheerily, proactively defensive about “Evermore” — “an album I absolutely love despite what some of you say on TikTok” — but that segment of the show was particularly limp, especially the gloomy and spare “Marjorie” and “’Tis the Damn Season.” And the jolt from the melancholia of that restrained singer-songwriter release to the brazen stomp of “Reputation” was awkward. Songs from “Folklore” fared slightly better, especially “Cardigan” and “Betty,” but this section teetered toward melodrama, as if compensating for the less-assured production on those songs.

The set list overindexed on the four albums Swift released after her last major tour, supporting “Reputation” in 2018 — the chipper and jaunty “Lover,” the one-two bucolic swaddle of “Folklore” and “Evermore,” and “Midnights,” released in October. But the Eras conceit also meant that Swift wouldn’t have to exclusively lean on songs from these albums, which have, in general, been less popular, consistent and ambitious than her earlier ones.

She opened the show with a run of songs from “Lover,” a hit-or-miss album that still yielded some excellent tracks. “The Man,” performed in full office cosplay, was biting and hilarious, and “Cruel Summer” had an almost ecstatic chill to it. From there, she jumped back to “Fearless,” her second album, and the first one made with an understanding that her relationship with country music might only be a dalliance. The earnest pleas in “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story” still had their old bite.

She concluded with a selection of songs from “Midnights,” a challenging album to wrap a show of this magnitude — it’s more an amalgam of old Swift ideas than a harbinger of a new direction. During “Anti-Hero,” the screen behind Swift showed a version of her as a kind of King Kong, bigger than everyone and unfairly besieged, and on “Lavender Haze,” she was surrounded by dancers hoisting huge cloudy puffs.

There was a distinct shimmer that ran through the night’s final three selections, the tinny “Bejeweled,” the spacey “Mastermind” and the needling “Karma.” All of those songs, which can be brittle from a lyrical perspective, benefited from the scale of the production here.

But something far more meaningful had come just before that show-closing run. During an acoustic segment, she came out to the very farthest point of the stage, sat at a small piano and played her very first single, “Tim McGraw” (the only song she performed from her self-titled 2006 debut album).

In addition to “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” it was the night’s other pillar performance. It’s a song about memory and the ways in which people fail one another, and she sang it heavy with regret and tinged with sweetness.

But unlike “All Too Well,” which now benefits from the wisdom that time affords, “Tim McGraw” remained as raw as the day it was recorded. No real tweaks, no rejoinder from the new Swift to the old one — just a searing take on the sort of love that makes for a better song than relationship. There are some things Swift simply has understood all along.

Taylor Swift performs on the opening night of The Eras Tour at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on March 17, 2023. The opening night of the star’s Eras Tour traversed her 10-album career, revisiting crossover hits, rowdier experiments and more restrained singer-songwriter material.

Polito Vega, salsa ‘king’ of New York radio, dies at 84

By SAM ROBERTS

Polito Vega, an exuberant announcer with a booming bass voice and a finely attuned ear whose Spanish-language shows popularized salsa music in New York in the mid-1960s, died March 9 in North Bergen, New Jersey. He was 84.

His death was announced by his family. No cause was given.

After abandoning his dreams of becoming a singer, Vega began his broadcasting career in 1960, shortly after transplanting himself from Puerto Rico to New York. He quickly distinguished himself on air with his signature voice, his perky epigrams like “Andando, andando, andando” (“Keep going”) and his adventurous playlists. He also distinguished himself in person, at concerts and dances, with his ubiquitous New York Yankees cap, starched white guayabera shirt, white goatee and fuzzy sideburns.

DJ and recording artist Alex Sensation described Vega on Instagram as “the architect of Hispanic radio at a global level.”

Disc jockey Polito Vega in the WSKQ studio in New York, on Aug 23, 2009. Polito Vega, an exuberant announcer with a booming bass voice and a finely attuned ear whose Spanish-language shows popularized salsa music in New York in the mid-1960s, died on March 9 in North Bergen, N.J. He was 84.

In an obituary in Billboard magazine, Leila Cobo, the author of “Decoding ‘Despacito’: An Oral History of Latin Music” (2020), wrote: “Vega’s importance to Latin music cannot be overstated. He was the most influential tastemaker in the country’s top market, dating back to when tropical music first became popular in the city in the 1960s and 1970s and stretching all the way to the 21st century.”

He was heard on two New York AM stations, first WEVD and then WBNX, and finally on WSKQ (Mega 97.9 FM) — which began broadcasting as a full-time Spanish-language format in 1989 and has often been rated No. 1 in that market. He also became the station’s program director.

When Vega began broadcasting, he recalled, he was struck by the disconnect between the comparatively temperate bolero music that dominated Latin broadcasting and the feverish salsa he was encountering in nightclubs. He was among the first radio personalities to recognize the market for salsa, identifying promising talent and mentoring gifted musicians.

“It was two different worlds in those early days,” Vega said told The New York Times in 2009. “At the dance halls and up in the Catskills you would hear the Tito Puente and Machito orchestras tearing things up, but on the radio the kind of thing you heard was romantic trios, unless you were tuning in to Symphony Sid” — the prominent jazz DJ who began playing Afro-Cuban music in the 1960s — “late at night.”

Trombonist Willie Colón, who became one of salsa’s biggest stars, recalled that the first time he heard Yomo Toro, the maestro of the 10-string guitar known as the cuatro, with whom he would later collaborate on several recordings, “was on Polito’s show, playing along with listeners who would call

in and sing over the telephone.”

In the late 1960s, Colón got a break when he was invited to appear on “Club de la Juventud,” an “American Bandstand”-inspired TV show that Vega hosted on the Telemundo network from 1967 to 1970.

Among the other musicians whose careers Vega helped promote were Celia Cruz, Puente and Ismael Miranda.

Hipólito Vega Torres was born Aug. 3, 1938, in Ponce, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. His father was a bus driver, and the young Vega sold newspapers on the beach to supplement his family’s income.

He began calling himself Polito as a teenager after winning an amateur singing competition, only to be told by the contest’s master of ceremonies that he would never become a celebrity with a name like Hipólito.

In 1957, he moved to New York City, where he lived with an uncle near Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and worked as a shipping clerk while trying to get a break in the music business.

“I came to New York as a skinny little kid with a wisp of a mustache, hoping to make it as a singer,” he said in 2009.

Johnny Pacheco, a Dominican-born flutist, bandleader, songwriter and producer, knew Vega in those days. “Even before Polito got a job, he was already an announcer,” Pacheco, who died in 2021, told the Times. “He used to go to a barbershop owned by a compadre of mine, and I remember how he was always joking and kidding around there, imitating announcers and singers and talking as if he were already on the air.”

One night in 1960, he was helping a friend who was hosting “Fiesta Time,” a half-hour show on WEVD; as his friend’s sidekick, he read listeners’ names and record re-

quests on the air. The station’s owner heard his voice and hired him as an announcer.

“Radio fever got into my head,” Vega recalled.

When WEVD expanded to 24-hour programming not long after that, he was offered the midnight-to-6 a.m. slot.

“The show,” he later said, “was so successful and I felt that liberty to express myself that I’ve maintained to this day.”

Pacheco, who co-founded Fania Records in 1964 as New York was supplanting Cuba as a center for emerging Latin music, described Vega in 2009 as “part of the whole salsa movement, one of its pillars.”

“As we were building the company,” he added, “he was there with us. I’d bring him the LPs, he’d listen and say, ‘I like this song, I’m going to push it,’ and he’d play the hell out of it.”

Vega later moved to WBNX, where he became known as “El Rey de la Radio” — the King of Radio — and where he met Raúl Alarcón, the senior program director. Alarcón went on to become head of the Spanish Broadcasting System, where Vega was for many years executive vice president in charge of programming.

In 2009, Vega was honored at two all-star 50th-anniversary concerts at Madison Square Garden. Three years later he was celebrated at Citi Field in Queens by a lineup that included Gloria Estefan and Daddy Yankee.

Vega’s wife, Judith, died last year. His survivors include two sons and a daughter. Two other sons died before him.

In a statement, his family asked that his fans not mourn but “celebrate his legacy,” adding: “Polito continues to live in the music that he loved and shared, as well as the impact he left in the Latin community. Polito lived happiness, smiles and love. We would like for all his fans to live life to the fullest, as he did.”

6 wellness retreats that promise high-tech healing

70,000-square-foot spa, creating seven wellness circuits aimed at addressing problems like stress, insomnia and back pain. The equipment, called touchless tech because it doesn’t require a spa therapist, can also be reserved à la carte. Popular treatments include a salt-float bath and calming red-light therapy, as well as beds that use sounds and electromagnetic waves, which are said to put the body into a deep resting state.

The resort also offers access to a team of wellness experts, including those versed in Chinese practices like acupuncture (both traditional and with laser instead of needles) and in functional medicine, which looks at a person’s whole health to assess the root causes of illness. And last year, it introduced the Biostation, where the results of a comprehensive blood test of hormones and mineral levels are used to design custom treatment plans that incorporate diet and lifestyle modifications, stress management, nutrient injections, therapies using plant-based hormones, and more. A physician directs the program, and licensed doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners administer the treatments.

Guest rooms are also being furnished with Bryte mattresses, which use artificial intelligence to analyze sleep preferences like firmness and temperature. Those settings are saved for future stays at any place that uses Bryte mattresses. (Rooms start at $699; touchless tech services can be booked individually, starting at $99 for 25 minutes. The blood work is $499, or $299 with qualified health insurance plans.)

‘A moment of quiet in the chaos’

By NORA WALSH

Travelers have long flocked to resort destinations for yoga retreats, deep tissue massages and fitness boot camps. But when the pandemic hit, wellness took on a new urgency, and people have begun to focus on their health in new ways — with many seeking high-tech preventive care.

That shift in priorities has supercharged demand. According to a June 2022 report by Grand View Research, a firm that studies business trends, the global wellness tourism market is expected to exceed $1 trillion by 2030, growing at an annual rate of nearly 10% over the next eight years.

In response, hotels and resorts are trading in the oldschool yoga-and-massage approach for advanced wellness treatments that claim to foster longevity, often blending Western diagnostic testing with Eastern therapies.

“The majority of our guests are suddenly much more interested in wellness,” said Anna Bjurstam, the head of wellness at Six Senses on the Spanish island of Ibiza. “Those who were already eating, exercising and sleeping well are now looking into their hormones, peptides, exosomes and stem cells, so we’ve had to step it up.”

Dr. William Kapp, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and a founding partner of the preventive health and

longevity company Fountain Life, also sees the shift. “Consumers are looking for alternatives to what medicine is traditionally providing,” he said. He notes that treatments like red-light therapy and cryotherapy for reducing inflammation have been shown to decrease stress on the rest of the body’s systems, but says there are not yet enough long-term, double-blind studies to prove how effective some other alternative treatments are for longevity. “A lot of these therapies will make you feel better, but I wouldn’t hold out hope they do anything else,” Kapp said. “There is no magic bullet yet.”

Here’s what six destinations around the world are doing to cater to these new wellness travelers. (Remember to consult with your own medical professionals before beginning any treatment program.)

Salt-float baths and smart mattresses

Tammy Pahel, the vice president for spa and wellness at the Carillon Miami Wellness Resort in Miami Beach, Florida, has witnessed the changing demand. “When we reopened the hotel in November 2020, people were calling with specific issues like anxiety, insomnia and muscle tension and asking what we offered that could help,” she said. “They didn’t want to just take a pill.”

During the pandemic, the Carillon invested more than $1 million in state-of-the art equipment for its

In New York, the newly opened Aman debuted with a 25,000-square-foot, three-level spa that offers three-day to 12-week programs. A team of medical doctors, Chinese medicine practitioners and physiotherapists customizes treatments and diet using high-tech tools that measure body fat, cognition, minerals and toxic metals, glucose levels, and functionality of the cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous and musculoskeletal systems. The physician on staff may also request previous medical records or order further testing.

Since opening, the spa — which is open to hotel guests and members only and offers an infrared sauna, hot and cold plunge pools, and a cryotherapy chamber — has experienced a jump in the number of visitors using its purification and detox services. “We have found that guests are visiting the hotel to find a moment of quiet in the chaos and improve their overall well-being instead of visiting New York to sightsee and explore,” said Sanali McFadden, the director of spa and wellness at Aman New York. (Rooms start at $3,200; the three-day immersion program starts at $15,600, including accommodation, food and nonalcoholic beverages.)

Assessing sleep cycles and the aging of cells

Six Senses Ibiza, which opened in Spain in the summer of 2021, is teaming up with longevity clinic RoseBar to offer programs that include comprehensive wellness

In an undated image provided by Kamalaya Koh Samui, Kamalaya Koh Samui, a wellness sanctuary in Thailand. Since the pandemic, hotels and resorts around the world have embraced services like comprehensive blood tests, IV infusions and 3-D scans.

screenings and the option of one, three or seven days of services like hyperbaric oxygen therapy (breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized capsule, which is thought to help speed up the healing process); cryotherapy; and tests that analyze DNA to show how fast cells are aging. This will be RoseBar’s first location.

Packages include consultations with in-house medical experts, IV infusions, oxygen therapy and massages. Additionally, the brand will roll out a new program this year that assesses a person’s chronotype, or natural sleep cycle.

Sara Nielsen, a working mother of two from London, visited Six Senses Ibiza last summer with her husband. The experience prompted her to change her lifestyle after she returned home. “I meditate daily now in front of a red-light therapy device, I bought a cold plunge pool for the garden, and I now do slow gentle exercise instead of HIIT classes to calm my nervous system,” she said, referring to highintensity interval training. “I realized I don’t have to make big, sweeping changes in my life. I can consistently stack small habits to support myself and create a better balance.” (Rooms start at $827, including breakfast.)

A focus on building healthy habits

In Uruguay, Alive Resort takes its cues from established European spa retreats like Sha Wellness Clinic, Priedlhof and the Bürgenstock Waldhotel. As part of Alive’s care, medical professionals, including general practitioners, nutritionists and therapists, are coupled with technology like 3D scanners and zero-gravity beds, which adjust position to relieve pressure on the body.

Personalized plans focus on introducing new habits around diet, fitness and stress management, and the majority of travelers come from all over Latin America to quit smoking, lose weight and detox. Most guests stay for a week, while others stay for months, the resort said, and about half of the guests book their next visit before checking out.

“Our weight-loss program is a huge success,” said Patricia Fernandes, an owner of Alive. She said her mother died of a cancer for which obesity is a risk factor, an event that inspired her to open the resort. “In the restaurant, every guest is eating something different because each person has different objectives, requirements and states of health,” Fernandes said.

Guests can also participate in workshops with a nutritionist, where they learn how to read food labels and make healthy eating choices, and take part in cooking classes and consultations with a therapist and a life coach. Before departure, they receive personalized diets and fitness plans to continue at home, as well as follow-up video appointments with a nutritionist to adapt those plans over time.

“It is life-changing for our guests when their glycemic levels, cholesterol and blood pressure return to normal levels,” Fernandes said. (Rooms start at $449 based on single occupancy with a three-night stay minimum.)

Tailored treatments on a lush island

In December, when Mary Lamb, who splits her time between New York City and Singapore, visited Joali Being, a new wellness resort in the Maldives, she hoped to leave with a goal. “Every time I go to a wellness retreat, I do a bit of self-reflection and have a takeaway that I work on at

home,” she said.

The wellness concept at Joali Being is rooted in four pillars: mind, skin, microbiome and energy. This informs everything — from the design of the property, on a lush island, to the culinary offerings and the treatments provided by a panel of physicians, Ayurvedic doctors, Chinese medicine specialists and an herbalist, among others. As part of the resort’s approach, guests receive five consultations: prearrival, three times during their stay and post-trip to ensure the integration of new habits. “We’re finding that our guests want to go beyond just relaxing,” said Magdy Abdelaty, the director of well-being at Joali. “They want a deeper understanding of themselves and what they need physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.”

During her stay, Lamb received an evaluation with a Qest 4 device, which claims to use electric currents to test the health of organs and other body parts, providing data that helps tailor treatments for each guest. “The results said my gut needed attention, which is true,” Lamb said. She also discovered that her balance needed improvement after a functional movement analysis using a 3D camera and a force platform, a device that helps gauge balance, posture and gait.

A personal trainer also gave her individualized exercises that she continues to do weekly. Lamb recommends the Watsu hydrotherapy 60-minute massage — one of the resort’s most frequently booked treatments — which combines mas-

sage, acupressure, stretching and rocking in the spa’s thermal pool. “I felt weightless, as though I was floating in space,” she said. (Rooms start at $2,146, plus tax, per night.)

Breathing, meditation and oxygen therapy

The new Longevity House at Kamalaya Koh Samui in Thailand offers more than 100 treatments and 17 wellness programs. The wellness sanctuary, which has been open for nearly two decades, relies on an array of Eastern and Western medical personnel, visiting practitioners in areas like acupuncture and reiki, and life-enhancement mentors specializing in pranayama breathing exercises and meditation. Its programs fuse the ancient healing and spiritual traditions of various Asian cultures with Western science.

“The Longevity House is designed to augment our various wellness programs and maximize benefits in a short amount of time,” said Karina Stewart, a co-founder and the chief wellness officer of the retreat. À la carte services include customized IV vitamin infusions, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and a preventive cancer screening that claims to use blood tests to help detect illness before symptoms have appeared.

“We cover many, many different aspects of health and wellness,” Stewart said. “But ultimately, we specialize in helping our guests fulfill their life’s potential.” (Rates start at about $1,425, plus tax, for three-day programs, including meals and excluding accommodation; rooms start at approximately $200.)

In an undated image provided by Robert Rieger, the newly opened Aman, in New York, which offers a three-level spa with tools that measure a variety of body functions, along with treatments including plunge pools, an infrared sauna and a cryotherapy chamber.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO

DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN

JUAN

REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC.

Demandante Vs. SUCESION BALBINO ANTONIO COLON

MARTINEZ T/C/C

BALBINO A. COLON

MARTINEZ T/C/C

BALBINO COLON

MARTINEZ COMPUESTA

POR NESTOR COLON

MORALES, IVAN COLON

MORALES, RUBEN COLON MORALES; JOHN

DOE Y JANE DOE COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS;

SUCESION FELIPA

NERI MORALES PAGAN

T/C/C NERY MORALES

PAGAN T/C/C NERY MORALES DE COLON

T/C/C NERY MORALES

COLON COMPUESTA

POR NESTOR COLON

MORALES, IVAN COLON

MORALES, RUBEN

COLON MORALES; JOHN

ROE Y JANE ROE COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS;

ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

Demandados

Civil Núm.: SJ2019CV08341.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA.

ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: LA PARTE

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

Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América y/o Giro Postal y Cheque Certificado, en mi oficina ubicada

en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, el 4 DE ABRIL DE 2023, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar marcado con el numero dieciséis (16) del Bloque “H” en el plano de inscripción de la Urbanización University Gardens, en el Barrio Hato Rey Sur, del término municipal de San Juan, Puerto Rico, con un área superficial de cuatrocientos sesenta y siete punto cincuenta y dos (467.52 m.c.) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el Norte, en veintidós punto quinientos (22.500 m.) metros, con el solar número diecisiete (17) del bloque “H”; por el Sur, en veintidós punto quinientos (22.500 m.) metros, con el solar número quince del bloque “H”; por el Este, en veinte punto cero cero (20.00 m.) metros, con la calle número ocho (8) hoy denominada Harvard; y por el Oeste, en veintiuno punto quinientos cincuenta y tres (21.553 m.) metros, con los solares numero dos (2) y tres (3) del bloque “H”. Enclava una casa. Inscrita al folio 154 del tomo 859 de Rio

Piedras Norte, finca 19,100, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección II. La Hipoteca Revertida consta inscrita al folio 127 del tomo 1571 de Rio

Piedras Norte, finca 19,100, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección II, inscripción 14ª. Propiedad localizada en: URB. UNIVERSITY GARDENS, 903 CALLE HARVARD, SAN JUAN, PR 00927. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas anteriores o preferentes: Nombre del Titular: N/A. Suma de la Carga: N/A. Fecha de Vencimiento: N/A. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante: Nombre del Titular: Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano. Suma de la Carga: $459,000.00. Fecha de Vencimiento: 26 de mayo de 2076. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el

precio del remate. Se establece como tipo de mínima subasta la suma de $306,000.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, el 12 DE ABRIL DE 2023, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de 204,000.00, 2/3 partes del tipo mínima establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $153,000.00, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, el 19 DE ABRIL DE 2023, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $302,919.83 de principal; intereses pactados y computados sobre dicha suma al tipo convenido de 3.526% anual hasta tu total y completo pago, contribuciones, recargos y primas de seguro; más $30,600.00 por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. Dichas sumas están vencidas, son liquidas y exigibles. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy 21 de febrero de 2023. PEDRO HIEYE GONZÁLEZ, ALGUACIL.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

JUAN ANTONIO BONILLA RAMOS Y RAMONITA GARCIA FLORES Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA ENTRE AMBOS

EXPARTE

Civil Núm.: CG2022CV03198. Sobre: USUCAPIÓN EXTRAORDINARIA Y/O PRESCRIPCIÓN ADQUISITIVA; EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LO ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: OTRAS PERSONAS O MIEMBROS DE SUCESIÓN DESCONOCIDAS, IGNORADAS, AUSENTES DE LA JURISDICCIÓN, Y/O CUYO PARADERO SE DESCONOCE, Y/O A QUIENES PUEDA PERJUDICAR LA INSCRIPCIÓN DE DOMINIO SOLICITADA DEL INMUEBLE, INCLUYENDO POSIBLES DUEÑOS ANTERIORES Y SUS HEREDEROS, QUE SE DESCRIBE EN DICHA PETICIÓN.

POR LA PRESENTE, se notifica a ustedes que se ha presentado ante este Tribunal una Petición Jurada sobre Expediente de Dominio, con el fin de justificar e inscribir a favor de JUAN ANTONIO BONILLA RAMOS y RAMONITA GARCIA FLORES y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA ENTRE AMBOS, el dominio sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: PREDIO DE TERRENO: con un área de dos mil trescientos cuarenta y ocho punto cero nueve seis seis metros cuadrados (2,348.0966 M.C.) o cero punto cinco nueve siete cuatro cuerdas de terreno (0.5974 CDA.) localizado en la Carr. P.R.-919, KM. 10.8 (Int.) Barrio Valenciano Abajo, Juncos, Puerto Rico. Que los vecinos colindantes del predio de terreno, según el plano de mensura son los siguientes: Jesús López López, Juan A. Bonilla Ramos, Mireliz Soto Martínez, Manuel Bonilla Ramos. Que el número de catastro del terreno

Monday,

es el siguiente: 253-022-56420. El inmueble antes descrito no consta inscrito en el Registro de la Propiedad. Se les notifica para que comparezcan, si lo creyeren pertinente, ante el Tribunal dentro de los veinte (20) días, contados a partir de la última publicación de este edicto, a exponer lo que a sus derechos convenga, en el expediente promovido por la parte peticionaria, para que se inscriba el dominio sobre la propiedad antes descrita, a favor de de JUAN ANTONIO BONILLA RAMOS y RAMONITA GARCIA FLORES y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA ENTRE AMBOS. Se les notifica, que deberán presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.poderjudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de San Juan, y enviando copia a la parte peticionaria: Lcdo. Carlos J. Rodríguez Beltrán y Lcdo. Gabriel J. Pagán Sánchez, cuya dirección es: 10 Calle Teodomiro Delfaus, Juncos, Puerto Rico 00777, Tel. 787-734-7000; y correo electrónico: crodriguez@lawver.com y gabrielpagan.law@gmail.com.

Si usted deja de expresarse dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar Resolución, previo a escuchar la prueba de valor de la parte peticionaria, sin más citarle ni oírle, y conceder el remedio solicitado en la petición, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 15 de diciembre de 2022. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. GLORISSETTE RIVERA REYES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

FINANCE OF AMERICA REVERSE, LLC.

Plaintiff Vs.

NILDA LUZ SANTIAGO

MEDINA A/K/A NILDA

L. SANTIAGO MEDINA

MEDINA

SANTIAGO MEDINA

NILDA

SANTIAGO A/K/A NILSA SANTIAGO; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Defendants

Civil Action No.: 17-cv-1627.

NOTICE OF SALE.

To: NILDA LUZ

SANTIAGO MEDINA A/K/A

NILDA L. SANTIAGO

MEDINA A/K/A NILDA

SANTIAGO MEDINA

A/K/A NILSA SANTIAGO

MEDINA A/K/A NILDA

LUZ SANTIAGO A/K/A

NILDA L. SANTIAGO

A/K/A NILDA SANTIAGO

A/K/A NILSA SANTIAGO; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

GENERAL PUBLIC.

WHEREAS: Judgment was entered in favor of plaintiff to recover from defendants the principal sum of $86,409.11, plus interest at a rate of 5.060% per annum until the debt is paid in full. The defendant Nilda Luz

Santiago Medina a/k/a Nilda L.

Santiago Medina a/k/a Nilda

Santiago Medina a/k/a Nilsa

Santiago Medina a/k/a Nilda

Luz Santiago a/k/a Nilda L.

The San Juan Daily Star

mero 5, en 25.00 metros; por el SUR, con el solar número 7, en 25.00 metros; por el ESTE, con la Calle número 6, en 13.00 metros y por el OESTE con el solar número 21, en 7.00 metros y con el solar número 20, en 6.00 metros, con un total la distancia de 13.00 metros.”

A/K/A

Santiago a/k/a Nilda Santiago a/k/a Nilsa Santiago to pay Finance of America Reverse, LLC., all advances made under the mortgage note including but not limited to insurance premiums, taxes and inspections as well as 10% ($17,100.00) of the original principal amount to cover costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees guaranteed under the mortgage obligation. The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by interested parties at the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150, Federal Office Building, 150 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. WHEREAS: Pursuant to the terms of the aforementioned Judgment, Order of Execution, and the Writ of Execution thereof, the undersigned Special Master was ordered to sell at public auction for U.S. currency in cash or certified check without appraisement or right of redemption to the highest bidder and at the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 – Federal Office Building, 150 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property. “URBANA: Solar número seis de la Manzana H, Urbanización Santa Mónica, Barrio Pájaros de Bayamón, Puerto Rico, compuesta de 325.00 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con el solar nú-

Property Number 19,829 recorded at page 146 of volume 438 of Bayamon Sur, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section I of Bayamón. The mortgage being foreclosed is recorded at page 37, volume 1,933 of Bayamon Sur, property 19,829, 12th inscription, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section I of Bayamon. WHEREAS: This property is subject to the following liens: Senior Liens: None. Junior Liens: Reverse mortgage securing a note in favor of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, or its order, in the original principal amount of $171,000.00, due on March 30, 2094 pursuant to deed number 84, issued in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on June 9, 2014, before notary Magaly Rodriguez Batista, and recorded, at page 37 of volume 1,933 of Bayamon Sur, property number 19,829, 13th inscription. Other Liens: None. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed upon, including but not limited to any property tax, liens, (express, tacit, implied or legal) shall continue in effect it being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation. THEREFORE, the FIRST PUBLIC SALE shall be held on the 4TH DAY OF APRIL, 2023 AT 9:15 AM. The minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $171,000.00. In the event said first auction does not produce a bidder and the property is not adjudicated, a SECOND PUBLIC AUCTION shall be held on the 11TH DAY OF APRIL, 2023 AT 9:15AM, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum $114,000.00, which is twothirds of the amount of the minimum bid for the first public sale. If a second auction does not result in the adjudication and sale of the property, a THIRD public auction will be held on the the 18th day of April, 2023 at 9:15am, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $85,500.00, which is one-half of the minimum bid in the first public sale. The Spe-

cial Master shall not accept in payment of the property to be sold anything but United States currency or certified checks, except in case the property is sold and adjudicated to the plaintiff, in which case the amount of the bid made by said plaintiff shall be credited and deducted from its credit; said plaintiff being bound to pay in cash or certified check only any excess of its bid over the secured indebtedness that remains unsatisfied. WHEREAS: Said sale to be made by the Special Master subject to confirmation by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of conveyance and possession to the property will be executed and delivered only after such confirmation. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued cancelling all junior liens. For further particulars, reference is made to the judgment entered by the Court in this case, which can be examined in the Office of Clerk of the United States District Court, District of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 24th day of February of 2023. Pedro A. Vélez-Baerga, Special Master, specialmasterpr@gmail.com, 787-672-8269.

LEGAL NOTICE

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO BAUTISTA REO PR CORP. Plaintiff V. THE ESTATE OF JUAN VÁZQUEZ PEDROZA, FORMED BY RUTH DAMARIS VÁZQUEZ CARRUCINI, BETZY AILINNE GREGORY VÁZQUEZ, JUAN ABDEL VÁZQUEZ, AND MARGARITA CARRUCINI DELGADO A/K/A MARGARITA CARRUCINI, BY HERSELF AND AS MEMBER OF THE ESTATE OF JUAN VÁZQUEZ PEDROZA

Defendants Civil No.: 3:20-cv-01494. (JAG). COLLECTION OF MONIES AND FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE. NOTICE OF SALE.

To: DEFENDANT AND GENERAL PUBLIC.

On June 13, 2022, this Court entered Judgment by Stipulation in favor of Bautista Cayman Asset Company, now Bautista REO PR Corp. (“Bautista REO”). To date, Defendants have not satisfied the Judgment. As of September 15, 2021, the Defendants owe

Bautista REO a total amount of $212,729.79 comprised as follows: (i) $123,838.78 in principal; plus (ii) interests in the amount of $68,472.52 which continues to accrue, even postjudgment as per the agreement of the parties, until full payment of the debt at $25.80 per diem; plus (iii) accrued late charges in the amount of $4,191.96; plus (iv) other expenses in the amount of $2,226.50 and any other advance, charge, fee or disbursements made by Bautista REO, as well as under the other loan documents; plus (v) costs and agreed attorney’s fees in the amount of $14,000.00. Pursuant to said judgment and the Order of Execution of Judgment, the undersigned appointed Special Master was ordered to sell, at public auction for U.S. currency in cash or certified check, without appraisement or right to redemption, to the highest bidder, at the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 - Federal Building, 350 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, or at any other place designated by said Clerk, to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property:

URBAN: Lot number 39 of the Gonzalez Seijo Development plot plan, located in the Sabana Llana ward of Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, with a surface area of 334.96 square meters.

Adjacent to the North, at 12.00 meters with the Insular Highway number 3; to the South, at 11.98 meters with lot number 37 of the development; to the East, at 27.64 meters with lot number 40 of the development; and to the West, at 28.28 meters with lot number 38 of the development. Enclaves a residential house for a family. The property described above is recorded at page 181 of volume 192 of Sabana Llana, property number 8,614, Registry of Property, Fifth Section of San Juan. Dirección Física: Calle De Diego #562, Urb. González Seijó, Barrio Sabana Llana, San Juan, PR 00924. The Property is described in the Spanish language as follows: URBANA: Solar número 39 del plano de la Urbanización Gonzalez Seijo, sito en el barrio Sabana Llana del Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, con un área superficial de 334.96 metros cuadrados. Colindando por el Norte, en 12.00 metros con la Carretera Insular numero 3; por el Sur, en 11.98 metros con el solar número 37 de la urbanización; por el Este, en 27.64 metros con el solar número 40 de la urbanización; y por el Oeste, en 28.28 metros con el solar número 38 de la Urbanización. Enclava una casa residencial para una familia. The property described above is

recorded at page 181 of volume 192 of Sabana Llana, property number 8,614, Registry of Property, Fifth Section of San Juan.

Physical Address: #562 De Diego Street, González Seijó Dev., Sabana Llana Ward, San Juan, PR 00924. The property is subject to the following liens:

BY ITS ORIGIN: Easement in favor of Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority. BY ITSELF: MORTGAGE in guarantee of note in favor of New York Mortgage Bankers, or to its order, in the principal amount of $140,000.00, with a yearly interest rate of 7½%, due on April 1, 2020, as per Deed No. 189, executed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 29, 2005, before Notary Public Oscar M. González Rivera, recorded at page 162 of volume 983B of Sabana Llana, 16th abbreviated inscription. COMPLAINT ANNOTATION: The object of this annotation is the Mortgage in favor of New York Mortgage Bankers for the amount of $140,000.00 arising from inscription #16.

Plaintiff: Bautista Cayman Asset Company; Defendant: Juan Vázquez Pedroza, amount owed $123,838.78, for principal plus interest, according to United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico Lawsuit in Civil case #3:20-CV-01494GAG on September 23, 2020, recorded in volume Karibe of Sabana Llana, Annotation A. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed upon, including but not limited to any property tax, liens, (express, tacit, implied or legal), shall continue in effect. It being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation. The lien executed is over the property, and for the purposes of the first judicial sale the minimum bid amount is as follows: a. The amount of $140,000.00, as set forth in the mortgage deed, shall serve as the minimum bidding amount for the first public sale. Should the first public sale fail to produce an award or adjudication, two-thirds of the aforementioned amount or $93,333.33 shall serve as the minimum bidding amount for the second public sale. Should there be no award or adjudication at the second public sale, the minimum bidding amount for the third public sale shall be $70,000.00. 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 may be executed and delivered after the judicial sale. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued canceling all junior liens. THEREFORE, PUBLIC NOTICE is hereby given that the appointed Special Master, pursuant to the provisions of the Judgment herein before referred to, will, on the 21ST DAY OF APRIL, 2023, AT 10:30

A.M., in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 - Federal Building, 350 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, 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 described in this Notice will be held on the 28th day of April, 2023, at 10:30

a.m., in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 - Federal Building, 350 Carlos 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 5TH DAY OF MAY, 2023, AT 10:30

A.M., in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 - Federal Building, 350 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. 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. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 9th day of February, 2023. AGUEDO DE LA TORRE, APPOINTED SPECIAL MASTER.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

Demandante V. EDWIN ENRIQUE PICÓN TRENCHE T/C/C EDWIN PICÓN TRENCHE

Demandado

Civil Núm.: FA2019CV00524. Sala: 307. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA “IN REM”.

ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Prime-

ra Instancia, Sala Superior de Fajardo, Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hago saber, a la parte demandada y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL: Que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 28 de diciembre de 2022, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor la propiedad que ubica y se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar radicado en la Urbanización Hacienda Paloma II, localizada en el Barrio Sabana del término municipal de Luquillo, Puerto Rico, que se describe en el Plano de Inscripción, con el número, área y colindancias que se relacionan a continuación: Número del solar 9. Área del solar: 721.63 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en una distancia de 20.27 metros lineales, con el solar 4 y 5; por el SUR, en una distancia de 12.93 metros lineales, y 6.39 metros lineales, con calle Maori y solar número 10; por el ESTE, en una distancia de 21.50 metros lineales y 18.77 metros lineales, con Carretera Estatal PR-991 (PR991) y solar 3; y por el OESTE, en una distancia de 25.22 metros lineales, con el solar número 8. Sobre dicho solar enclava una casa de concreto para fines residenciales. El expresado solar se haya afecto a la siguiente servidumbre: Servidumbre Telefónica: Franja de terreno de 5 pies de ancho, que discurre a lo largo de su patio delantero con relación a la colindancia de la Calle Maori. Inscrita al folio 121 del tomo 281 de Luquillo, finca #13,149. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Fajardo. La propiedad se encuentra ubicada, según pagaré, en: 9 #3 St. Maori, Hacienda Paloma II, Luquillo, Puerto Rico. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada el 28 de diciembre de 2022 y notificada el 3 de enero de 2023, en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $177,658.12 por concepto de principal; generando intereses a razón de 3.50% desde el 1ro de septiembre de 2017; cargos por demora los cuales al igual que los intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda reclamada en este pleito, y la suma de $18,686.40 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente (“Sentencia”). La adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo de la adjudicación, en efectivo (moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América), giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del alguacil del Tri-

bunal. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a efecto el día 6 DE JULIO DE 2023 A LAS 2:30 DE LA TARDE, en el Centro Judicial de Fajardo, Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA es de $186,864.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 13 DE JULIO DE 2023 A LAS 2:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $124,576.00, equivalentes a dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una TERCERA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 20 DE JULIO DE 2023 A LAS 2:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $93,432.00, equivalentes a la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente; se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo dispone el Articulo 104 de la Ley Núm. 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015 conocida como “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmueble del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de toda carga y gravamen que afecte la mencionada finca según el Artículo 102, inciso 6. Una vez confirmada la venta judicial por el Honorable Tribunal, se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura de venta judicial y se pondrá al comprador en posesión física del inmueble de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda aquella persona o personas que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de todos los licitadores y el público en general, el presente Edicto se publicará por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas, con un intervalo de por lo menos siete días entre ambas publicaciones, en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y se fijará además en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse dicha venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía. Se les informa, por último, que: a. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al proce-

dimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. b. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate.

EXPIDO, el presente EDICTO, en Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hoy día 21 de febrero de 2023. DENISE BRUNO ORTIZ, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR #266, DIVISIÓN DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO. JORGE A. ORTIZ ESTRADA, ALGUACIL REGIONAL INTERINO #622.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO SUPERIOR LIMITADO BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. HERNÁN CRUZ

MALDONADO; MALETSIS VIERA DOSAL

Demandados

Civil Núm.: N3CI2017-00424.

Sala: 307. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior, Centro Judicial de Fajardo, Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hago saber, a la parte demandada y al PUBLICO EN

GENERAL: Que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 18 de enero de 2023, por la Secretaria del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor la propiedad que ubica y se describe a continuación:

Urbana: URBANIZACION RIO

GRANDE ESTATES de Rio

Grande. Solar: 20 BLOQUE 4N.

Cabida: 354.82 Metros Cuadrados. Linderos: Norte, con los solares número dieciséis (16) y diecisiete (17) del mismo bloque, en una distancia de catorce punto cero cero metros (14.00 m). Sur, con la calle número quinientos diez (510) en una distancia de quince punto cincuenta y siete metros (15.57 m). Este, con el solar número diecinueve (19) del mismo bloque, en una distancia de veintiuno punto ochenta y cuatro metros (21.84 m). Oeste, con el solar número veintiuno (21) del mismo bloque en una dis-

tancia de veintiséis punto cero cero metros (26.00 m). Inscrito al folio 84 del tomo 386 de Rio Grande, finca número #23,169 Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Tercera de Carolina. La propiedad ubica en: 4N-20 Reina Fabiola St. Río Grandes States, Río Grande, PR. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada a su favor, el día 15 de octubre de 2019 y notificada el 16 de octubre de 2019, en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $129,862.22 por concepto de principal; $749.92 por concepto de intereses acumulados, $954.80 por concepto de cargos por demora los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda reclamada en este pleito; y la suma $14,800.60 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente. Además, el Alguacil que suscribe, hago saber a todos los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o de los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, siempre que surjan de la certificación registral, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante: a. Aviso de Demanda de fecha 15 de agosto de 2017, expedida en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Río Grande, en el Caso Civil número N3CI2017-00424, seguido por el Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, versus Hernán Cruz Maldonado y Maletsis Viera Dosal, sobre Cobro de Dinero, por la suma de $129,862.22 más otras sumas, anotado el día 28 de agosto de 2020, al tomo Karibe de Río Grande, finca número 23,169, anotación A. La adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo de la adjudicación, en efectivo (moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América), giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del alguacil del Tribunal. LA PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a efecto el día 5 DE JULIO DE 2023 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina del referido Alguacil, localizada en el Centro Judicial de Fajardo, precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA

es de $148,006.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 12 DE JULIO DE 2023 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $98,670.66, equivalentes a dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una TERCERA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 19 DE JULIO DE 2023 A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $74,003.00, equivalentes a la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente; se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo dispone el Articulo 104 de la Ley Núm. 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015 conocida como “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmueble del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de toda carga y gravamen que afecte la mencionada finca según el Artículo 102, inciso 6. Una vez confirmada la venta judicial por el Honorable Tribunal, se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura de venta judicial y se pondrá al comprador en posesión física del inmueble de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda aquella persona o personas que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de todos los licitadores y el público en general, el presente Edicto se publicará por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas, con un intervalo de por lo menos siete días entre ambas publicaciones, en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y se fijará además en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse dicha venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía. Se les informa, por último, que: a. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. b. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hu-

mejor postor, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Residential Apartment number seven-A (7A) of building number two of Alta Vista Condominium, Residential Apartment of irregular shape located on the building number, two seventh floor of Alta Vista Condominium, at state road number eighty hundred thirty-three and street number one of Alturas de Torrimar in Frailes Ward, Municipality of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. This apartment has a total private area of one thousand five hundred fifty-three square feet (1,553sq.ft.), equivalent to one hundred forty-four square meters and thirty three hundredths of square meter being its lineal measurements thirty three feet five inches the largest width. The boundaries and dimensions are clockwise as follows:

NORTHEAST, on a broken line a distance of thirty feet seven inches with exterior space separated by exterior wall and window, on a distance of eight feet seven inches with stairs and one a distance of one foot two inches with storage closet and separated by a bearing wall, SOUTHEAST, on a broken line, a distance of four feet ten inches with exterior space separated by exterior wall a distance of thirteen feet two inches with apartment seven “B” separated by interior wall on a distance of seven feet eight inches with elevator shaft separated by bearing wall; on a distance of five feet eight inches with common lobby, separated by bearing wall and entrance door, a distance of fourteen feet eight inches with stairs separated by bearing wall; a distance of thirteen feet two inches, with apartment seven “B” separated by interior wall and a distance of four feet ten inches with exterior spaces separated by exterior wall; SOUTHWEST, on a broken line, a distance of thirty three feet five inches with exterior space separated by exterior wall windows and balcony railing and on a distance of six feet eleven inches with elevator shaft separated by bearing wall; NORTHWEST, on a broken line a distance of sixty four feet zero inches with exterior spaces separated by exterior wall windows and balcony railings. This apartment unit consists of the following rooms: foyer, living dining with balcony, kitchen, master bedrooms with bathroom and dressing room corridor with two linen closets bathroom (second), bedroom with closet and balcony and third bedroom with closet. The kitchen is equipped with base and wall cabinets, double bowl sink with disposal water heater, range with oven

and spaces for refrigerator and clothes washer dryer. The master bathroom has a bathtub, water closet bidet and two lavatories on a separate vanity area. The second bathroom has bathtub, water closet and lavatory. A storage closet located in the central core and with an area of thirty-three square feet equivalent to three square meters and seven hundredths of a square meter (3.07sq.mts.) form parts of this apartment this area is in addition to the area mentioned above. The entrance door of this apartment is located on the Southeast boundary facing the common lobby which gives access to the stairs and elevator leading to the exterior. Le corresponde un porcentaje en los elementos comunes generales de uno punto tres siete cuatro nueve por ciento y un porcentaje en los elementos comunes limitados de dos punto ocho dos cinco cuatro por ciento (2.8254%) y el área de estacionamiento número tres “B” (3-B) y el número ocho “B” (8B). Número 25,273 Bis, inscrita al folio 170 del tomo 619 de Guaynabo. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guaynabo. Dirección de la Propiedad: Altavista Condominium 1& 11 Unit 7ª, Guaynabo PR 00969 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: de $$208,133.28 con interés al 5.060% anual, por concepto de balance principal del préstamo más intereses acumulados, los cuales continúan acumulándose, así como la cantidad líquida estipulada en los documentos del préstamo para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado en caso de reclamación judicial y que correspondan a intereses y cargos por demora posterior a dicha fecha, y la suma de $39,000.00 equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original pactada, 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 97 otorgada el día 1 de agosto de 2012, San Juan, Puerto Rico, ante el Notario Público Jennifer Cordova Cordova y consta inscrita al folio 162 del tomo 1374 de Guaybao, finca número 25273 Bis, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Guaynabo. 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 celebrarán 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 en garantía de un pagaré a favor del Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano de los Estados Unidos de América, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $390,000.00, con intereses al 5.06% anual, vencedero el día 9 de agosto 2086, constituida mediante la escritura número 98, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 1 de agosto de 2012, ante la notario Jennifer Córdova Córdova, e inscrita al folio 162 del tomo 1,374 de Guaynabo, finca número 25,273 Bis, inscripción 10ª., y última. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta del inmueble antes descrito será la suma de $390,000.00 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 $260,000.00; 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 $195,000.00. 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. 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. 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) 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. 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 Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, a 11 de enero de 2023. Alg. Hugo Basco Medina, Placa 807, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE GUAYNABO.

***

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAY-

NABO MORTGAGE ASSETS MANAGEMENT, LLC

Demandante V. LA SUCESIÓN DE HARRY BRAY PÉREZ, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO COMO HARRY BRAY Y COMO BRAY COMPUESTA POR HARRY SEGUNDO BRAY LEAL, ENRIQUE MANUEL BRAY LEAL; FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA

Demandados Civil Núm.: GB2023CV00027. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S. S.

A: LA SUCESIÓN DE HARRY BRAY PÉREZ, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO COMO HARRY BRAY Y COMO BRAY COMPUESTA POR HARRY SEGUNDO BRAY LEAL, ENRIQUE MANUEL BRAY LEAL; FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN.

Queden emplazados y notificados que en este Tribunal se ha radicado Demanda sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca en su contra. Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del presente edicto y deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), el cual podrá 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 discreción, lo entiende procedente. Los abogados de la parte demandante

son: Lcdo. Andrés Sáez Marrero T.S.P.R. Núm. 18074 TROMBERG, MORRIS & POULIN, LLC 1515 South Federal Highway, Suite 100 Boca Raton, FL 33432 Tel. 877-338-4101 / Fax: 561-338-4077 prservice@tmppllc.com / asaez@tmppllc.com

Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 28 de febrero de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ANGELA RIVERA HERNÁNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR. ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC., COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC

DEMANDANTE VS. NELSON E. RAMOS

IRIZARRY, LYMARIE RIVERA DIAZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES POR

AMBOS COMPUESTA

DEMANDADO

CIVIL NUM.: SJ2022CV09112.

SALON: 908. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.

A: NELSON E. RAMOS IRIZARRY, LYMARIE RIVERA DIAZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES POR AMBOS COMPUESTA.

100 CALLE JUAN

ANTONIO CORRETJER

APT. 704 SAN JUAN, PR 00901

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste Ia demanda dentro de los treinta (30) dIas siguientes a Ia publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), Ia cual puede acceder utilizando Ia siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr saIvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en Ia secretarla 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 Ia demanda o cualquier otro sin mas citarle ni oIrle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de Ia parte

demandante, el Lcdo. Kenmuel

J. Ruiz López cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 009518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a Ia dirección kenmuel.riuz@orf-law.com y a Ia dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO

MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 9 de febrero de 2023.

GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. f/MYRIAM RIVERA VILLANUEVA, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMON. ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC. COMO

AGENTE GESTOR DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC. DEMANDANTE VS. LUIS OROPEZA COLLAZO DEMANDADO CIVIL N1IM.: TB2022CV00363.

SALÓN: SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. Estados Unidos de América El Presidente de los Estados Unidos El Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico. SS:

A: Luis Oropeza CollazoUrb. El Naranjal, E7 Calle 2, Toa Baja, P.R. 009494200.

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

son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-85 18, teléfono (787) 993 3731 a la dirección natalie.bonaparte@ orf-law.com, edwin.serrano@ orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA

y el sello del Tribunal, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 13 de febrero de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 13 de febrero de 2023. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional. Ivette M Marrero Bracero, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal I.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Vs. SOLYMAR ROSADO NIEVES, FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV08504. Sala: 908. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO EMITIDO POR EL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA DE PUERTO RICO, SALA DE SAN JUAN.

A: SOLYMAR ROSADO NIEVES, FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS. Banco Popular de Puerto Rico vs. Solymar Rosado Nieves, Fulana de Tal y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales Compuesta por Ambos, Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV08504 (908) sobre Cobro de Dinero. Se les notifica a ustedes, SOLYMAR ROSADO NIEVES, FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, que en la Demanda que originó este caso se alega que ustedes le adeudan a la parte demandante, BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO, las siguientes cantidades: a. $15,715.95 de principal, $907.60 de intereses devengados hasta el 14 de enero de 2022, más los intereses que se devenguen a partir de la fecha de radicación de la Demanda al tipo legal, hasta el total y completo pago de la obligación, $18.91 de cargos por mora y otros y la suma de $1,664.24 pactada para las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, por concepto de las sumas desembolsadas por el préstamo desembolsado a la parte demandada cuyos últimos 4 dígitos son 0103. b. $5,655.64 de principal e intereses devengados hasta el 14 de enero de 2022, más los intereses que se devenguen al tipo legal a partir de la fecha de radicación de la Demanda, hasta el total y completo pago de la obligación, y una suma razonable para las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. La deuda es por concepto de las sumas desembolsadas por el

uso de la demandada de una tarjeta de crédito VISA cuyos últimos 4 dígitos son 3070. Se les emplaza y requiere que presenten al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual pueden acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se representen por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberán presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Deberán notificar a la licenciada: María S. Jiménez Meléndez al PO Box 9023632, San luan, Puerto Rico 009023632; teléfono: (787) 723-2455; abogada de la parte demandante, con copia de la contestación a la demanda. Si ustedes dejan de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Expedido en San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 6 de diciembre de 2022.

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 SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. MARÍA DE JESÚS

MARTÍNEZ JARA POR

SÍ Y COMO ÚNICA

HEREDERA UNIVERSAL DE JOSÉ DOLORES

CRESPO CRESPO; LA

SUCESIÓN DE LAURA

GÓMEZ MARTÍNEZ

COMPUESTA POR

JOSHUA RAFAEL

TORRES GÓMEZ;

JONATHAN ENRIQUE TORRES GÓMEZ Y RAFAEL TORRES

SANTIAGO POR SI Y EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL

USUFRUCTUARIA;

DEPARTAMENTO DE HACIENDA;

DEPARTAMENTO DE JUSTICIA

Demandado

Civil Núm.: CY2022CV00426.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA

POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉ-

RICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S.

A: RAFAEL TORRES SANTIAGO. Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del presente edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Se le apercibe que, de no contestar la demanda dentro del término aquí estipulado, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia sin más citarle ni oírle. Por la presente el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, conforme al caso de Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria vs. Latinoamericana de Exportación, Inc., 164 D.P.R. 689 (2005), le ordena que en el término de treinta (30) días, haga declaración aceptando o repudiando la herencia de la SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ DOLORES CRESPO CRESPO Y LA SUCESIÓN DE LAURA GÓMEZ MARTÍNEZ. Se le apercibe que de no expresar su intención de aceptar o repudiar la herencia dentro del término que se le fijó, la herencia se tendrá por aceptada. Los abogados de la parte demandante son: Lcdo. Guillermo A. Somoza Colombani, P.O. Box 366603, San Juan, PR 00936-6603. Tel. (787) 9190073, Fax (787) 641-5016. Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 6 de marzo de 2023. LISILDA MAR-

TÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA GENERAL. KATHERINE

CARRASQUILLO HERNÁNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CARO-

LINA SALA SUPERIOR DE RÍO

GRANDE

MASSACHUSETTS

MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY

Demandante Vs. ERICK ROBERTO

CARABALLO QUIJANO; TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO

COMO ERIC ROBERTO

CARABALLO, ESTRELLA

RIVERA NOVALES, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO ESTRELLA

RIVERA NOVALEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES

COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados

Civil Núm.: FBCI2014-02834.

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

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

GENERAL:

Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Río Grande en Carolina, en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor en efectivo, cheque gerente, giro postal, cheque certificado en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América al nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Río Grande en Carolina, el 4 DE MAYO DE 2023 A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número 16 del bloque R en la Urbanización Villas del Este radicada en el barrio Canóvanas del término municipal de Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, compuesto de 240.00 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en 40 metros con el solar número 17 del bloque R; por el SUR, en 40.00 metros con el solar número 15 del bloque R; por el ESTE, en 6.00 metros con la calle número 11; y por el OESTE, en 6.00 metros con la Compañía de Fomento Industrial de Puerto Rico. Sobre este solar enclava una casa tipo hilera (row house”) dedicada a vivienda, construida de hormigón sobre la cual existe una servidumbre por signo aparente establecida por la parte vendedora en las paredes que dividen esta estructura de las estructuras enclavadas en los solares R-15 y R-17; pared medianera que continuará sirviendo a esta estructura y pertenece en común proindiviso en toda su actual extensión y espesor al propietario de esta estructura y a los propietarios y de las mencionadas estructuras colindantes. Consta inscrita al folio 21 del tomo 293 de Canóvanas, finca número 13082, Registro de la Propie-

dad de Puerto Rico, Sección Tercera de Carolina. Propiedad localizada en: 972 Ambar St, Villas del Este, Canóvanas, PR 00729. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución no está gravada por las siguientes cargas anteriores o cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo mínimo de subasta la suma de $112,200.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Rio Grande en Carolina, el 11 DE MAYO DE 2023

A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $74,800.00, 2/3 partes del tipo mínimo establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $56,100.00, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Río Grande en Carolina, el 18 DE MAYO DE 2023 A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $91,746.04 de principal, intereses al tipo del 8.500% anual según ajustado desde el día 1 de julio de 2014 hasta el pago de la deuda en su totalidad, más la suma de $11,220.00 por concepto de honorarios de abogado y costas autorizadas por el Tribunal, más las cantidades que se adeudan mensualmente por concepto de seguro hipotecario, cargos por demora, y otros adeudados que se hagan en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA, si ésto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o perso-

nas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy día 28 de febrero de 2023. HÉCTOR L. PEÑA RODRÍGUEZ, ALGUACIL DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA, SALA SUPERIOR.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Parte Demandante Vs. VINCENT BLASE

VÁZQUEZ T/C/C VICENT BLASE VÁZQUEZ

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: CA2023CV00489. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A La Parte Demandada: VINCENT BLASE

VÁZQUEZ T/C/C VICENT BLASE VÁZQUEZ A SUS

ÚLTIMAS DIRECCIONES

CONOCIDAS: N112

BALBOA TOWNHOUSES, VILLA CAROLINA, CAROLINA, PR 00985, COND. LAGUNA

GARDENS I, APT. 11 C, CAROLINA, PR 00979, 12049 PIONEERS WAY APT 2402, ORLANDO, FL 32832-2816 Y AL CORREO ELECTRÓNICO: VINCENT. BLASE@GMAIL.COM. Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre ejecución de hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega se adeuda a la demandante las siguientes cantidades: $120,506.96 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 4.50% anual desde el 1 de julio de 2022 hasta su completo pago, más $37.97

de recargos acumulados, los cuales continuarán en aumento hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más la cantidad estipulada de $13,026.10 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo, incluyendo pero sin limitarse a gastos de mantenimiento, inspecciones y otros adelantos “corporate advances”. La propiedad que garantiza hipotecariamente el préstamo es la siguiente: URBANA: Solar N-112 del desarrollo conocido como Balboa Town Houses en el Barrio Hoyo Mulas de Carolina, Puerto Rico, con cabida de 166.323 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en 7.870 metros con la calle #517 de Villa Carolina; por el SUR, en 7.870 metros, con el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico; por el ESTE, en 21.136 metros, con el solar N-113; y por el OESTE, en 21.130 metros, con el solar N-111. En dicho solar enclava una estructura para dedicarse exclusivamente a vivienda que comparte una pared medianera con las estructuras que enclavan en los solares N-111 y N-113. Inscrita al folio 154 del tomo 1251 de Carolina, Finca 53691. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección II. La hipoteca consta inscrita al folio 101 del tomo 1480 de Carolina, Finca 53691. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección II. Inscripción 3ra. La modificación de hipoteca consta inscrita al tomo Karibe de Carolina, Finca 53691. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección II. Inscripción 4ta. La demandante es la tenedora por endoso en blanco, por valor recibido y de buena fe del referido pagaré objeto de la presente acción. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que, si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la parte demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, cuya dirección es: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo PR 00970-3922, Teléfono: (787) 789-1826 y (787) 708-0566, correo electrónico: oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y

el sello del Tribunal, hoy,9 de marzo de 2023, en Carolina, Puerto Rico. LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA. KEILA GARCÍA, SUB-SECRETARIA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA SALA SUPERIOR DE MANATÍ ORIENTAL BANK

Demandante V. BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO CUSTODIO DE LOS ARCHIVOS DE DORAL FEDERAL SAVINGS BANK Y COMO CUSTODIO DE LOS ARCHIVOS DE WESTERNBANK PUERTO RICO; JOHN DOE & RICHARD ROE

Demandado(a)

Civil: MT2023CV00012. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN O RESTITUCIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE, personas desconocidas que se designan con estos nombres ficticios, que puedan ser tenedor o tenedores, o puedan tener algún interés en el pagaré hipotecario a que se hace referencia más adelante en el presente edicto, que se publicará una sola vez. (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 8 de marzo 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 de 13 de marzo de 2023. En Manatí, Puerto Rico, el 13 de marzo de 2023. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA. SARAY SALGADO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA SALA

SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V. FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE

CORPORATION (FDIC) Y OTROS Demandado(a) Civil: CA2022CV04078. Sala: 409. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: FIRST MORTGAGE CAPITAL, INC COMO SUCESOR EN DERECHO DE THE MORTGAGE LOAN, CO, INC A LAS ULTIMAS DIRECCIONES CONOCIDAS: 915 AVE ROBERTO SANCHEZ VILELLA (AVE CAMPO RICO), SAN JUAN PR 00924 / URB SANTA ROSA 12-34 BOULEVARD DR, BAYAMON PR 00959-6638 / PO BOX 550 BAYAMON PR 00960-0550 / PO BOX 9 BAYAMON PR 00960-0009, FLAMBOYAN GARDENS, DD1 AVE RAMON LUIS RODRIGUEZ, BAYAMON PR 009600009; INOCENCIA BORIA ROMERO A LA SIGUIENTE DIRECCION: COND PARQUE DE PONTEZUELA 500 AVE FIDALGO DIAZ APT 203 CAROLINA PR 00983-1793; FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARE. (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 13 de marzo 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 de 14 de marzo de 2023. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 14 de marzo de 2023.

LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA. MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA

TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC

Demandante V. DANIEL E MELENDEZ ORTEGA

Demandado(a)

Civil: BY2022CV04473. Sala:

502. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: DANIEL E

MELENDEZ ORTEGA.

(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 13 de marzo 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 de 14 de marzo de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 14 de marzo de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. SANDRA I. BÁEZ HERNÁNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA

TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE

CAROLINA BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. LA SUCN DE MILAGROS FRANCO CRUZ COMPUESTA POR FULANO Y FULANA DE TAL COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESOCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION; CENTRO DE RECUADACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

Demandado(a)

Civil: CA2022CV02919. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA, PROPIEDAD RESIDENCIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: FULANO Y FULANA DE TAL COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION MILAGROS

FRANCO CRUZ.

(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 15 de marzo 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 de 15 de marzo de 2023. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 15 de marzo de 2023. MARILYN APONTE RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL.

DENISSE TORRES RUIZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOT ICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE YAUCO COMMERCIAL EQUIPMENT FINANCE, INC.

Demandante Vs. ANGEL PORFIRIO SOTO AYALA

Demandado

Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV10784.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y REPOSESIÓN DE GARANTÍA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: ÁNGEL PORFIRIO

SOTO AYALA. URB. VILLAS DEL CAFETAL II, J-38 CALLE ANDRÉS

M. SANTIAGO, YAUCO, PR 00725. DIRECCIÓN

POSTAL: CARR. 127 KM 5.8 BO. QUEBRADA GUAYANILLA, PR 00656. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días a partir de la publicación de este edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Representa a la parte demandante, la representación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato:

BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO

FAS, C.S.P.

LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS

RÚA NÚM.: 11416 PO BOX 3908, GUAYNABO, PR 00970

TEL.: 787-751-5290,

FAX: 787-751-6155

E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com En Yauco, Puerto Rico, a 14 de marzo de 2023. CARMEN TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. DELIA APONTE VELÁZQUEZ, SUB-SECRETARIA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL SUPERIOR DE AGUADILLA. MIGDALIA TIRADO BRAVO PETICIONARIA Representada en este acto por su apoderada

Carmen Rosario Burgos Millán

EX PARTE

CIVIL NÚM: IS2O22CV00073.

SOBRE: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LI-

BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: LAS PERSONAS IGNORADAS Y DESCONOCIDAS A QUIENES PUDIERA PERJUDICAR LA INSCRIPCIÓN DEL DOMINIO A FAVOR DE LA PARTE PETICIONARIA EN EL REGISTRO DE LA PROPIEDAD DE LA FINCA QUE MÁS ADELANTE SE DESCRIBE; A TODA PERSONA EN GENERAL QUE CON DERECHO PARA ELLO DESEE OPONERSE A ESTE EXPEDIENTE; A LOS HEREDEROS Y/O LEGATARIOS DE EVANS CASTRO BUMBORY Y CLAUDETTE BECERRA LAMBERTY

POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica para que comparezcan, silo creyeren pertinente, ante este Honorable Tribunal, dentro del término de veinte (20) días contados a partir de la última publicación de este edicto, a exponer lo que a sus derechos convenga en el expediente promovido por la Parte Peticionaria para adquirir su dominio sobre la finca que se describe más adelante. Usted deberá presentar su posición a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando: https://unired.poderjudiaLpr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación en la Secretaría del Tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar Sentencia, previo a escuchar la prueba de valor de la Parte Peticionaria, sin más citarle ni oírle, y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Petición, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. RÚSTICA: Solar localizado en el Barrio Bajura del término municipal de Isabela, compuesto de mil doce punto nueve mil novecientos noventa y siete metros cuadrados (1,012.9997 m.c.), equivalentes a cero punto dos mil quinientos setenta y siete cuerdas (0.2577 cds.). Colindando por el Norte, en dos alineaciones que suman sesenta y dos punto doscientos setenta metros (62.270 m.), con Victor Parrilla y Claudette Becerra Lamberti; por el SUR, en una alineación de sesenta y uno punto cien metros (61.100 m.), con Ismael Rodriguez Santiago; por el ESTE, en una alineación de veinticinco punto cero cincuenta metros (25.050 m.) con camino privado; y por el OESTE, en una alineación de siete punto seis cientos cincuenta y tres metros (7.653 m.)

con Evans Castro Bumbory. La abogada de la parte peticionaria es la LCDA. VIVIAN GODINEAUX VILLARONGA, P.O. BOX 1957, CAGUAS, PUERTO RICO 00726-1957, TELÉFONO (787)427-4164, Email: vagodineaw@gmail. com. Se le informa, además, que el Tribunal ha señalado vista en este caso para el 28 de abril de 2023, a las 4:15 p.m., mediante videoconferencia, a la cual usted puede comparecer asistido por abogado y presentar oposición a la petición. Este edicto deberá ser publicado en tres (3) ocasiones dentro del término de veinte (20) días, en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que comparezcan si quieren alegar su derecho. Toda primera mención de persona natural y/o jurídica que se mencione en el mismo se identificará en letra tamaño 10 puntos y negrillas, conforme a los dispuesto en las Reglas de Procedimiento Civil de 2009. Se le apercibe que de no comparecer los interesados y/o partes citadas, o en su defecto los organismos públicos afectados, en el término improrrogable de veinte (20) días a contar de la fecha de la última publicación del edicto, el Tribunal podrá conceder el remedio solicitado, sin más citarle ni oírle. En Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, a 10 de marzo de 2023. SARAHI REYES PEREZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ARLENE GUZMAN PABON, SEC AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE AIBONITO.

HÉCTOR ALVARADO CARTAGENA

EX PARTE PARTE

CIVIL NUM. :AI2019CV00179. SOBRE: EXPEDIENTE DOMINIO. RESOLUCIÓN. POR CUANTO: El Peticionario de epígrafe, Héctor Alvarado Cartagena, mayor de edad, soltero, ingeniero y vecino de San Juan, Puerto Rico, soltero al adquirir la propiedad y soltero al radicar la Petición, objeto de este caso, por conducto del licenciado Jorge Manuel Díaz Rodríguez, presentó Petición bajo juramento y por escrito para que se acredite a su favor el dominio del bien inmueble que a continuación se describe:

RUSTICA”: Predio de terreno radicado en el barrio Pasto del término municipal de Coamo, Puerto Rico, compuesta de CERO PUNTO DOS MIL TRESCIENTOS CUARENTA Y NUEVE CUERDA (0.2349 COA.), equivalente a NOVECIENTOS VEINTITRÉS PUNTO MIL CIENTO SETENTA Y OCHO METROS CUADRADOS (923.1178 M.C.), colin-

dando por el NORTE, en una alineación de dieciocho punto setecientos sesenta y seis metros (18.766 m.) con la Sucesión Alvarado Cartagena; por el SUR, en dos alineaciones de uno punto setecientos veintiséis metros (1.726 m.) y veintidós punto trescientos noventa y ocho metros (22.398 m.), que suman veinticuatro punto ciento veinticuatro metros (24.124 m.), con la carretera estatal quinientos cincuenta y seis; por el ESTE, en cinco alineaciones de doce punto cien metros (12.100 m.), veintidós punto doscientos veinte (22.220 m.), tres punto, cero, cincuenta metros (3.050 m.), diecinueve punto cero, cero metros (19.00 m.) y dos punto novecientos cincuenta y nueve metros (2.959 metros), que suman cincuenta y nueve punto trescientos veintinueve metros (59.329 m.), con la Sucesión Alvarado Cartagena, y por el OESTE, en dos alineaciones de dieciocho punto cuatrocientos dos metros (18.402 m.) y treinta y cuatro punto trescientos setenta y seis metros, con la Sucesión de Félix Mateo Rivera. POR

CUANTO: Surge de la Certificación reciente del Registro de la Propiedad, Sección de Barranqui tas, el hecho de que la propiedad objeto de la solicitud del Expediente de Dominio no aparece inscrita.

POR CUANTO: El Peticionario adquirió la finca descrita de manos de María Teresa Santiago Martínez, mayor de edad, casada y vecina de Coamo, Puerto Rico, Juan Santiago Martínez, mayor de edad, casado y vecino de Coamo, Puerto Rico, Etanislá Santiago Martínez, mayor de edad, casada y vecina de Coamo, Puerto Rico, Miguel Santiago Martínez, mayor de edad, casado y vecino de Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, Ramonita Santiago Martínez, mayor de edad, casada y vecina de Coamo, Puerto Rico y Petronila Santiago Martínez, mayor de edad, soltera y vecina de Coamo, Puerto Rico, esto aproximadamente para el tres de septiembre de 1988, por medio de documento privado del cual se desconoce su paradero POR

CUANTO: La cabida exacta de la propiedad del Peticionario es la anotada en el primer POR CUANTO de esta Resolución.

POR CUANTO: Consta en los autos copia de las notificaciones cursadas a todas las siguientes posibles partes interesadas: a) a los colindantes; b) al Secretario del Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas; c) al Fiscal de Distrito, al d) al Alcalde de Coamo; e) dueños anteriores. Las notificaciones aludidas fueron realizadas mediante correo certificado con acuse de recibo. POR CUAN-

TO: Se autorizó la publicación de edictos en los cuales se describió la propiedad objeto de este procedimiento, citándose

a cualquier persona ignorada a quien pudiera perjudicar la inscripción solicitada y a los que tuvieran en el inmueble derecho real. POR CUANTO: Tales edictos fueron publicados los días 8, 15 y 22 de septiembre de 2022, en el periódico “The San Juan Daily Star”, periódico de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico. Así consta de la copia del edicto publicado y de la declaración jurada del periódico sometida en evidencia. POR

CUANTO: La contributivos, según Impuestos Municipales 000. finca se identifica, para propósitos aparece del Centro de Recaudación de (C.R.I.M.), con el número 321-083-003-20000. POR CUANTO: La propiedad no está sujeta a cargas y gravámenes. POR CUANTO: El Peticionario se encuentra en la posesión material de la finca a título de dueño, quieta, pública y pacíficamente, con buena fe y justo título, sin interrupción de clase alguna desde que la adquirió, sumando su posesión más del término mínimo requerido por ley, cumpliendo esto con los artículos del Código Civil de Puerto Rico. POR

CUANTO: La finca objeto de este procedimiento, con sus alegadas dimensiones actuales se constituyó por lo menos para el año 1924. POR CUANTO: El Peticionario le ha adjudicado un valor real a la descrita cabida de $90,000.00. POR CUAN-

TO: Transcurrido el término de veinte (20) días establecido en Ley, después de la publicación del último edicto, se celebró la vista correspondiente el día 13 de febrero de 2023, sometiendo prueba testifical y documental. POR CUANTO: El predio que es motivo de esta Petición no es una segregación de una finca de mayor cabida. POR

CUANTO: El Ministerio Público intervino directamente en la Petición, manifestando no tener objeción alguna a lo solicitado. POR TANTO: Habiéndose probado todos los hechos alegados, y habiéndose cumplido con todas las formalidades de Ley, este Tribunal dicta RESOLUCION, declarando justificado a favor de la parte Peticionaria el dominio de la finca anteriormente descrita con todas sus acciones. En su consecuencia, se Ordena al Honorable Registrador de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Barranquitas, que, previo el pago de los aranceles correspondientes y luego que esta Resolución sea final y firme, proceda a inscribir a favor de Héctor Alvarado Cartagena, el dominio de la finca en los libros del Registro de la Propiedad a su cargo. REGISTRESE Y NOTIFIQUESE. DADA en Aibonito, Puerto Rico, hoy 27 de febrero de 2023. f/ CRISTINA CORDOVA PONCE, JUEZA SUPERIOR.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC

Demandante vs. SUCESION SATURNINO NIEVES ARVELO T/C/C SATURNINO NIEVES COMPUESTA POR ABELARDO NIEVES RUBIO, JAVIER NIEVES RUBIO, VIRGINIA NIEVES RUBIO; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; SUCESION VIRGINIA RUBIO DIAZ T/C/C VIRGINIA CONSUELO RUBIO, VIRGINIA CONSUELO RUBIO DIAZ, VIRGINIA NIEVES, VIRGINIA C. RUBIO DIAZ Y COMO VIRGINIA CONSUELO COMPUESTA POR ABELARDO NIEVES RUBIO, JAVIER NIEVES RUBIO, VIRGINIA NIEVES RUBIO; JOHN ROE Y JANE ROE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Demandados CIVIL NUM. SJ2021CV04317.

SOBRE: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: La Parte Demandada, al (a la) Secretario(a) de Hacienda de Puerto Rico y al Público General: Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de SAN JUAN, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América y/o Giro Postal y Cheque Certificado, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, el 18 de abril de 2023, a las 9:30 de la mañana, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA:

se autorizó a la parte demandante para que ejecute la garantía hipotecaria del préstamo. Habiéndose autorizado, no hay impedimento alguno para que Oriental presente este caso y solicite la ejecución de la hipoteca y la venta en pública subasta de la propiedad. Oriental no está solicitando el cobro de dinero a la parte demandada, sino la ejecución de la hipoteca para que se venda la propiedad en pública subasta. La PRIMERA SUBASTA será celebrada el día 17 DE MAYO DE 2023

A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina del Alguacil, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la cantidad de $40,700.00, sin admitirse oferta inferior. De no haber remate ni adjudicación, celebraré SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 24 DE MAYO DE 2023 A LAS

11:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la que servirá como tipo mínimo, dos terceras (2/3) partes del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $27,133.33. Si no hubiese remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, celebraré TERCERA SUBASTA el día 31 DE MAYO DE 2023 A LAS 11:30

DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar en la que regirá como tipo mínimo, la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $20,350.00. El Alguacil que suscribe hizo constar que toda licitación deberá hacerse para pagar su importe en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, de acuerdo con la Ley y de acuerdo con lo anunciado en este Aviso de Subasta. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables. Se entiende que todo licitador que comparezca a la subasta señalada en este caso acepta como bastante la titulación que da base a la misma. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si la hubiere al crédito que da base a esta ejecución continuará subsistente, entendiéndose, además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción cualquier parte del remanente del precio de licitación. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho

a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Vendida o adjudicada la finca o derecho hipotecado y consignado el precio correspondiente, en esa misma fecha o fecha posterior, el alguacil que celebró la subasta procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura pública de traspaso en representación del dueño o titular de los bienes hipotecados, ante el notario que elija el adjudicatario o comprador, quien deberá abonar el importe de tal escritura. El alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la confirmación de la venta o adjudicación. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LOS LICITADORES Y DEL PUBLICO EN GENERAL y para su publicación de acuerdo con la Ley, expido el presente Edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal. En Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, hoy 24 de febrero de 2023. ALG. IVELISSE FIGUEROA VARGAS, ALGUACIL PLACA #924, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE MAYAGÜEZ.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN GERMÁN

JUAN RAMON VAZQUEZ

QUIÑONES y CARMEN

JULIA OCASIO ALMODOVAR

Demandante V.

ORIENTAL BANK, COMO

SUCESOR EN DERECHO DE RG PREMIER BANK OF PUERTO RICO;

JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y

JUANA DEL PUEBLO

Y CUALESQUIERA

PERSONA

DESCONOCIDA CON POSIBLE INTERÉS EN LA OBLIGACIÓN CUYA

CANCELACIÓN POR DECRETO JUDICIAL SE SOLICITA

Demandados

Civil Núm.: SG2023CV00114. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE

PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: JUAN Y JUANA DEL PUEBLO.

Por la presente se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal una Demanda en su contra en el pleito de epígrafe. En este caso la parte demandante ha radicado una Demanda para que se decrete judicialmente el saldo de (1) pagaré hipotecario: pagaré a favor RG Premier Bank of Puerto Rico, por la suma principal de $15,000.00 dólares con intereses al 10.00% anual, vencedero el día 30 de octubre de 2011, constituida mediante la escritura número 314, otorgada en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, el día 31 de octubre de 2001, ante el notario Angel Ivan Del Toro Matos, e inscrita al folio 196, del tomo 282, de Sabana Grande, finca número 10,025, inscripción 3ra.; sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número veinte (20) del Bloque “B” en el plano de inscripción de la Urbanización SANTA ELENA, radicada en el Barrio Santana del Municipio de Sabana Grande, situado en la CALLE #2. Tiene una CABIDA de CUATROCIENTOS TREINTA Y CINCO PUNTO OCHENTA Y CUATRO METROS CUADRADOS (435.84 m/c). En lindes por el NORTE, con el solar número veintiuno (21) del Bloque “B”; por el SUR, con el solar número diecinueve (19) del Bloque “B”; por el ESTE, con área para futuro desarrollo; y por el OESTE, con la calle número dos (2). Sobre dicho solar enclava una casa de vivienda para una familia terrera, de hormigón y bloques de concreto consistente de sala-comedor, cocina, tres dormitorios, baño y marquesina. Finca número 10,025, inscrita al folio 196 del tomo 282 de Sabana Grande, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de San German. La parte demandante alega que dicho pagaré ha sido saldado según más detalladamente consta en la Demanda radicada que puede examinarse en la Secretaría de este Tribunal. Por tratarse de una obligación hipotecaria y pudiendo usted tener interés en este caso o quedar afectado por el remedio solicitado, se le emplaza por este edicto que se publicará una vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de Puerto Rico. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://

unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac, salvo que se represente por derecho propio. Debe notificar con copia de ella a la abogada de la parte demandante a la Lcda. Alyssa Rivera Rivera, a la dirección P.O. Box 19815, San Juan, P.R. 00910. Teléfono 787-400-7269, dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Se le apercibe que, de no hacerlo así dentro del término indicado, el Tribunal podrá anotar su rebeldía y dictar sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda sin más citarle, ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA Y SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL, en San Germán, Puerto Rico, hoy a 27 de febrero de 2023. NORMA G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. SANTA RODRÍGUEZ BONILLA, SECRETARIA DEL TRIBUNAL CONFIDENCIAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE MAYAGÜEZ ORIENTAL BANK

Demandante V. FRANCES VICTORIA TORRES Y ANTHONY CARDONA CARRIOS COMO MIEMBROS CONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE LOURDES BARRIOS LUGO; JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE LOURDES BARRIOS LUGO

Demandados Civil Núm.: MZ2022CV01902. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO, EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA E INTERPELACIÓN. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE LOURDES BARRIOS LUGO. 646 ARIES URB. VILLAS DEL OESTE, MAYAGÜEZ, PR 00680; VILLA DEL OESTE, 646 CALLE ARIES, MAYAGÜEZ, PR 006821506;

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando

la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Representa a la parte demandante el Lcdo. Javier Montalvo Cintrón, Delgado & Fernández, LLC, PO Box 11750, Fernández Juncos Station, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750. Tel. [787] 2741414. DADA en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, a 09 de marzo de 2023. LIC. NORMA G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ALEXANDRA MARIE LÓPEZ, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SABANA GRANDE

CARMELO VEGA

ALVAREZ Y MARGARITA

CASIANO VEGA

Demandantes Vs. BANCO POPULAR, COMO SUCESOR EN INTERES DE DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION; JOHN DOE & RICHARD ROE Demandado Civil Núm.: SB2022CV00050. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADOS DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: JOHN DOE & RICHARD ROE.

Por la presente se emplaza y se les notifica que se ha presentado en la Secretaría de este Tribunal la demanda del caso de epígrafe solicitando la cancelación del Pagaré suscrito a favor de Doral Mortgage Corporation, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $20,000.00, con vencimiento el 01 de junio de 2011, y habiéndose constituido por la escritura número 121 otorgada en Mayagüez, el 31 de mayo de 1996, ante el Notario Público Marisabel Paret Dros, inscrita al folio móvil del tomo 261 de Sabana Grande, finca número 13226, inscripción 3ra. Representa a la parte demandante la abogada cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato:

ENEL M. PEREZ MONTE

RUA 9019

Reina Isabel 175, La Villa de Torrimar Guaynabo, PR 00969 Tel.: (787) 646-9168

Lcdaenelperez@gmail.com

Se le apercibe que si no comparecieran ustedes a contestar dicha demanda dentro del término de 30 días a partir de la publicación de este edicto se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal, advirtiéndosele que de no hacerlo se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. Dado en Mayagüez, a 10 de marzo de 2023. LIC. NORMA G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA REGIONAL II. LYDIA SANTIAGO MORALES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

WILMINGTON SAVINGS

FUND SOCIET, FSB, D/B/A

CHRISTIANA TRUST, AS INDENTURE TRUSTEE, FOR THE CSMC 2015-PR

1 TRUST, MORTGAGEBACKED NOTES, SERIES

2015-PR 1

Plaintiff Vs JULIO ANGEL RIVERA

CAMACHO A/K/A JULIO

A. RIVERA CAMACHO AND ROSA ANGELICA

AVILA BENITEZ A/K/A

ROSA AVILA BENITEZ

Defendants

Civil No.: 15-cv-3123. (PAD).

Matter: COLLECTION OF MONIES. NOTICE OF SALE.

To: JULIO ANGEL RIVERA

CAMACHO A/K/A JULIO

A. RIVERA CAMACHO AND ROSA ANGELICA

AVILA BENITEZ A/K/A

ROSA AVILA BENITEZ; AND TO THE GENERAL

PUBLIC:

WHEREAS: On February 22, 2019, Default Judgment in Collection of Monies was entered and granted in favor of Plaintiff to recover from defendants the following sums: The principal sum of $122,303.96, itemized as follows: the principal sum of $31,499.58, as a non-interest-bearing principal, and the interest-bearing principal sum of $90,804.38, plus interest at a rate of 6.00% per annum since March 2, 2016. The interest continues to accrue until the

debt is paid in full. In addition, Defendants were ordered to pay plaintiff accrued late charges and any other advance, charge, fee or disbursements made by plaintiff on behalf of defendants, in accordance with the mortgage deed, plus costs, charges and disbursements, expenses, and attorney’s fees equivalent to 10% of the original amount of the Mortgage Note. That on January 31, 2023 the Court entered order granting execution of the attachment affecting the property, with writ of execution of attachment issued on February 1, 2023. The order of attachment shall cover the amount of the Default Judgment above cited and awarded to Plaintiff. The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by interested parties at the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150 Federal Office Building, 150 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. WHE-

REAS: Pursuant to the terms of the aforementioned Judgment, Order of Execution, and the Writ of Execution thereof, the undersigned Special Master was ordered to sell at public auction for U.S. currency in cash or certified check without appraisement or right of redemption to the highest bidder and at the office of the Clerk of the Court, Room 150– Federal Office Building, 150 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property described in Spanish:

URBANA: Solar número siete (7) del Bloque G de la Urbanización Vistas de Naguabo, radicado en el Barrio Rio del Municipio de Naguabo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de cuatrocientos sesenta y nueve punto ochenta y dos (469.82) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en una distancia de treinta y dos punto once (32.11) metros lineales, con el Lote número seis (6) del Bloque G; por el SUR, en una distancia de treinta y tres punto cero cinco (33.05) metros lineales, con el Lote número ocho (8) del Bloque G; por el ESTE, en una distancia de catorce punto cuarenta y cinco (14.45) metros lineales, con la Sucesión Juan R. Garzot; y por el OESTE, en una distancia de catorce punto cuarenta y dos (14.42) metros lineales, con la Calle veintisiete (27). Enclava una casa para fines residenciales. The encumbered property # 12,712 is recorded at mobile volume 226 of Naguabo. Property Registry of Puerto Rico, Humacao Section. The garnishment lien (embargo) is duly recorded at volume KARIBE of Naguabo, property # 12,712, Annotation B and last. Property address: G7 27 ST VISTAS DE NAGUABO, NAGUABO Puerto Rico 00718. WHEREAS:

This property is subject to the following liens described in Spanish: Senior Liens: NONE. Junior Liens: NONE. The Order of Attachment was duly recorded at the Property Registry of Puerto Rico, Humacao Section, and described in the Spanish Language as follows: Embargo seguido por Wilmington Savings Fund Society Christiana Trust como Administrador de CSMC 2015-PR1 Trust Mortgage Backed Notes, Series 2015-PR1, contra Julio Ángel Rivera Camacho, Et Al., por la suma de $122,303.96, en la Corte de Distrito de los Estados Unidos de América para el Distrito de Puerto Rico, según Mandamiento del 9 de febrero de 2021, anotado el día 24 de agosto de 2021, e inscrito al tomo Karibe de Naguabo, finca número 12,712, Anotación B y última. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed/sold upon, including but not limited to any property tax, liens, (express, tacit, implied or legal) shall continue in effect it being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation. Because this is a case of money collection, it does not have a minimum rate or bid. The sale will take place to satisfy the amounts owed per the Default Judgment entered on February 22, 2019. The AUCTION will take place on the 1ST DAY OF MAY OF 2023, AT 9:30

A.M., at the office of the Clerk of the Court, Room 150– Federal Office Building, 150 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, whose sale at public auction was ordered by the Order of Execution of Judgment dated January 31, 2023. The undersigned Special Master shall not accept in payment of the property to be sold anything but United States currency (cash), or certified checks, except in case the property is sold and adjudicated to the plaintiff, in which case the amount of the bid made by said plaintiff shall be credited and deducted from its credit; said plaintiff being bound to pay in cash or certified check only any excess of its bid over the secured indebtedness that remains unsatisfied. WHEREAS: Said sale to be made by the undersigned Special Master subject to confirmation by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of conveyance and possession to the property will be executed and delivered only after such confirmation. Upon confirmation of the sale, an

order shall be issued cancelling all junior liens. For further particulars, reference is made to the judgment entered by the Court in this case, which can be examined in the Office of Clerk of the United States District Court, District of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, 13th day of March of 2023. PEDRO

A. VÉLEZ BAERGA, SPECIAL MASTER, 787-672-8269.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA

TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYNABO BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO; POPULAR MORTGAGE

Demandante V. JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE, COMO POSIBLES TENEDORES DEL PAGARÉ

Demandado(a)

Civil: GB2022CV00644. Sala: 202. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ HIPOTECARIO EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE; RICHARD ROE, POSIBLES TENEDORES DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO DESCRITO MÁS ADELANTE.

(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 10 de marzo 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 de 15 de marzo de 2023. En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, el 15 de marzo de 2023. Lcda. Laura I. Santa Sánchez, Secretaria Regional Ii. Diamar González Barreto, Secretaria Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

NAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC.

COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC.

Demandante Vs. RONALDO GOMEZ ROSA

Demandados

Civil: SL2022CV00180. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: RONALDO GOMEZ ROSA6 RES HATO GRANDE APT 18, SAN LORENZO, PR 00754-4103.

(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 10 de marzo 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 de 14 de marzo de 2023. En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 14 de marzo de 2023.

LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL.

MARTA E. DONATE RESTO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA

TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO

AGENTE GESTOR DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC.

Parte Demandante Vs. SOLANGEL IGLESIAS CONCEPCION

Parte Demandada

Caso: SJ2022CV01886. Sala

SAN JUAN: SALON 906 CIVIL.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINEROORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA ENMENDADA

POR EDICTO POR SUMAC.

A: SOLANGEL IGLESIAS CONCEPCIÓN. COND.

SANTA MARÍA 139 CARR

177 APT 401 SAN JUAN PR, 00926-5344. EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 14 de marzo 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 de 15 de marzo de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 15 de marzo de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MYRNA DELIZ VILLEGAS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

Demandante V.

GUILLERMO RAMOS VELEZ

Demandado

Civil Núm.: SJ2019CV12101.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, hago saber a la parte demandada GUILLERMO RAMOS VELEZ y al PÚBLICO

EN GENERAL; que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el 31 de agosto de 2022, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta por el precio mínimo de $184,850.00 y

al mejor postor, pagadero en efectivo, cheque de gerente o giro postal, a nombre del alguacil del tribunal, la propiedad que se describe a continuación:

801 MONTEVIDEO URB. LAS AMÉRICAS, SAN JUAN, PR 00921, y que se describe de la siguiente manera: URBANA: Solar número doscientos sesenta y cinco de la manzana U de la Urbanización Las Américas en el Barrio Monacillos del término municipal de San Juan, compuesto de trescientos noventa metros cuadrados, colindando por el NORTE y por el SUR, en veintiséis metros por cada lado respectivamente con los solares números doscientos sesenta y seis y doscientos sesenta y cuatro de dicha manzana; por el ESTE y por el OESTE, en quince metros por cada lado respectivamente con el solar número doscientos sesenta de dicho bloque y la calle número ocho. Sobre este solar enclava una casa de concreto reforzado de una planta para una familia. Finca 17849 inscrita al folio 198 del tomo 975 de Monacillos, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección III. La finca antes descrita se encuentra afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: (i) Hipoteca en garantía de pagaré a favor de R.F. Mortgage and Investment Corporation o a su orden por la suma principal de $184,850.00 con intereses a razón del 3.5% anual y vencimiento el 1 de julio de 2042. Constituida por la Escritura #205 otorgada en San Juan el 14 de junio de 2012 ante el notario Enrique N. Vela Colón. Inscrita el 7 de noviembre de 2012 al folio 198 del Tomo 975 de Monacillos, finca número 17849, inscripción 5ª (1654/685). Posteriormente Cancelada Parcialmente en la suma de $19,682.13 para una nueva suma principal de $165,167.87 con intereses a razón del 3.50% anual y vencimiento el 1 de abril del 2049 según consta de la Escritura #1076 otorgada en San Juan el 20 de marzo del 2019 ante el notario Julio E. Pijem Berríos. Inscrita el 9 de marzo del 2021 al Tomo Digital Karibe de la finca 17849 de Monacillos, inscripción 6ª, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección III. La hipoteca objeto de esta ejecución es la que ha quedado descrita en el inciso (i). Será celebrada la subasta para con el importe de la misma satisfacer la sentencia dicta el 24 de noviembre de 2021, mediante la cual se condenó a la parte demandada pagar a la parte demandante la suma de $164,647.22 de principal, $2,393.46 de interés que continuarán acumulándose a $15.8794 diariamente desde el 1 de noviembre de 2019 hasta el saldo total, más cargos por demora mensuales,

más las cantidades debidas de contribuciones e impuestos, primas de seguro contra riesgo y seguro de hipoteca hasta su completo pago, más la cantidad de $18,485.00 estipulados para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados en caso de reclamación judicial, cantidades todas garantizadas por la hipoteca.

La PRIMERA SUBASTA será celebrada el día 24 DE ABRIL DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina del Alguacil, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, Puerto Rico. Servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la cantidad de $184,850.00, sin admitirse oferta inferior. De no haber remate ni adjudicación, celebraré SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 1 DE MAYO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la que servirá como tipo mínimo, dos terceras (2/3) partes del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $123,233.33. Si no hubiese remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, celebraré TERCERA SUBASTA el día 8 DE MAYO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar en la que regirá como tipo mínimo, la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $92,425.00. El Alguacil que suscribe hizo constar que toda licitación deberá hacerse para pagar su importe en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, de acuerdo con la Ley y de acuerdo con lo anunciado en este Aviso de Subasta. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables. Se entiende que todo licitador que comparezca a la subasta señalada en este caso acepta como bastante la titulación que da base a la misma. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si la hubiere al crédito que da base a esta ejecución continuará subsistente, entendiéndose, además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción cualquier parte del remanente del precio de licitación. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad

al crédito ejecutado, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Vendida o adjudicada la finca o derecho hipotecado y consignado el precio correspondiente, en esa misma fecha o fecha posterior, el alguacil que celebró la subasta procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura pública de traspaso en representación del dueño o titular de los bienes hipotecados, ante el notario que elija el adjudicatario o comprador, quien deberá abonar el importe de tal escritura. El alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la confirmación de la venta o adjudicación. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LOS LICITADORES Y DEL PUBLICO EN GENERAL y para su publicación de acuerdo con la Ley, expido el presente Edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy 14 de marzo de 2023.

EDWIN E. LÓPEZ MULERO, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE SAN JUAN.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

Demandante V. WILLIAM SÁNCHEZ RUIZ, MERILYN MELÉNDEZ SERRANO Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR

AMBOS, SECRETARIO DEL DEPARTAMENTO DE DESARROLLO URBANO Y VIVIENDA DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, JOHN DOE

Demandadas

Civil Núm.: TA2023CV00141.

Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S.

A: SECRETARIO DEL DEPARTAMENTO DE

DESARROLLO URBANO Y VIVIENDA DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA Y JOHN DOE COMO TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ a favor de Secretario Del Departamento Urbano y Vivienda de los Estado Unidos De América por la suma $5,697.16, sin intereses y con vencimiento el día 1 de octubre de 2019, constituida mediante la escritura 340 otorgada en San Juan el 29 de septiembre de 2003 ante el notario José V. Garbea Varona, inscrita en la finca 19,906 de Toa Alta, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Tercera Sección de Bayamón. Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda incoada en su contra dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del presente edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio. Si usted deja de presentar y notificar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Los abogados de la parte demandante son.

ABOGADOS DE LA PARTE

DEMANDANTE:

Lcdo. Reggie Díaz Hernández RUA Núm.: 16,393

BERMUDEZ & DIAZ LLP

Suite 209 500 Calle De La Tanca San Juan, Puerto Rico 00901 Tel.: (787) 523-2670

Fax: (787) 523-2664 rdíaz@bdprlaw.com

Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y el sello de este Tribunal, hoy 14 de marzo de 2023. Lcda.

Laura I. Santa Sánchez, Secretaria Regional. Maritza Bonilla Hernández, Secretaria Auxiliar Del Tribunal.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA DE GUAYAMA

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. HECTOR NAVARRO MORALES, EVA SOFIA

LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES, DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION, JOHN DOE

Demandadas Civil Núm.: GM2023CV00162. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S. S. A: DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION Y JOHN DOE COMO TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ a favor de Doral Mortgage Corporation, o a su orden, por la suma de $16,600.00, con interés al 8.25%, y vencedero 1 de octubre de 2007, según consta escritura #443, otorgada en San Juan el día 9 de septiembre de 1995, ante la notario Eric Hernández Batalla, inscrita al folio 84 del tomo 60 de Arroyo, finca 1,720, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guayama. Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda incoada en su contra dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del presente edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio. Si usted deja de presentar y notificar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Los abogados de la parte demandante son.

ABOGADOS DE LA PARTE DEMANDANTE:

Lcdo. Reggie Díaz Hernández

RUA Núm.: 16,393

BERMUDEZ & DIAZ LLP

Suite 209

500 Calle De La Tanca

San Juan, Puerto Rico 00901

Tel.: (787) 523-2670

Fax: (787) 523-2664

rdíaz@bdprlaw.com

Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y el sello de este Tribunal, hoy 10 de marzo de 2023. Marisol Rosado Rodríguez, Secretaria Regional. Luz M. Guzmán Santiago, Secretaria Auxiliar Del Tribunal.

United States blasts its way into WBC semifinals

The United States, which won the WBC the last time it was played in 2017, was to face Cuba on Sunday night in a matchup steeped in symbolism, history and emotions. Whoever emerged victorious gets to face the winner of today’s other semifinal, between Japan and Mexico. The WBC final will be Tuesday.

In a tournament that has provided several exciting moments and close games, there has also been some pain. While celebrating a 5-2 win over the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, Puerto Rico closer and New York Mets star Edwin Díaz tore the patellar tendon in his right knee. He underwent surgery the next day and is likely out for the 2023 season.

the stadium,” Turner said. “It was probably the loudest game I’ve ever played in.”

When the United States jumped ahead 3-0 in the top of the first inning, Venezuela quickly responded in the bottom half when first baseman Luis Arráez clobbered a tworun blast. By the fifth inning, the United States stretched its lead to 5-2 thanks to a solo home run by left fielder Kyle Tucker off his Astros teammate Luis García. But Venezuela charged back yet again.

By JAMES WAGNER

The United States was in trouble.

The defending World Baseball Classic champion trailed Venezuela by two runs in the eighth inning of a quarterfinal Saturday night at loanDepot Park in Miami. Facing a tough team that had overcome an injury to a star player to take the lead, the right to advance to the semifinals was on the line.

Then shortstop Trea Turner, 29, stepped to the plate. With the bases loaded, Turner

sent a ball into the left field seats, stealing the momentum of the game in what ended up being a 9-7 win for the U.S. After he connected on the grand slam, Turner let go of his bat, pumped his arms as he hopped out of the batter’s box and turned toward his teammates to scream.

“Individually, it’s probably the biggest hit I’ve ever had,” said Turner, who won the 2019 World Series with the Washington Nationals. Added United States manager Mark DeRosa, “It’s one of the greatest games I’ve ever been a part of.”

On Saturday, another prominent player was hurt: Venezuela second baseman and Houston Astros star José Altuve exited the game in the fifth inning when United States relief pitcher Daniel Bard, whose command had been wild, hit him with a 96 mph fastball. Altuve fell to the ground and left the game holding his right hand. The Astros said Altuve was being examined.

“I’m very worried,” said Venezuela manager Omar López, who is also an Astros coach. “I’m sad. I’m frustrated.”

From the start Saturday, the United States appeared to be in control, taking an early lead with its star-studded lineup. But Venezuela wrestled the game back, and the sides traded blows as the innings progressed, with the crowd hanging on every pitch.

“You don’t get to do this a lot, especially this early in the year, having this energy in

The United States was undermined by Bard’s wayward command and Venezuela took a 6-5 lead in the bottom half of the frame. While catcher Salvador Pérez tied the score with a double and Ronald Acuña Jr. provided the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly, Venezuela lost Altuve. And two innings later, Arráez smashed his second home run to give his team a 7-5 lead, sending a crowd that felt largely Venezuelan into a frenzy.

But that all set the stage for the United States’ dramatic comeback in the eighth inning. After second baseman Tim Anderson walked and pinch-hitter Pete Alonso singled, catcher J.T. Realmuto was hit by a pitch to load the bases for his new Philadelphia Phillies teammate Turner, who was hitting last in this loaded lineup. And when Turner saw a changeup over the middle of the plate from Silvino Bracho, he was able to save the day.

“When Trea clipped that ball, honestly, I saw about 35 guys, including the coaches, kind of black out and lose their minds for a minute,” DeRosa said. “It was just an awesome moment.”

Cuba baseball team’s visit to Miami spurs complicated emotions

By JAMES WAGNER

South Florida is the most Cuban region in the United States.

More than 1.2 million people of Cuban heritage are estimated to reside in the greater Miami area. That, though, comes with a long, complex history: The city was largely remade over the past six decades by Cuban exiles who fled the communist government on the nearby Caribbean island. The region is an epicenter of anti-Castro activism and is where, in the past, entertainers sympathetic to the Cuban government were protested or banned.

That complicated history is what would

add intrigue and importance to the proceedings Sunday when the Cuban national baseball team was to make what is believed to be its first trip to Miami since the communist revolution in 1959. The once-mighty team, which has faded as its top players have left for the United States, worked its way through the group stage of the World Baseball Classic in Taiwan and shocked the international baseball world by winning a quarterfinal game in Japan. That sent the team to the semifinals of the quadrennial tournament, where it was to face the United States, a 9-7 winner over Venezuela in the quarterfinals Saturday night.

The stadium hosting the championship

rounds of the tournament is loanDepot Park, which is in the Miami neighborhood known as Little Havana.

“In Miami, the symbolism is very powerful,” said Andy Gómez, a retired professor of Cuban studies at the University of Miami. “For both sides.”

The presence of the Cuban team, which is seen not only as a symbol of the country’s most popular sport but as a propaganda tool of the government, is expected to stir conflicting emotions in the South Florida community.

“I’m there for sports, not for politics,” Josuet Martínez, 46, who is Cuban and a baseball fan, said in Spanish. “We’re going to enjoy sports.”

Martínez said this on Friday while standing with his brother inside Westland Mall in Hialeah, a city with a large Cuban population in Miami-Dade County. Martínez was at a Lids store in the mall having the Cuban team’s logo sewn onto a blue hat because the store did not have any of the official team hats in stock.

He said he left his business and his country seven months ago to come to the United States for better economic opportunities. He hoped the Cuban team would win Sunday, but he also hoped that the opponent would be Venezuela because he did not want to choose between his native country and his current home.

Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner played hero for Team USA, hitting a clutch grand slam in the World Baseball Classic quarterfinals vs. Venezuela.

Fans of team Venezuela celebrate their team’s victory at the World Baseball Classic against the Dominican Republic at loanDepot park in Miami, Fla., on March 11, 2023. Cuba baseball team’s visit to Miami spurs complicated emotions; the group stage games at loanDepot Park in Miami featured raucous crowds cheering for Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

“In Miami, there are a lot of Cubans, so I imagine there will be a lot of fans,” Martínez said.

Others are not so sure. Armando López, 68, lives near the stadium, the home of the Miami Marlins, but said he did not plan to attend the game. When he lived in Cuba, he was a fan of the national team. But after he left for the United States in 1980, he said, he started “evolving and realizing the manipulation of the sports teams.”

“It’s not that as a Cuban you don’t love a team from Cuba,” he said in Spanish. “You sympathize with a team from your country. But the problem is the indoctrination.” He added that the players, many of whom have chosen not to leave the Cuban team in favor of the MLB, where they could earn millions, should “come here to play and come see how different it is here versus there, that people here live in liberty.”

The contrasting viewpoints were emblematic of a changing atmosphere among Cubans in South Florida. Older generations fled for ideological reasons, while younger waves have left for economic ones. Large protests of Cuban artists were more common in past decades. Children and grandchildren of Cuban immigrants have grown interested in visiting the island.

And there has been some normalization of relations between the countries, at times through baseball. On March 22, 2016, the Tampa Bay Rays played an exhibition game against the Cuban national team in Havana,

with President Barack Obama seated next to President Raúl Castro of Cuba. In 2018, MLB and the Cuban Baseball Federation struck a deal to ease the path for players to compete in the United States without defecting — but the Trump administration later nixed it, saying it constituted a violation of trade laws because the Cuban federation was part of the government in Havana.

“You can’t put the entire Cuban American community into one group,” said Gómez, who came to the United States as a child and is now 68. For example, he said, some Cubans of his generation suffer from what he called Cuba fatigue, in that they have been waiting for the big moment of change but it hasn’t happened, even after the death of Fidel Castro in 2016. And for people of Gómez’s daughter’s generation, he said, the Cuba topic is somewhat irrelevant because it is not part of their daily lives.

“I think there’ll be mixed emotions across the board,” Gómez said, adding that he planned to cheer for the Cuban flag during Sunday’s game, but that he would also cheer for the United States team if it was in the game. “Those wounds will open up again and bring back bad memories for many people. I think it will bring out a certain level of madness in some other groups that are planning to protest.”

Miguel Saavedra, president of the Cuban exile group Vigilia Mambisa, said his organization was planning protests outside the stadium and in other areas around Little Havana over the weekend. He said Friday that he was unsure how many people would participate.

“For them, it’s a symbol,” Saavedra, 65, said in Spanish, referring to the Cuban government and the baseball team. “For us, it’s something that we have to condemn. Everything that comes from the regime in Cuba is condemnable.”

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has supported the national team, saying goodbye to players in person before they left for training before the WBC. On social media, he has donned the team’s hat and shared messages about them.

Some politicians in the United States have spoken out against the game.

“It is of the utmost disrespect to the entire Cuban exile community that this team is here,” Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo, a Republican, said in a statement. “I am outraged, and I stand with the families of the political prisoners who are currently being tortured in the regime’s prisons without being able to see their families. I stand with the opposition, and all those who peacefully express their opinion about the baseball game.”

Cuba manager Armando Johnson has said the team had talked to players about

what to expect in Miami. He said in Spanish on Saturday that they hoped to play their best “so the crowd that is against us will also enjoy a good game.”

“You have fans supporting you and fans against you,” said designated hitter Alfredo Despaigne, 36. “That’s natural in baseball. It doesn’t affect us. I played for nine years in Japan and we had fans supporting our team and others supporting other teams. So everyone is free to feel and to think whatever they want.”

Tightened security at the stadium is expected for Sunday’s game. Fans can express themselves — such as with instruments or boos or flags — but there have been limits all tournament on signage. According to loanDepot Park rules, guests cannot enter the stadium with banners containing “foul language or disrespectful statements” or “statements regarding political affiliation, social and economic matters or other statements that undermine civil liberties.”

The Cuban national team has been to Florida before. In June 2021, it played in an Olympic qualifying tournament in West Palm Beach and Port St. Lucie, both north of Miami. There were a few demonstrations outside the stadiums.

To even compete in the WBC, the Cuban team needed special permission from the U.S. government because of its sanctions, which prohibit doing business with Cuba. After consulting with the State Department, the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces the country’s trade sanctions, issued specific licenses to allow Cuba’s inclusion and the “voluntary participation of certain Cuban origin baseball players,” including those on MLB teams, a Treasury spokesperson said.

But unlike other countries, the Cuban federation and its players cannot receive any revenue or prize money from the WBC under the licenses, the spokesperson said.

Cuba was not expected to reach this far in the tournament. The country has won three Olympic gold medals and two silver in the six Summer Games featuring baseball. It also was the runner-up in the inaugural 2006 WBC. But as more and more players defected to play in MLB and elsewhere, the team struggled internationally. It did not qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and hasn’t reached a WBC semifinal since that first tournament.

After pressure from defected Cuban players trying to form their own WBC team, the Cuban federation changed its stance. For the first time, it allowed defected players to represent it in this WBC — but only some accepted and others weren’t invited or rejected the offer. Despaigne called the MLB talent, such as Yoán Moncada and

WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC QUARTERFINALS

SATURDAY (loanDepot Park, Miami)

USA 9, Venezuela 7

FRIDAY (loanDepot Park, Miami)

Mexico 5, Puerto Rico 4

THURSDAY (Tokyo Dome)

Japan 9, Italy 3

WEDNESDAY (Tokyo Dome)

Cuba 4, Australia 3

SEMIFINALS (loanDepot Park, Miami)

SUNDAY

Cuba at USA (7 p.m., FS1)

TODAY

Mexico at Japan (7 p.m., FS1)

TUESDAY’S FINAL (loanDepot Park, Miami) Teams TBD (7 p.m., FS1)

Luis Robert Jr., “a very important injection” of talent.

With their help, Cuba finished 2-2 in Pool A play in Taiwan and advanced as the top seed from that group. In a quarterfinal matchup Wednesday in Japan, it defeated Australia, 4-3, and then flew to South Florida.

On Friday, the team practiced at MLB’s Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, about two hours north of Miami. And on Saturday morning, the team trained at loanDepot Park with MLB security officials and local police officers watching, hours before the United States and Venezuela faced off on the same field.

Javier Báez, above, and Eddie Rosario homered in the first inning as Puerto Rico jumped to a 4-0 lead, but Mexico came back to win, 5-4, in a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game Friday night in Miami.

Kansas, the reigning champion, is out. But Princeton made the round of 16.

By ADAM ZAGORIA

Kansas, the reigning national champion, is out of the NCAA men’s tournament.

Playing without their head coach, Bill Self, for a second straight game, the top-seeded Jayhawks were stunned by No. 8 seed Arkansas 72-71 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa.

Kansas was bidding to become first the repeat men’s champion since Florida won the tournament in 2006 and 2007. Instead, the Razorbacks advanced to the Sweet 16 in Las Vegas against the winner of Sunday’s game between Connecticut and St. Mary’s in Albany, New York. Arkansas (22-13) finished tied for ninth in the Southeastern Conference, while Kansas (28-8) was the Big 12 regular-season champion.

The Jayhawks became the second No. 1 seed to get bounced from the tournament in less than 24 hours, after No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson toppled No. 1 seed Purdue on Friday night. Six consecutive defending champions have now been eliminated before the Sweet 16.

Just two No. 1 seeds remained after the loss: Alabama in the South and Houston in the West. Both teams won their matchups Saturday night.

The last time only two No. 1 seeds made the Sweet 16 was in 2018; it also happened in 2004, 2000 and 1981.

After the upset, Arkansas coach Eric Musselman climbed on a table and pulled off his shirt to celebrate in front of the Razorback fans.

“That’s just an unbelievable win for our program,” Musselman said in a television interview. “I keep telling people that we’re getting better. Not many teams can get better this time of year. I’ve never been prouder of a team like tonight.”

The game came down to the wire, and Arkansas took a 67-65 lead with 47 seconds left on a putback layup by Kamani Johnson. Jalen Wilson of Kansas made two free

throws to tie it at 67, but then his teammate Kevin McCullar Jr. fouled out on the other end.

Ricky Council IV then made three of four free throws to push Arkansas ahead for good, following a back-and-forth trade of free throws and tightly contested shots. Council finished with 11 of the last 15 points for Arkansas, including 7 of the last 9.

Kansas, which led by 8 at halftime, lost for the first time this season after leading at the break.

Davonte Davis, who scored 21 of his game-high 25 points in the second half for the Razorbacks, fouled out with 1:56 remaining.

Princeton follows up its NCAA surprise with a stroll to Sweet 16

Blake Peters, a sophomore guard for Princeton, plays Spanish classical guitar, speaks fluent Mandarin and, it turns out, is tough as nails when his Tigers have a chance to advance to the Sweet 16.

After playing only two minutes of the first half, Peters came off the bench to torch Missouri on Saturday, swishing five 3-pointers to stem every bit of momentum Missouri appeared to muster during Princeton’s 78-63 win in the NCAA men’s tournament in Sacramento.

Peters finished with a season-high 17 points, teammate Ryan Langborg had a game-high 22, and the Tigers did not have to work to the game’s final horn, unlike during their astounding unseating of second-seeded Arizona on Thursday.

Instead, as Princeton put the final flourishes on its commanding performance, the chant coming from the Tigers’ cheering section in Golden 1 Center was loud and clear: “Sweet 16! Sweet 16!”

“Blake Peters has been making shots coming off the bench for us for weeks,” Princeton coach Mitch Henderson said. “This is a very, very confident group.” He added: “They just grit their teeth and do it.”

From underdogs seeded 15th to the bullies on the block in two days, Princeton dominated No. 7 seed Missouri for most of the 40 minutes played in their secondround game. The school advances to the Sweet 16 for the

first time since 1967.

The rare opportunity was made real by dazzling shooting, especially in comparison with the struggles Princeton overcame against Arizona. The Tigers tripled their 3-point output from that game — making 12 total against Missouri, compared with four against Arizona — and played with poise and presence throughout the game.

Princeton outrebounded (44-30) and outshot (44% to 41%) Missouri. Princeton matched its 3-point total from the Arizona game well within the confines of the first half.

Their steady backbone again was Tosan Evbuomwan, a senior forward from Newcastle, England. Though he finished with what seemed in the box score like a mediocre statistical line, many of his passes set up the passes that did go for assists, exemplifying his fluidity and presence.

Princeton opened a 14-point lead at one point in the first half and continually blunted Missouri’s full-court pressure.

Then, in the second half, just when Missouri threatened, Peters took over. His first four 3-pointers of the second half helped Princeton push its lead to 62-45.

— SCOTT MILLER

Houston rallies past Auburn, in Alabama

When Houston’s players surmised that Legacy Arena would be filled 90% Saturday night with fans of Auburn, whose campus lies just 110 miles to the southeast, Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson laughed.

“Ninety percent? I’m hoping 90” percent, he said — and not more.

Houston is trying to become the first men’s team in more than a decade to play in a Final Four in its hometown, but even though the Cougars have a No. 1 seed, their path home for a championship is hardly a stroll along a primrose path.

After the Cougars struggled to stave off 16th-seeded Northern Kentucky in the first round, they had to rally from a 10-point halftime deficit Saturday night to defeat ninthseeded Auburn 81-64 in a decidedly hostile neutral-court environment in Birmingham, Alabama.

Houston’s victory and Alabama’s win later Saturday ensured that two top seeds would advance to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, after Purdue was shocked by Fairleigh Dickinson on Friday night and Kansas was upset by Arkansas on Saturday. Never have fewer than two top seeds failed to reach the men’s Sweet 16.

Houston seemed in grave danger after a first half in which Auburn, urged on by a rousing partisan crowd, carved up what had been billed as one of the nation’s top defenses, racing out to a 41-31 lead.

But after halftime, the Cougars ratcheted up their defensive pressure. They made sure that if Auburn got to the basket, it was going to have bumps and bruises to show for it, and that the Tigers would have to win the game at the free-throw line.

It was there that the game turned. The Tigers, a reasonably proficient free-throw shooting team, at 70%, failed miserably, clanking shot after shot off the rim.

Auburn managed only one field goal — a breakaway layup by Wendell Green Jr. — in a nearly 15-minute stretch, by which time Houston was comfortably ahead 70-57.

— BILLY WITZ

Jalen Wilson and the No. 1 seed Kansas Jayhawks were eliminated from the N.C.A.A. tournament on Saturday, the second top seed to fall.

Jonatan Ramos Director Funerario “Tus sentimientos en las mejores

manos”

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 38

Wordsearch

Aries (Mar 21-April 20)

As spirited Mercury moves into your sign, it will galvanize your grey cells and ramp-up your thinking processes. You’ll be more awake to ideas that serve your needs, and keen to get your message out to the world. But you’ll also be ahead of the pack, as this Mercury position supports your spontaneous and pioneering approach to life. Your courage may astonish others, Aries.

Taurus (April 21-May 21)

As inspiration bubbles up, you may feel like sharing your thoughts with others who understand you. And yet there are some who might not treat your ideas with the importance they merit. If what you are considering is something special and deeply personal to you, then keep it under the radar. Only talk about it to those who will give it the attention it deserves.

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Mercury’s move into Aries, means you’ll be keen to connect with others to get community or group projects off the ground. You’ll also enjoy mixing with kindred spirits and those who share your interests. This could be a peak time for networking and moving in other circles. A conversation might set you thinking about a long-term dream. Perhaps it’s time to make a start?

Cancer (June 22-July 23)

You’ll be curious to delve into the secrets of those who have succeeded. Whether these are people in the company you work for or someone in business, Mercury’s move into Aries makes you bold and eager to repeat their results. Keen to promote your talents? This is a great time for marketing your skills, as you’ll attract more attention. With a sound plan, you’ll do very well.

Leo (July 24-Aug 23)

Expansive Jupiter is already encouraging you to aim high and go in search of new adventures. Mercury’s move into this zone from today, may ramp-up the desire to travel and see more of life. Let your curiosity lead the way, and if you have the time and inclination for a break to somewhere you’ve never been, then go, Leo. Someone you meet long the way could become a great friend.

Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)

As fleet-footed Mercury moves into your sector of transformation, it inspires you to question any situation you’ve tolerated or even pushed under the carpet. If you’ve held your feelings back, you might be ready to talk about them. And if so, you’ll be surprised at how good you feel afterwards. Getting this out of your system may be all that is required for a major shift to occur.

Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)

ou’ll enjoy mixing and mingling, making this a good time to develop closer relationships. Haven’t seen someone in a while? You may be keener than ever to give them a call. Eager to move in new circles? There is the possibility of a fiery attraction. This can inspire you to take things to the next level, particularly if you’re looking for a fun and passionate romance, Libra.

Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)

Ready to make the most of key opportunities? As logical Mercury moves into Aries and your lifestyle sector, this can be a chance to get organized. And although you might not have much patience with details at this time, the most basic plan is better than nothing at all. Assess your priorities and work out a strategy. Your intuition is working on your behalf, so make use of it.

Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)

Feeling sporty or creative? As sociable Mercury enters your leisure zone, it encourages you to indulge your talents, especially those that require flexibility or dexterity. You’ll be confident enough to showcase them too, after all, you never know who is watching and who you’ll impress. Solo? You may be drawn to someone who loves travel and adventure as much as you, Archer.

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)

Need more communication on the home front? If so, the movement of the planet of talk and thought into this sector, can assist in sharing ideas, discussing key issues and spending quality time as a family. This influence could make things easier regarding a decision that needs to be taken soon. Getting others involved enough to talk about it, might ease the pressure on you.

Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)

With a lively focus on your communication zone, the coming weeks are perfect for liaising, negotiating and forging valuable connections. As Mercury saunters into this sector from today, these activities are enhanced. You may have extra flare for selling, writing and anything social media orientated. And if you’re keen to learn a skill, this is one of the best times to start.

Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)

While you may want to handle your money responsibly, it can pay to watch your outgoings. You might long to save, but you’ll be keen to splurge too, especially if something catches your eye. Mercury’s move into Aries, could be a call to plan ahead and give yourself a spending limit. While it’s great to enjoy instant satisfaction, staying in control will give you greater security.

Speed Bump