March 31- April 2, 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.
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia commented Thursday on the situation facing Ponce Mayor Luis Manuel Irizarry Pabón, who is under investigation by a special independent prosecutor (FEI by its Spanish initials), saying the immediate fate of the mayor should be left up to the leadership of the Popular Democratic Party (PDP).
“What I’ve seen is that my administration did its job,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “The Justice secretary made the recommendation to the FEI Panel to appoint a special independent prosecutor. I hope that the panel … agrees and that this investigation is done thoroughly, and then we will know what the result of it is.”
Following reports that Irizarry Pabón is under investigation, rumors emerged that federal agents visited Ponce City Hall. That information was neither confirmed nor denied. When approached by journalists during an emergency meeting of the Ponce Municipal Committee, Irizarry Pabón said he is holding onto his seat as mayor and that he will not resign, a pronouncement he made referring to himself in the third person.
The mayor also rejected a move by the PDP leadership to appoint former House Speaker and former judge Carlos Vizcarrondo Irizarry as a party presidential delegate in Ponce, effectively relieving Irizarry Pabón from his duties related to that post.
Meanwhile, former Ponce mayor Francisco “Ico” Zayas Seijo on Thursday called Irizarry Pabón’s rejection of Vizcarrondo as delegate to the PDP Central Committee “a huge mistake.”
“In the meantime, what I can say is that it is important that all municipalities are managed without distractions, and there I see a great distraction,” Pierluisi added. “It is up to the leadership of the Popular [Democratic] Party to determine if what is best for the people of Ponce is for them [PDP elected officials] to concentrate on defending themselves and not managing all these distractions that I know are not good for the people of Ponce.”
The Ponce mayor is under investigation by the FEI Panel in relation to a personal loan that municipal employees have allegedly paid off. In addition, last week it emerged that a trust official had his salary increased to cover loan payments.
“I see it as difficult for him,” Zayas Seijo said in a radio interview. “And with what he did last night, then, even worse; that is, he gathered the central committee of the party and unanimously rejected Carlos Vizcarrondo, which I think was a huge mistake and more so when you look at the person he [Vizcarrondo] is. Carlos Vizcarrondo has an impressive intellectual height and [record in] public service, and was doing a favor for Ponce and for the party, [and so Irizarry Pabón] coming here and rejecting him tells me that he is the one who is going to do it, and what he does is complicate things more and more, something that is not right.”
“The [Popular Democratic] party has to do something,” the former mayor added. “I do not know what the Rules of Procedure allow, but I believe that it has to act. Let’s give it time because what [the PDP] has is six or eight hours. Remember that you journalists have to go on the air now and all that, but the party has to [conduct] well-considered consultations.”
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia confirmed Thursday that designated Women’s Advocate Vilmarie Rivera Sierra requested the withdrawal of her nomination for the post.
“Today, at the request of Mrs. Vilmarie Rivera Sierra, I am withdrawing her appointment as Women’s Advocate before the Senate of Puerto Rico,” the governor said in a written statement. “I thank Mrs. Rivera Sierra for her willingness to accept that assignment and for her unquestionable commitment to the well-being of Puerto Rican women. I am sure that she will continue to be an ally in the struggle we have as a government and society to eradicate the social evil of gender violence that affects us so much.”
Pierluisi also announced who will occupy the position on an interim basis.
“While I regret the outcome of this appointment, our people can rest assured that the Office of the Women’s Advocate will continue to fulfill its mission under the reins of attorney Madeline Bermúdez, who will assume the position of women’s advocate
on an interim basis,” the governor said.
Earlier in the day, Pierluisi had insisted that Rivera Sierra is qualified for the position of women’s advocate.
“Everyone must exercise their judgment,” he said. “I judge that she has the
qualities, the experience, the judgment and the commitment. But I have to respect the members of the Senate if they disagree with that judgment. For one thing, we have a system that works in such a way that the governor appoints, but it is the Senate that
confirms or not. … I’m not too fond of the fact that sometimes they don’t confirm appointments that I have made, but I have to respect them. If that is the case, I must nominate another person.”
The governor appointed Rivera Sierra as women’s advocate during the legislative recess in January following the resignation of Lersy Boria Vizcarrondo.
Rivera Sierra’s confirmation process could have been smoother.
A legislative committee grilled her about her tenure at the head of a women’s shelter. She denied allegations of embezzlement while managing the Hogar Nueva Mujer Santa María de la Merced in Cayey, a position she held for 18 years.
In a public hearing of the Senate Appointments Committee, chaired by Senate President José Luis Dalmau Santiago, Rivera Sierra affirmed that monitoring of the Hogar Nueva María found problems involving “programmatic matters” and said they were corrected.
The candidate, meanwhile, had the support of dozens of women’s groups to take over the position.
Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) bondholders are asking U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain to clarify her March 22 order on the security of the utility’s debt before engaging in new mediation.
Swain had ruled that payment of the $8.4 billion PREPA bonded debt is not secured by a 1974 Trust Agreement. She said bondholders have security interests only in sums deposited to the Sinking Fund, Self-Insurance Fund, Capital Improvement Fund, Reserve Maintenance Fund, and Construction Fund, as defined in the Trust Agreement. She also said bondholders have an unsecured claim against the utility to be liquidated by a “reference to the value of future net revenues.”
The ruling was part of an adversary proceeding between U.S. Bank National Association as Trustee, the Ad Hoc Group of PREPA Bondholders, Assured Guaranty Corp. and Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp., National Public Finance Guarantee Corp., and Syncora Guarantee Inc. against the Financial
Oversight and Management Board seeking a judgment that the $8.4 billion in PREPA bonds was secured by the utility’s 1974 trust agreement. PREPA has been bankrupt since 2017 to restructure its almost $10 billion debt.
Bondholders on March 29 asked Swain to clarify that the clause “the remainder of the term of the bonds” doesn’t limit the time that bondholders have to exercise their rights, and asked her to remove the language or change it to “at any time.”
The bondholders pointed to the oversight board’s public remarks that the phrase indicates there is a time limitation.
“Clarification of this point is essential to allow for the possibility that the parties engage in a fruitful and immediate return to mediation as the court directed,” bondholders said.
Accordingly, the bondholders said the judge’s order confirms that the trustee and PREPA’s bondholders will have an allowed unsecured claim in the amount of net revenues that could have been made available to them, outside of Title III, if PREPA were compelled to charge and collect reasonable rates and to pay bondholders under terms of the Trust
Agreement.
“That unsecured claim, which represents the right to seek payment through the exercise of remedies, is not limited to any particular period of time but continues while the bonds
remain unpaid,” the bondholders said. “Under the Trust Agreement, the bonds and rights and remedies under the Trust Agreement remain in full force and effect until the bonds are paid in full and defeased.”
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Thursday that he is concerned about the Census data, specifically numbers that point to the decline in the birth rate on the island.
“That’s what’s impacting us the most at present,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “This is a matter of motivating couples and young people not to lose confidence in the future. That it is positive for Puerto Rico to increase our population.”
Asked if he will put together an educational campaign to help boost the birth rate, Pierluisi replied that “that can be done and should be done, and I must verbalize it whenever I have the opportunity to do it.”
Pierluisi noted that the Child Tax Credit now applies as an incentive. But he said a concrete plan to promote the raising of the birth rate in Puerto Rico is something that must be evaluated, adding that he will be “looking for ways and means to promote this.”
On Thursday the United States Census Bureau released the most recent Annual Population Estimates data for Puerto Rico municipalities, as well as counties in U.S. states.
“The pattern of population estimates continues to show the tendency to decrease, a feature of which at the level of
Puerto Rico we are already approaching about two decades (since 2005) of there being an increasingly small resident population but of different demographic composition,” Alberto Velázquez Estrada, senior manager of statistical projects for the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, said in a written communication.
The latest statistics refer to the first of July 2022 and include estimates of the total population for each municipality and population change in the current decade.
The governor said the birth rate is worrisome because, in his opinion, outmigration has been brought under control.
“The 2% [drop] comes primarily from the drop in the birth rate,” he said.
As Puerto Rico is emerging as an island of mostly senior citizens, Pierluisi discussed what he will do to keep that population group active.
“What we are doing is that with advances in technology and health, we see that people are able to work longer in their lives and we see that many of these people want to work,” he said. “Maybe not the eight or 10 hours they worked before, but they are willing to work part-time and we are encouraging it in government for retired teachers, police and social workers to return to public service. We have legislated it and we are promoting it.”
The Financial Oversight and Management Board has approved a $61.96 million debt transaction that will allow the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) to find sourcing for capital projects. The debt transaction involves the Puerto Rico Department of Health and the Puerto Rico Infrastructure Financing Authority (PRIFA).
The information is contained in a March 29 letter sent by Oversight Board Executive Director Robert Mujica to Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority (AAFAF by its Spanish initials) Executive Director Omar Marrero Díaz.
The oversight board’s letter is in response to a letter dated March 20 from the AAFAF, and other supporting documentation, requesting approval for the debt transaction. Under the terms, the island Health Department and the PRIFA would authorize PRASA to enter into a $61.96 million financial assistance agreement using funds from the drinking water state revolving fund program. The agreement’s structure breaks down the funding as follows: $54.48 million as an interest-bearing (1.00%) senior loan with a 30-year repayment period; and $7.48 million as a non-interest bearing (0.00%) principal forgiveness loan. The agreement enables cost-effective capital investments in PRASA’s raw water intake and water treatment facilities, which are critical for PRASA to provide safe and clean water services, the letter notes.
“Therefore, the agreement is consistent with the 2022 certified fiscal plan for PRASA (the CFP), as it mitigates PRASA’s need to use its own operating revenues to comply with the capital investment projections,” Mujica said. “However, as explained in the [CFP], PRASA must continue deploying capital investments while aiming to maximize the multiple sources of available funding, including assigned and obligated federal funding. Particularly, PRASA should prioritize the capital deployment efforts of the federal funds awarded for recovery and reconstruction
projects stemming from the hurricanes of 2017.”
The oversight board recently certified a compliant $1.1 billion budget for PRASA for fiscal year (FY) 2023. Despite PRASA’s efforts to stabilize or reduce operating costs, inflation and other macroeconomic factors are expected to result in higher operating expenditures. PRASA’s payroll is also projected to increase as it implements measures designed to retain and expand its workforce with a focus on critical workers, such as plant operators and electromechanics. Those employee retention initiatives are expected to increase payroll by $14 million in FY 2023.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced this week that it reached an agreement with Guánica-Caribe Land Development Corp. (GC), a subsidiary of W.R. Grace & Co., to remove soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from 19 residential and commercial properties that are part of the Ochoa Fertilizer Co. Superfund site in Guánica.
“Today’s announcement demonstrates EPA’s commitment to having companies that are responsible for contamination conduct the work necessary to clean it up under EPA supervision,” EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. García said. “This agreement will ensure that the communities in Guánica, Puerto Rico, are protected from the potential risk of exposure to PCBs.”
Under the agreement, the company will remove PCB-contaminated soil from the 19 identified properties and will investigate other properties for potential contamination and if necessary, find a method to control stormwater runoff from the fertilizer production property. The estimated cost of the work is $10 million. The EPA will monitor and oversee G-C’s
Under the agreement, the Guánica-Caribe Land Development Corp. will remove PCB-contaminated soil from 19 identified properties in Guánica and will investigate other properties for potential contamination and, if necessary, find a method to control stormwater runoff from the manufacturing property that is part of the Ochoa Fertilizer Co. Superfund site.
cleanup and compliance with the agreement. The EPA has informed the community, residents, and property owners and has engaged with them at a community meeting.
In September 2022, the EPA added the Ochoa Fertilizer
Co. Superfund site to the National Priorities List. The former facility operators produced fertilizers using ammonia, ammonium sulfate, and sulfuric acid starting in the 1950s. The site includes a 112-acre eastern lot and a 13-acre western lot.
While the eastern lot, which included an electrical substation, was demolished in the 1990s, fertilizer manufacturing on the western lot continues. G-C is the current owner of the eastern lot.
Past operations at the site resulted in releases of untreated waste at and from the eastern lot, contaminating soil and causing environmental degradation to Guánica Bay. There is a potential risk of exposure to nearby residents from soil contaminated with PCBs.
PCBs are potentially cancer-causing in people and build up in the fat of fish and animals. The potential risk posed to nearby residents by PCBs in soils is currently being addressed through a short-term action plan outlined in the current agreement. The possibility of further investigation and cleanup efforts in the long-term will be considered once the initial work outlined in the agreement has been completed.
By THE STAR STAFF
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 38% of Puerto Rico is under atypical dry conditions. Likewise, almost 25% of the island is now in moderate drought conditions (D1).
Earlier this week Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) Executive President Doriel Pagán Crespo called for the moderation of water consumption due to low rainfall projected for Puerto Rico, as reported by the STAR.
Police Commissioner Antonio López Figueroa reported the activation of the Silver Alert on Thursday for the disappearance of a possibly disoriented older adult.
The police chief said Bernardo López López, 86, was last seen when he left his residence at about 4 p.m. Wednesday in La Plena neighborhood, Highway 712 kilometer 5.1, in Salinas.
López López was wearing a black shirt and black pants. He is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs approximately
160 pounds, with a fair complexion, white hair and brown eyes, and has a dark mole on his left cheekbone.
The cooperation of citizens is requested to find the man’s whereabouts. Anyone with potentially helpful information is urged to call 787-343-2020 or the 9-1-1 Emergency System.
The Silver Alert aims to spread rapid information about the disappearance of adults over 60 with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. According to Law No. 132 of 2009, “the Puerto Rico Police will be the primary agency responsible for operating the Plan and determining whether or not to issue the alert.”
House Republicans who have said they will not vote to raise the national debt limit without deep spending cuts are backing away from their promise to balance the budget and struggling to unite their fractious majority behind a fiscal plan, paralyzing progress on talks to avert a catastrophic default as soon as this summer.
Determined to use the coming confrontation over the national debt to extract sweeping spending concessions from Democrats, House GOP leaders announced a series of lofty goals earlier this year — driven in large part by the demands of the hard-right faction of their party. They include balancing the federal budget in 10 years and freezing spending at pre-pandemic levels, all without touching Social Security, Medicare or military funding.
But even as they continue to deride President Joe Biden’s $6.8 trillion budget proposal, released this month, House Republicans have begun to inch away from their own stated objectives, plagued by divisions that have prevented them from agreeing on a plan of their own that can draw enough support to pass with their slim majority.
The pledge to balance the nation’s budget has gone by the wayside, initially softened to a commitment to put the nation “on a path toward” a balanced budget and now seemingly scrapped altogether. The timetable for when Republicans say they will put out a budget blueprint has continued to slip. And after the Budget Committee chair told reporters that the party was finalizing a list of specific cuts to bring to negotiations with Biden, Speaker Kevin McCarthy threw cold water on the idea, saying, “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
The internal back-and-forth has prevented Republicans from reaching a consensus on spending cuts, which the party has said must be included in any measure to raise the debt limit, currently expected to be breached as early as July. That is an early indication of the perilous path ahead for lawmakers who must broker a deal to avert a default that could trigger a global economic crisis.
“I don’t see how we get there,” Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the chair of the
Financial Services Committee, said of raising the debt ceiling. “And this is a marked change from where I’ve been. I don’t even see a path.”
McHenry, a key ally of McCarthy, added in remarks at an event hosted by Punchbowl News, “I’ve never been more pessimistic about where we stand with the debt ceiling, and we’ve been in some bad situations before.”
In the absence of a budget plan that Republicans will swallow, or even make public, House leaders have sought to buy themselves more time, and instead tried to blame Democrats for delaying debt limit negotiations.
McCarthy sent a letter to Biden on Tuesday accusing the White House of being “completely missing in action on any meaningful follow-up” since their last meeting, in February, to discuss the looming deadline.
Detailing the most extensive list yet of categories of spending cuts his party is demanding, McCarthy made no reference to balancing the budget in 10 years, a tacit acknowledgment that his conference has all but abandoned that bench mark. He instead focused on freezing spending levels to “pre-inflationary levels,” strengthening work requirements for recipients of federal assistance programs and reclaiming unspent coronavirus emergency funds approved by Congress.
“If the president would have a meeting, I would have all the $4 trillion sitting there and
pro-
vided to you,” McCarthy said on CNBC, when asked to detail his plan for tackling the debt.
Biden responded on Tuesday night with his own letter, replying that he was not interested in meeting until he could see House Republicans’ “full set of proposals” and requesting that McCarthy present them before the end of the week, a deadline that the conference almost certainly will not meet.
“I look forward to your response, to eliminating the specter of default and to your budget,” Biden wrote.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the Budget Committee chair, told reporters on Wednesday evening that “we have a goal to balance” the budget “in 10 years, but whatever the path is to balance, we’ve got to get 218” votes to pass it. “I’m a realist.”
Both Biden’s budget and House Republicans’ budget, he said, “will have plenty of time to be assessed and scrutinized.”
But that has not stopped Democrats from attacking the plan in the interim.
“Republicans believe we can cut our way to a balanced budget,” said Rep. Brendan F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee. “That is not only false; it’s dangerous.”
House majorities have often shied away from presenting budget resolutions — which are planning documents without the force of law — for fear of putting their most politically vulnerable lawmakers on the hook for tough
votes. Any budget resolution put forward this year by Republican leaders featuring deep spending cuts threatens to endanger their critical bloc of swing-district lawmakers.
“Why do we have to have a budget out to sit down and talk about the debt ceiling?” McCarthy asked earlier this month at the House Republican retreat in Orlando, Florida.
That has left top Republicans focused on paring back spending levels to prepandemic levels.
“I know some Democrats want to talk about draconian cuts,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., a McCarthy ally, adding that he did not think that description applied to last year’s spending levels. “The Democrats didn’t think they were draconian when they were voting for those laws.”
The one piece of legislation designed to address the debt crisis that Republicans have been able to advance is a bill passed by the Budget Committee that would “prioritize” payments on U.S. Treasury bonds if the nation could no longer borrow funds to cover all its expenses. That legislation passed on a party-line vote last month, after Democrats noted that the Biden administration had ruled out the idea as practically untenable.
Others have floated the idea of a shortterm debt ceiling hike, although it is unclear whether hard-right Republicans, more than a dozen of whom have never voted to raise the debt limit, would back that approach. McHenry said earlier this week that he believed Republicans did not have the votes to pass a stand-alone bill allowing the United States to borrow more money.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has spent months shoring up a tough-on-crime image as he weighs a run for the White House, calling for stronger penalties against drug traffickers and using $5,000 bonuses to bolster law-enforcement recruitment to his state.
DeSantis and his allies plan to use that image to draw a contrast with the Republican front-runner in the 2024 race, former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis and his backers see the signature criminal-justice law enacted by Trump in 2018 as an area of weakness with his base, and DeSantis has indicated that he would highlight it when the two men tussle for the Republican nomination, according to three people with knowledge of DeSantis’ thinking. That law, known as the First Step Act, reduced the sentences for thousands of prisoners.
DeSantis has yet to officially announce his candidacy, but he has been quietly staffing a presidential campaign, and his allies have been building up a super PAC. Since at least his reelection in November, DeSantis has privately suggested that Trump’s record on crime is one of several policy issues on which Trump is vulnerable to attacks from the right.
One potentially complicating factor for DeSantis: He voted for the initial House version of the First Step Act in May 2018, while still a congressman. He resigned his seat in September 2018 after winning the Republican primary for governor, and was not in the House to vote for the more expansive version of the sentencing reform bill that ultimately passed into law in December 2018.
Other vulnerabilities, in the view of DeSantis and some of his allies, include Trump’s deference to Dr. Anthony Fauci as the nation’s top infectious disease expert during his initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.
DeSantis has already pushed that point publicly, contrasting his record on the pandemic with that of Trump. He recently told interviewer Piers Morgan that he would have fired Fauci. In the early days of the pandemic, however, DeSantis did not call for Trump to do so.
DeSantis has said nothing publicly to telegraph that he intends to directly hit Trump as soft on crime. Yet for months, he has been privately gearing up for such a contrast, whether it comes from him or his allies.
Public safety was an issue in DeSantis’ 2022 campaign, as it was for a number of Republicans. A person familiar with DeSantis’
thinking, who was granted anonymity because the person was not allowed to discuss private deliberations, said the governor viewed public safety as encompassing other policy matters, such as immigration.
In January, DeSantis announced a series of legislative measures for the coming session in Florida, which, among other actions, would toughen penalties against drug traffickers.
“Other states endanger their citizens by making it easier to put criminals back on the street. Here, in Florida, we will continue to support and enact policies to protect our communities and keep Floridians safe,” DeSantis said in a statement at the time. “Florida will remain the law-and-order state.”
He has also instituted a program to pay $5,000 bonuses to recruit new Florida law enforcement officers and has played up his success in inducing hundreds to relocate to Florida from other states, such as New York and California. And he made a minitour last month visiting law enforcement offices in major cities in Democratic-leaning states.
Trump is aware of his vulnerability on the crime issue because of his record as president, according to people close to him. Shortly after leaving office he began trying to inoculate himself against attacks by promising an uncompromising law-and-order agenda, with especially harsh treatment of drug dealers.
As president, following the advice of his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, in December 2018, Trump signed the First Step Act, which resulted in more than 3,000 inmates being released early from federal prison.
A Republican official who is not affiliated with DeSantis and who has closely tracked criminal recidivism among people released from prison because of the First Step Act, said that the volume of
those releases would provide fodder for attack ads against Trump.
On Wednesday, Pedro L. Gonzalez, a conservative with a large online following who often attacks Trump from the right and defends DeSantis, tweeted that the man charged with assaulting a U.S. Senate staff member over the weekend was “released from prison thanks to Trump’s First Step Act” and linked to a Fox News story about the case.
Many of those released under the First Step Act had been imprisoned for selling drugs — a crime that Trump now says publicly that he wants to punish with the death penalty because of the destruction wrought by illegal drugs.
Trump, early on as president, mused admiringly in private about how dictators like Xi Jinping of China and former President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines executed drug dealers. At other times, he asked top officials whether it was feasible to shoot in the legs migrants who were illegally crossing the border.
But for most of his term, Trump suppressed this instinct publicly. He came to believe that a more compassionate criminal justice policy would help him with African American voters, according to people familiar with his thinking.
Because of this — and a competition in 2020 over spending with billionaire candidate Mike Bloomberg — the Trump campaign paid millions of dollars to run a Super Bowl commercial highlighting his commutation of the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a Black woman convicted of leading a multimillion-dollar drug trafficking ring. Trump and his team hailed the First Step Act as a historic bipartisan achievement.
“Did it for African Americans. Nobody else could have gotten it done,” Trump wrote in response to a reporter’s question in 2022, adding, “Got zero credit.” The word “zero” was underlined for emphasis.
But in June 2020, as Americans massed on the streets to protest the police killing of George Floyd, Trump told his aides privately, according to Axios, that it was a mistake to have listened to Kushner.
In his final six months in office, Trump was erratic in his criminal justice policies. He went on a historic federal execution spree. But he also went on a pardon spree — handing out many dubious pardons, including one to a drug smuggler with a history of violence, through a process heavily influenced by Kushner.
And by the time Trump was plainly looking for a future in politics again in 2021, he began talking publicly about executing drug dealers.
The mass shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, this week has generated a broad shrugging of the shoulders in Washington, from President Joe Biden to Republicans in Congress, who seemed to agree on little other than that there was nothing left for them to do to counter the continuing toll of gun violence across the country.
But while Biden’s stark admission Tuesday that he could do no more on his own to tackle the issue was a statement of fact that aimed to put the burden on Congress to send him legislation, like the ban on assault weapons he has repeatedly championed, Republicans’ expressions of helplessness reflected an unwillingness, rather than an inability, to act.
Their answer to Biden’s plea was as blunt as it was swift, as lawmaker after Republican lawmaker made it clear that they had no intention of considering any additional gun safety measures.
“We’re not going to fix it,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told reporters on the steps of the Capitol just hours after the shooting that killed three children and three adults in his home state. “Criminals are going to be criminals.”
Burchett said that he saw no “real role” for Congress to play in reducing gun violence and volunteered that his solution to the issue of protecting his family was to home-school his children.
Likewise, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said Congress had done enough.
“When we start talking about bans or challenging the Second Amendment, the things that have already been done have gone about as far as we’re going with gun control,” Rounds told CNN.
Last year, Congress passed a narrow, bipartisan compromise that enhanced background checks to give authorities time to examine the juvenile and mental health records of any prospective gun buyer younger than 21, and a provision that for the first time extended a prohibition on domestic abusers having guns to dating partners.
The bill was the first major gun control legislation that Congress had passed in decades, but it addressed only a small set of issues designed to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
At the time, Republicans like Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, noted that supporting the measure was necessary to win back suburban voters, who broadly support some changes to the nation’s gun laws.
But even then, proponents conceded that the bill did not signify a political shift on gun restrictions; rather, it was a measure that went precisely as far as Republicans were willing to go in strengthening gun laws, and one pushed through only by a fleeting political coalition that would soon dissipate.
Even the Republicans who championed the law enacted last summer showed no desire to take any further action.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who served as the lead Republican negotiator on that bill, dismissed Biden’s calls for banning assault weapons as a set of “tired talking points.”
“I want to see the bill we just passed get implemented,” he said. One of the provisions of that bill provided funding for states to enact so-called red-flag laws that allow authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed to be dangerous. But Tennessee does not have a red-flag law, and it would not benefit from federal funds to implement a law that Republican state lawmakers are not willing to consider.
“I don’t think there’s any appetite,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said flatly of her party’s willingness to take on gun control legislation. Lummis voted against the bipartisan measure that Congress passed last summer, along with all but 15 of her GOP colleagues.
The intransigence of Republicans on the issue of guns was deeply frustrating, if not surprising, to Democrats, who pointed out that polls show that a vast majority of voters support some toughening of the nation’s laws, such as adding universal background checks.
“We’ve got too many politicians in this town who work for the gun lobby,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. “The people need some public servants who actually work for them.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who has often encouraged his colleagues to take a decadeslong view of progress on the issue of guns, vented on Twitter about Republicans like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who refused to answer any questions about the shooting.
“Why seek leadership if you aren’t willing to lead?” Murphy tweeted. “Burying your head in the sand and hoping the carnage stops isn’t going to work.”
At the same time, some Republicans who did speak out tried to turn away from any discussion of guns by seeking a different culprit for the tragedy. After the mass shooting last year at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said that
the issue was one of a security failure and that the answer was for armed agents to be stationed at schools.
In this case, many right-wing Republicans, who have made opposition to transgender health care and rights a focus of their social agenda, sought to shift the focus by seizing on an assertion by law enforcement authorities that the assailant in Nashville had been transgender.
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said on Twitter that the tragedy suggested that “giving into these ideas” about accepting transgender individuals was “dangerous.”
After White House press secretary Karine Jeane-Pierre criticized congressional Republicans for their inaction on guns, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., pointedly made reference
to the issue of the shooter’s gender on Twitter, posting a message that “it doesn’t get much lower than blaming Republicans in Congress for a transgender killer who targeted a Christian school.”
Even as Republicans made it clear there was no avenue to passing more gun safety legislation, the Senate chaplain, Barry Black, made an unusually urgent plea for action, praying aloud to “deliver our senators from the paralysis of analysis that waits for the miraculous.”
“When babies die at a church school, it is time for us to move beyond thoughts and prayers,” the chaplain said in his opening prayer Tuesday. “Remind our lawmakers of the words of Edmund Burke: ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.’”
Howard Schultz was the star witness, but the hearing revealed almost as much about the party in power as it did about the longtime Starbucks chief executive.
When Schultz appeared earlier this week before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, at a session titled “No Company Is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks,” he encountered a Democratic Party much changed since some of his earlier trips to Washington.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton invited Schultz to the White House for a private briefing on the company’s health care benefits. Two years later, the president praised Starbucks when introducing Schultz at a conference on corporate responsibility. At the time,
Bernie Sanders was a backbencher in the House of Representatives.
On Wednesday, Sanders, now chair of the Senate committee, appeared to regard Schultz with something bordering on disdain.
Before a question, Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, felt the need to remind Schultz that federal law prohibits a witness from “knowingly and willfully making” a false statement relevant to an inquiry. The chair then asked him if he had participated in decisions to fire or discipline workers involved in a union campaign. (Schultz said he had not.)
Sanders noted that an administrative law judge had found “egregious and widespread misconduct” by Starbucks in its response to the campaign, in which nearly 300 of the roughly 9,300 corporate-owned stores in the United States have voted to unionize. And he chided Schultz for what he said was the company’s “calculated and intentional efforts to stall, to stall and to stall” rather than bargain with the union in good faith.
The hearing was held on the same day Starbucks reported that its shareholders had backed a proposal asking the company to commission an independent assessment of its practices as they relate to worker rights, including the right to bargain collectively and to form a union without interference.
Though the proposal is nonbinding, the 52% vote in its favor suggests unease among investors over Starbucks’ response to the union campaign.
Schultz, who recently ended his third tour as the company’s chief executive and remains a board member and major shareholder, seemed as mystified as anyone by his personal change of fortune in the capital. He chafed at what he described as “the propaganda that is floating around” the hearing and told Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., that “I take offense with you categorizing me or Starbucks as a union-buster.”
When another Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington — the home state of Starbucks — said she had heard from constituents about “widespread anti-union efforts,” Schultz reminded her that they had known each other for years and that she had “many times actually talked about Starbucks as a model employer.”
He responded to Sanders’ accusation
that Starbucks was not bargaining in good faith by noting that the company had met with the union over 85 times. (The union points out that most of these sessions ended within 15 minutes; Starbucks says this is because union members sought to take part remotely.) And he denied that Starbucks had broken the law; it has appealed the rulings against it.
Aside from the accusations of labor law violations, the question at the heart of the hearing was: Can chief executives be trusted to treat their workers fairly?
Schultz’s answer was an emphatic yes, at least in his case. He highlighted the company’s wide-ranging benefits — not just health care, including for part-time employees, but stock grants, paid sick leave, paid parental leave and free tuition at Arizona State University. He said that the average wage for hourly workers at Starbucks was $17.50, and that total compensation, including benefits, approached $27 an hour.
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, himself a former chief executive, said it was “somewhat rich that you’re being grilled by people who have never had the opportunity to create a single job.” He suggested that while a union might be necessary at companies “that are not good employers,” that was not the case at Starbucks.
Yet in illustrating how far the politics of labor have changed in Washington in recent decades, there was perhaps no better bellwether than Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a former business owner and selfdescribed “extreme moderate.”
Hickenlooper conducted himself more respectfully and deferentially than most of his Democratic colleagues, applauding Schultz for “creating one of the most successful brands in American history” and declaring that “you know more about economics than I will ever know.” But in his questioning he aligned himself squarely with his party, pointing out that the rise of inequality in recent decades had coincided with the weakening of unions.
“I certainly respect the desire to be directly connected with all your employees,” he told Schultz. “But in many ways that right to organize, and that opportunity for people to be part of a union, is a crucial building block for the middle class and, I think, gave this country stability.”
Stock indexes rose and the dollar declined on Thursday on easing fears about banking sector troubles, encouraging economic signs from the chip industry and rising oil prices.
Two-year Treasury yields rose to a one-week high as investors grew more confident that recent stress in the banking sector would be contained, but remained cautious about the impact that recent bank failures would have on the economy.
The U.S. dollar slipped to a one-week low against the euro as German inflation data helped lift the common currency.
And oil prices rose with support from lower U.S. crude stockpiles and a halt to exports from Iraq’s Kurdistan region, which offset pressure from a smaller-than-expected cut to Russian supplies.
“Investors seem to be increasingly confident the bank turmoil is going to continue to ease and that we’re near a peak in central bank rate hikes,” said Jeff Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab in Celebration, Florida.
“We’re seeing this rally driven by stocks that are sensitive to the pace of growth and inflation,” said Kleintop, who also pointed to climbing oil prices and weakness in the safe haven dollar, which investors flock to when they are worried.
“Definitely a more bullish tone is starting to pick up here on Wall Street,” said the strategist, though he cautioned that there could still be some volatility ahead.
Among equities indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 34.91 points, or 0.11%, to 32,752.51, the S&P 500 gained 14.85 points, or 0.37%, to 4,042.66 and the Nasdaq Composite added 68.98 points, or 0.58%, to 11,995.21.
The chip sector also extended Wednesday’s gains as falling inventories at Micron Technology were seen as an encouraging sign for the sector as well as the broader economy.
“If inventories have come down for semiconductors that stands to reason it may have come down for many other products as well,” said Kleintop, who added that this “feeds right into economic growth.”
Beyond Wall Street, the pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 1.03% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.61%.
Emerging market stocks rose 0.66%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.62% higher, while Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.36%.
In currencies, the dollar index fell 0.438%, with the euro up 0.54% to $1.0902. The Japanese yen strengthened 0.20% versus the greenback at 132.55 per dollar, while Sterling was last trading at $1.2372, up 0.5% on the day.
In U.S. Treasuries, benchmark 10-year notes were down 0.4 basis points to 3.562%, from 3.566% late on Wednesday. The 30-year bond was last down 1.7 basis points to yield 3.7613%. The two-year note was last was up 3.7 basis points to yield 4.1174%.
In commodities, U.S. crude recently rose 1.8% to $74.28 per barrel and Brent was at $79.20, up 1.18% on the day.
Spot gold added 0.7% to $1,978.49 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 0.64% to $1,979.40 an ounce.
In crypto currencies, Bitcoin last fell 0.91% to $28,094.00.
Russian authorities said Thursday that they had detained an American journalist for The Wall Street Journal and accused him of espionage, marking a new escalation in Moscow’s tensions with the United States and with foreign media organizations since its invasion of Ukraine.
The journalist, Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent based in Moscow, is believed to be the first American reporter to be held as an accused spy in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. His detention comes as relations between Russia and the United States continue to deteriorate, with Washington leading a coalition of nations supporting Ukraine’s military defense and pushing for Moscow’s further diplomatic and economic isolation.
The Russian Federal Security Service,
or FSB, said in a statement that Gershkovich “is suspected of spying in the interests of the American government” and had been detained in Yekaterinburg, a city about 900 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains. Hours later, the Kremlin endorsed Gershkovich’s arrest.
“We’re not talking about suspicions,” Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin of Russia, said, adding, “He was caught red-handed.” Peskov said he could not provide further details.
The detention is an ominous sign for the rights of foreign journalists based in Russia. The Journal strongly rejected the accusations against Gershkovich and said it would seek his immediate release. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family,” the newspaper said in a statement.
President Joe Biden was briefed on Gershkovich’s detention and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he was “deeply
concerned.” State Department officials had contacted Russian authorities to secure access to the reporter and check on his welfare.
“The targeting of American citizens by the Russian government is unacceptable,” White House press secretary Karine JeanPierre said in a statement. “We condemn the detention of Gershkovich in the strongest terms. We also condemn the Russian government’s continued targeting and repression of journalists and freedom of the press.”
Gershkovich, 31, grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, as a child of Soviet émigrés. He has worked for the Journal in Moscow since January 2022; previously, he reported in Russia for Agence France-Presse and for The Moscow Times. Before that, he was a New York-based news assistant for The New York Times.
No Western journalist has been tried on espionage charges in Russia in recent years. But in March 2022, many foreign news organizations, including the Times, temporarily removed their reporters from the country after harsh new laws virtually outlawed some forms of independent reporting after the invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, correspondents — including Gershkovich — continued to receive accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry and had generally been able to operate freely.
But American journalists, in particular, have been concerned about a situation like the one now unfolding with Gershkovich: that Russian authorities might detain a correspondent from a U.S.-based organization amid the larger tensions between the two countries. In some past espionage cases, Russia has detained foreigners to instigate prisoner exchanges with the West.
“Until today, there was a hope among foreign correspondents working in Russia that these crackdowns on independent reporting would not extend to them,” said Gulnoza Said, a coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, which monitors press freedoms abroad. “But with these very serious charges, it is clear that any foreign correspondent could be a victim.”
“The situation was frozen,” she added, “and now it got worse. Everybody working in Russia knew it may happen, but everyone was hoping it would not.”
Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison under Russia’s criminal code. Espionage trials in the country can take months and are typically conducted in secret. Acquittals are virtually unheard-of.
Photos and video appeared to show Gershkovich exiting a court building in Moscow on Thursday afternoon with a jacket hood over his head. He pleaded not guilty to espionage charges, Russian state news agency Tass reported.
The Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich in a photograph dated July 2021. The Journal called him a “trusted and dedicated reporter.”Turkey has the support of Hungary in opposing Sweden’s bid. The Hungarian leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has warm relations with Putin.
A statement on Wednesday from a Hungarian government spokesperson, Zoltan Kovacs, said Hungary does not support the Swedish bid because of Sweden’s “openly hostile stance toward” Hungary and Turkey. The Hungarian government understands why Sweden seeks to be a part of the alliance, Kovacs said, but “there is an ample amount of grievances that need to be addressed before the country’s admission is ratified.”
This month during a visit to Turkey, President Sauli Niinisto of Finland said that Finland’s membership “is not complete without Sweden.” But for Finland to reject joining NATO until Sweden is also approved would be politically difficult and strategically risky, and Swedish leaders have made it clear they would continue to pursue membership on their own.
including 700 Howitzer guns, 700 heavy mortar and 100 rocket launcher systems, according to an analysis by the Wilson Center, a research organization.
A major designer of icebreaker ships, Finland will also play a significant role conducting maritime operations in the increasingly contested Arctic region, officials said.
Finland, long known for such insistent nonalignment that “Finlandization” became synonymous with neutrality, signaled that Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine in February 2022 could change the minds of most Finns.
Finland has a complicated, violent history with Russia. After losing the Winter War, Finland relinquished some territory and agreed to remain formally neutral throughout the Cold War.
By CARLY OLSON, STEVEN ERLANGER and ERIC SCHMITTTurkey’s parliament was expected to ratify Finland’s bid to join NATO on Thursday, removing the Nordic nation’s last obstacle toward membership and sharply enlarging the alliance’s border with Russia.
Less than two weeks ago, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey gave assurances that Ankara would ratify Finland’s bid. “We decided to start the ratification process in our parliament for Finland’s membership,” Erdogan said at a news conference in the Turkish capital.
For Finland to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after decades of military nonalignment would be a major shift in the balance of power in the region between the West and Russia, adding another alliance member on Russia’s border.
It would also hand a significant diplomatic and strategic defeat to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who made it clear before invading Ukraine last year that he intended to block NATO’s eastward expansion.
Instead, his invasion convinced Finnish and Swedish leaders that there was no real security guarantee for them outside NATO.
Finland shares the longest border with Russia of any European Union nation — more than 800 miles — and has a history of resisting Moscow’s hegemony, having fiercely fought the Soviet Union during the Winter War in 1939, at the beginning of World War II.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Finland did not shrink its military, and 10 months ago, it was Finland that persuaded Sweden that the two countries should apply to NATO together.
But Erdogan made it clear that Turkey was leaving Sweden on the sidelines for now. He has blocked the Swedish application, claiming that Sweden has become a haven for Kurdish separatists and other dissidents he considers terrorists. Stockholm has made efforts to placate him, including a new anti-terrorism law, but the measures have not swayed the Turkish leader.
Ratification by the Turkish parliament would be the final major step for Finland’s ascension into the military alliance. After the vote is taken, an acceptance letter will be sent to the United States to be filed at the State Department alongside Finland’s acceptance letters from other countries, according to NATO’s website.
The United States is the depository of NATO under the alliance’s founding treaty. The State Department will then notify NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that the conditions have been met for Finland to become a member of NATO.
Accepting a new member into the alliance requires unanimous agreement by all 30 member countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Hungary approved Finland’s bid on Monday, leaving consent from Turkey as the last one needed.
Finland’s ascension to NATO would add one of Western Europe’s most potent wartime militaries to the alliance as well as intelligence and border-surveillance abilities tailored over decades to the threat posed by Russia, U.S. officials said.
The number of active-duty military personnel in Finland’s defense forces is a modest 23,000 troops, but its wartime strength can grow quickly to 280,000 forces because of an extensive conscription system that can mobilize up to nearly 1 million troops.
“Geographically, their addition to the alliance adds a huge, difficult-to-defend border that complicates Putin’s calculus,” James G. Stavridis, a retired four-star U.S. admiral and former top NATO military commander, said in an email. “A huge plus for NATO.”
Finland’s artillery forces, for instance, are the largest and best equipped in Western Europe — with some 1,500 artillery weapons,
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Finland moved to join the European Union in 1992, becoming a member in 1995, while remaining militarily nonaligned and maintaining working relations with Moscow.
Finland joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program along with Sweden in 1994 and moved ever closer to the alliance without joining it. Until now.
The declaration by Finland’s leaders last year that they would join NATO — with expectations that neighboring Sweden would soon do the same — quickly reshaped the potential strategic balance in Europe that had prevailed for decades.
Public opinion in the country shifted significantly after Russia invaded Ukraine: Within months, nearly 80% of Finland’s citizens expressed support for joining NATO, compared with some 20% before the war.
It was also an example of how Putin’s war aims have backfired. Instead of weakening NATO, the Russian leader has united the alliance and prompted a new expansion on Russia’s doorstep.
Mexican officials earlier this week announced that they were investigating a fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez as a homicide case, saying that government workers and private security employees had not allowed detainees to escape from the blaze that killed at least 39 people.
Authorities, in a news conference, said they had identified eight suspects, including federal and state agents, and would issue four arrest warrants Wednesday.
“None of the public servants, nor the private security guards, took any action to open the door for the migrants who were inside where the fire was,” said Sara Irene Herrerías Guerra, a top federal human rights prosecutor.
The announcement came after a video emerged appearing to show that the migrants had been trapped when the fire broke out Monday. Uniformed figures at the center can be seen walking away from the blaze while people remain behind bars as the area fills with smoke.
Authorities said they might also investigate one migrant suspected of starting the fire.
“Our country’s immigration policy is one of respect for human rights,” said Rosa Icela Rodríguez, the government’s secretary of security. “This unfortunate event, which is the responsibility of public servants and guards who have been identified, is not the policy of our country.”
It was a striking development in a case that has drawn intense scrutiny to the Mexican government’s handling of the surge of migrants flowing into the country over the past year, seeking to enter the United States.
Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, has long prided itself on absorb-
ing waves of newcomers, many from Mexico who come to work in factories and others from across Latin America who stop on their way to the United States.
But what used to be a transit point for U.S.bound migrants has turned into a hub for those who believe they have no choice but to stay — either after being sent back by U.S. authorities or while waiting to apply to enter legally.
At intersections across the city, groups of migrants can be seen asking for money. Some hold up cardboard signs pleading for help. Others sell food out of coolers.
Many sleep in abandoned construction sites or anywhere else they can find on the streets in this Mexican city, draped in blankets
and ragged sleeping bags.
“Help us eat and to not sleep in the street,” read a sign held by Vicleikis Muñoz, 20, a Venezuelan woman in downtown Juárez who was eight months pregnant and traveling with her two children, 5 and 3.
“We survive from asking for money,” she said Wednesday. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
Migrants have tried to cross the border en masse, a move that has frustrated many residents who legally cross daily into El Paso to work. The mayor of Ciudad Juárez vowed a crackdown, while rights groups denounced abuses by authorities.
Those simmering tensions came into sharp relief Monday night, when the fire burned through the detention center, which is federally operated. The Mexican president said migrants had started the blaze during a protest, suggesting they were angry because they had found out they would be deported.
Viangly Infante Padrón, a Venezuelan migrant who has been in Ciudad Juárez since December, said authorities picked up her husband Monday afternoon and took him to the detention center.
She went there that day to try to get him out, and waited inside until about 9:30 p.m., when she heard a commotion coming from where she believed the men were being held.
“I heard kicks and screams,” Infante Padrón said in an interview, adding that she heard one migration official say, “Take the women out.” Before she was whisked outside, she begged of-
ficials to free the men.
“I started crying and I said: ‘How is it that they’re burning? Why are you not opening the door?’” Infante Padrón said. “They never opened the door for him, nothing.” She said she waited outside for 15 minutes before firefighters arrived and started removing bodies. Her husband, she said, is now in the hospital.
Standing outside a local school Wednesday, the mayor of Ciudad Juárez, Cruz Pérez Cuéllar, defended the city government’s treatment of migrants.
“We are being called xenophobic and racist,” he said. “This is a completely open government, and there is no xenophobia on our part. We are a city of migrants.”
Analysts said a turning point for Ciudad Juárez came after President Joe Biden, facing relentless Republican attacks over the surge in migration over the summer, announced a new policy intended to curb the record levels of illegal border crossings.
U.S. border officials had been seeing an explosion in crossings by Venezuelans, who could not be deported by U.S. authorities because of strained relations with Venezuela.
In October, the Biden administration struck a deal with Mexico intended to blunt the influx: The United States could expel Venezuelans to Mexico in exchange for creating legal pathways for them to pass into the United States.
The number of Venezuelans crossing the border illegally dropped within days. The Biden administration saw this as so successful that it negotiated another deal with Mexico to expand the agreement to include Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans — populations who similarly could not be easily expelled to their home countries.
But Ciudad Juárez soon started to see larger numbers of Venezuelans and others gathering in the streets, residents and analysts say. Many were in limbo — it was futile to try to cross into the United States because of the new policy, but they did not want to go home.
So they stayed.
The strain in Ciudad Juárez has been mirrored across the north of Mexico, current and former officials say, as the Biden administration has made changes in its border policies.
“We do not have the capabilities to deal with this amount of migrants,” said Martha Bárcena, who was the Mexican ambassador to the United States from December 2018 to February 2021.
The fire, Bárcena added, “should make Mexico and the U.S. aware that the measures that have been agreed on are not working and they are causing terrible tragedies.”
The government benefits began their existence as objects of partisan rancor and harsh criticism. Eventually, though, they became so popular that politicians of both parties promised to protect them.
It was true of Social Security and Medicare. And now the pattern seems to be repeating itself with Obamacare.
Consider what has happened recently in North Carolina: Only a decade after the state’s Republican politicians described the law as dangerous and refused to sign up for its expansion of Medicaid, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass such an expansion. The Republicancontrolled House in North Carolina passed the bill 87-24, while the Republican-controlled Senate passed it 44-2.
“Wow, have things changed,” Jonathan Cohn wrote in a HuffPost piece explaining how the turnabout happened.
Obamacare — the country’s largest expansion of health insurance since Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 — is still not as widely accepted as those programs. North Carolina became the 40th state to agree to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, which means that 10 states still have not, including two of the largest, Texas and Florida. In those states, more than 3.5 million adults lack health insurance as a result.
But the list of states signing up for the program seems to be moving in only one direction: It keeps growing.
‘Humiliation’
In its growing acceptance, Obamacare resembles other major parts of the federal safety net:
— When Congress was considering Social Security in 1935, conservatives and many business executives bitterly criticized it. One Texas newspaper described Social Security as “a huge sales tax on everybody on behalf of the oldsters.” A Wall Street Journal editorial predicted that the law would eventually be reason for Congress to look back in “humiliation.” Not exactly: Social Security is so popular that it is known as a third rail in American politics.
— When Congress was debating Medicare in the 1960s, Ronald Reagan — then an actor with a rising political profile — attacked the program as a step toward socialism. If it passed, Reagan warned, “We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.” As president, Reagan praised and supported the program.
— After Congress created Medicaid — a healthinsurance program primarily for low-income households — in 1965, some states did not initially join it. Arizona became the last to do so, in 1982.
Roberts
and McCainIn the initial years after Obamacare’s passage in 2010, it was similarly divisive. Blue states embraced it, while many red states rejected its voluntary Medicaid expansion. In Washington, congressional Republicans and Donald Trump tried to repeal it. Some Republican-appointed judges invalidated parts of it, and every Republican appointee on the Supreme Court except Chief Justice John Roberts voted to scrap the law.
Twice, it survived by a single vote — first, by Roberts’ 2012 Supreme Court vote, and then by Sen. John McCain’s late-night vote against its repeal in 2017. Since then, however, Obamacare has been gaining Republican support.
The next year, voters in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah — red states, all — passed ballot initiatives expanding Medicaid. Oklahoma, Missouri and South Dakota have since done so. Montana’s state legislature has also approved an expansion.
In 2019, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, narrowly won election in a Republican state by pledging to protect an earlier Medicaid expansion. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper, also a Democrat, became governor in a 2016 upset partly by campaigning in favor of an expansion — and was able to sign one this week.
(Before it takes effect, Cooper and the legislature must agree on a state budget.)
These developments are a sign of the law’s growing
popularity. And that popularity isn’t especially mysterious: In a country with high levels of economic inequality and large numbers of people without health insurance, Obamacare has increased taxes on the affluent to subsidize health care for poor and middle-class families. At root, it is an effort to reduce inequality.
Even with its flaws — including its often complicated process for signing up for insurance — the law has achieved many of its aims. The number of Americans without health insurance has plummeted. In states that have refused the Medicaid expansion, by contrast, rural hospitals are struggling even more than elsewhere because they do not receive the law’s subsidies for care.
Greenwood Leflore Hospital — in the Mississippi Delta — is an example. It recently closed its intensivecare unit and maternity ward, as The New York Times’ Sharon LaFraniere has reported. Nationwide, states that did not quickly accept Medicaid expansion have accounted for almost three-quarters of rural hospital closures between 2010 and 2021, according to the American Hospital Association.
Similar problems in North Carolina were a reason that Republicans there reconsidered their opposition to Medicaid expansion. “We had these people coming down to Raleigh, farmers, business owners, people from rural areas, they were advocating, telling stories,” one Republican state representative told HuffPost.
Many Republicans still oppose Obamacare, and some hard-right members of Congress also favor cuts to Medicaid — as well as to Medicare and Social Security. In a country as polarized as the United States, there isn’t much true political consensus. But Obamacare has won over the political middle more quickly than seemed likely not so long ago.
Gov. Roy Cooper in Raleigh, N.C.SAN JUAN – Los portavoces del Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP) en Cámara y Senado, Denis Márquez Lebrón y María de Lourdes Santiago Negrón sometieron el jueves, un referido al Departamento de Justicia, la Oficina del Contralor y otras entidades, en el que denuncian la supuesta comisión de múltiples violaciones de ley resultado de la privatización de los procesos de declaración de estorbos públicos y expropiación forzosa. “Además de la comisión de delitos y de fallas severas en el manejo de fondos públicos, hay que plantearse cómo la privatización de estos procesos, en lugar de contribuir al grave problema que vemos en todo el país, de casas sin gente y gente sin casa, se ha convertido en una oportunidad comercial que sólo añade a las sombras sobre las administraciones municipales”, indicó Santiago Negrón en declaraciones escritas. Ambos legisladores explicaron que el Código Municipal permite que los municipios identifiquen aquellas propiedades que por sus condiciones de ruina y aban-
dono son perjudiciales a la salud o la seguridad y que, si las mismas no son reparadas por sus dueños, se declaren estorbos públicos. El Municipio puede entonces intervenir, realizar la limpieza y reparaciones a su costo e imponer multas, y luego disponer de la propiedad mediante ejecución de la hipoteca legal que se constituye como medida para el cobro de los gastos incurridos, las multas y las contribuciones adeudadas, o puede recurrir a otro mecanismo disponible en el Código Municipal, mediante el cual una persona o entidad que interese adquirir un estorbo público le entrega al municipio una suma equivalente al valor de tasación más una porción adicional para gastos, y el municipio consigna ese dinero en el Tribunal, para iniciar un proceso de expropiación forzosa.
Una vez el municipio es declarado dueño del inmueble lo vende a la persona interesada. En los últimos años, unos 23 municipios han privatizado estas funciones, a través de contratos con la compañía Universal Properties Realty Government Services y en el caso de Caguas, también con el bufete Francis & Gueits.
SAN JUAN – La Oficina del Contralor Electoral (OCE), presentó el jueves ante la legislatura propuestas de enmienda a la Ley para la Fiscalización del Financiamiento de Campañas (Ley 222-2011). Las referidas enmiendas buscan atacar el efecto adverso que tiene el inversionismo político y sus consecuencias en la transparencia de las elecciones y la ética de la administración pública.
“La OCE ha identificado instancias en que la Ley 2222011 deja flancos abiertos que obran contra la transparencia y legitimidad que requiere el financiamiento de campañas electorales y que permiten la entrada de actos de corrupción. Algunas de las enmiendas que estamos presentando en el día de hoy ya habían sido radicadas ante la Legislatura y nos encontramos optimistas en que
va a existir la voluntad y el interés de evaluar las mismas en beneficio del pueblo de Puerto Rico”, expresó el Contralor Electoral, Walter Vélez Martínez.
Entre las enmiendas incluidas en el anteproyecto se encuentra limitar la cantidad anual de donativos en efectivo, giros, cheques bancarios, cheques de gerente o de viajero que un comité podrá recibir de un donante a $250.00; regular los donativos de contratistas gubernamentales; requerir que los Pacs y Super Pacs que hacen gastos en Puerto Rico se registren ante la OCE y rindan informes independientemente de su jurisdicción de origen; requerir que los informes de ingresos y gastos se presenten cada dos meses y en el año que se celebren elecciones generales, mensualmente; aumentar los términos prescriptivos de los delitos electorales de 5 a 7 años; establecer que en el caso de los aspirantes y candidatos a gobernador el total de donativos anónimos que
Por su parte, Márquez Lebrón expresó que “las agencias de gobierno a las que referimos este escandaloso esquema tienen la obligación de investigar todos y cada uno de los aspectos que hemos señalado en nuestro referido, la posible comisión de delitos, las violaciones al debido proceso de ley y las violaciones a leyes que rigen estos procesos. De lo contrario, estarán renunciando a su obligación frente a todo el país”.
podrá recaudar no podrá exceder de $300,000 anuales.
Además, se incluyen enmiendas para proveer acceso directo a la OCE a las cuentas bancarias de los comités políticos, a fin de ver las transacciones en tiempo real; facultar a la OCE a emitir órdenes de embargo, retención y descuento para obtener el pago de multas; requerir que se mantengan récords con la identidad de los recaudadores y relacionando cada donativo a su recaudador y tipificar como delito el brindar información falsa a la OCE y al comité de finanzas de los comités políticos, entre otras enmiendas.
“Resulta medular que las reglas o controles se apliquen en la práctica. Controles, que estén respaldados por sanciones creíbles y por autoridades dotadas de la autonomía necesaria y de los recursos legales, financieros y humanos para hacerlos valer”, concluyó Vélez Martínez.
radica ante la Legislatura anteproyecto de Ley que busca fortalecer la Ley sobre el Financiamiento de Campañas Políticas
Legisladores del PIP refieren supuestas ilegalidades en privatización de procesos de estorbos públicos y expropiaciones forzosas en los municipiosS AN JUAN – El Negociado del Cuerpo de Bomberos extinguió en la tarde del jueves un fuego reportado en el techo de la Plaza del Mercado en Río Piedras. El lugar fue desalojado y no se reportaron personas heridas. Personal de Manejo de Emergencias de San Juan junto al Negociado de la Policía atendieron la emergencia. Bomberos culminan incendio en techo de Plaza del Mercado en Río Piedras
By LINDSAY ZOLADZ
“Iwrote you a note, but I didn’t send it,” Lana Del Rey sings on her rangy ninth album, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” — a 16-song, 78-minute collection as sprawling, hypnotic and incorrigibly American as an interstate highway.
Many of the tracks have the run-on, handwritten feel of letters never mailed, and this particular one, the fluttering piano ballad “Sweet,” is addressed to a paramour who seems unwilling to go as deep as the 37-year-old Del Rey. “Lately we’ve been making out a lot,” she sings, spinning her signature, soft-serve swirl of the sacred and profane, “not talking ’bout the stuff that’s at the very heart of things.”
More than any of its predecessors, this Del Rey album is about the very heart of things. Its themes and lyrical preoccupations are philosophical and weighty: the existence of God; the afterlife; the precise moment the soul leaves the body; the concessions of marriage and motherhood; fate; familial bonds; and, on the strikingly melancholy centerpiece “Fingertips,” recent scientific progress into the attainment of eternal life. “God, if
you’re near me, send me three white butterflies,” she sings three-quarters into the LP, in a voice that’s almost childlike in its surging sincerity. Throughout “Ocean Blvd,” an artist who arrived on the scene sounding like a nihilist is now searching and sincerely selfscrutinizing, sending earnest questions into a possible void.
The album’s title itself suggests hidden depths beneath picturesque surfaces — something Del Rey knows a thing or two about. When she debuted with the 2011 viral hit “Video Games” and an awkward, excessively maligned “Saturday Night Live” performance, the musician born Elizabeth Grant was dismissed by some skeptics as nothing more than a pretty face, all retro artifice and pouty pastiche. But as she’s sharpened her pencil, most powerfully on the eerie 2014 LP “Ultraviolence” and her sublime 2019 album “Norman _____ Rockwell!,” Del Rey has proved to be an expert chronicler of her own interiority as well as a larger, more diffuse cultural subconscious. Del Rey, at her best, has a finger not just on the pulse, but somewhere beneath the flesh.
And she is occasionally at her best here. “Ocean Blvd” is Del Rey’s strongest
Continues on page 18
and most daring album since “Rockwell,” though it’s also marked by uneven pacing and occasional overindulgence. On an excellent four-song opening stretch, Del Rey establishes the album’s unhurried pace and her connection to that fabled tunnel, a sealed-up, subterranean bit of West Coast architecture — one of the few places in California where the sun can’t shine. “I can’t help but feel somewhat like my body marred my soul,” Del Rey croons on the mournful, gorgeously stringkissed title track.
A few songs later, on the shape-shifting nightmare “A&W,” she finds an even darker line of inquiry: “Look at my hair, look at the length of it and the shape of my body,” she sings atop a droning, monotonous chord progression that conjures early Cat Power. “If I told you that I was raped, do you really think that anybody would think I didn’t ask for it?” The line is more shocking for the vaporous, ultra-femme falsetto in which she delivers it — as if the ballerina inside a music box opened her mouth and sang.
Part of the thrill of Del Rey’s music is the sense that she can and will say absolutely anything, regardless of who it may offend. She makes a somewhat clumsy admission of her own white privilege on “Grandfather Please Stand on the Shoulders of My Father While He’s Deep-Sea Fishing”: “I’m blue, I’m green, regrettably also a white woman/But I have good intentions even if I’m one of the last ones.” The line is complicated by the fact that, save for her brief forays into hip-hop
is more conversant with Black music than any other entry in her discography. Gospel is a particular touchstone. Some of the first voices heard on the record are Melodye Perry and Pattie Howard, onetime backing singers for Whitney Houston; later, jazz musician Jon Batiste accompanies Del Rey on the pirouetting duet “Candy Necklaces” and stays, to testify, on a fiery three-minute interlude.
At this unfettered stage in her career, Del Rey’s music is driven by a tension between freedom and structure; her greatest material finds its quivering equilibrium. Two six-minute compositions in the middle of “Ocean Blvd,” though, test the limits of Del Rey’s penchant for free verse. “Kintsugi,” an aching meditation on the deaths of several family members, mostly works; it’s discursive and diaristic, but a repeated refrain borrowed from Leonard Cohen (“that’s how the light gets in”) is an effective anchor. “Fingertips,” despite containing some of the record’s most piercing lyrics, simply drifts. The return of meter, on the elegant “Paris, Texas,” comes as a relief.
Partly based on a piano-driven instrumental track by indie composer SYML, “Paris, Texas” is one of 11 songs that Del Rey co-produced with Jack Antonoff, who has become a trusted collaborator. A handful of songs also evolved out of
the time, film producer and amateur guitarist Mike Hermosa, recorded on his phone; a few of them (“Peppers,” “Let the Light In”) have a playful, flirtatious feel. (“When we broke up,” Del Rey said in a recent Rolling Stone U.K. interview, “I was like, ‘You know at some point we’re going to talk about the fact that you have half of this album.’” He is credited as a writer on five songs.)
“Ocean Blvd” closes with a trio of those lighter and more irreverent tracks that stray from the heart of things, giving the album’s concluding moments the sense of a cosmic shrug: “Get high, drop acid, never die,” she sings in responses on the final track. But she also seems to have embraced the more superficial pleasures of gaudy, earthly delights. “Peppers” is at once inane and irresistible (“me and my boyfriend listen to the Chili Peppers”). Del Rey has asked God for guidance and accepted Anthony Kiedis’ scat-nonsense as the answer. What could be more Californian than that?
That three-song suite that concludes “Ocean Blvd” can certainly feel like an anti-climax, or a retreat from the existential questions posed in its opening movement. But it’s also a perfect distillation of the duality that makes Del Rey’s 21stcentury siren songs so singular. Nine albums into her career, she has become a musical mermaid, capable of breathing as
Part of the thrill of Del Rey’s music is the sense that she can and will say absolutely anything.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA WIDALYS
GARCIA CALDERÓN Peticionaria
EX-PARTE
Civil Núm.: CA2022CV01114.
Sala: 407. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA,EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.
A: ANGEL LUIS CALDERÓN LACEND; MARIA CRISTINA
CALDERÓN LACEND; ADA MINERVA CALDERÓN LACEND.
Por Ia presente se notifica que Ia parte peticionaria, Widalys Y. Garcia Calderón, ha presentado una petición para que se declare a su favor el dominio de Ia siguiente finca: RÚSTICA:
Predio de terreno localizado en Barrio Carruzo, Sector Eliseo Pagán, Carretera Número 8856, Km 1.3 Interior del Municipio de Carolina, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 1,649.2266 metros cuadrados, equivalentes a 0.4196 cuerdas de terreno. En lindes por el Norte en varias alineaciones que sumadas totalizan 70,636.575 metros con Camino Municipal, por el Sur en una distancia de 84.783 metros con Javier Pérez, por el Este en dos alienaciones que suman 18,267 metros con Javier Pérez y por el Oeste en 19,745 metros con Sucesión Juan Velázquez.”
Enclava una casa dedicada a vivienda familiar construida en cemento hormigón Este Tribunal ordenó que se publique por tres veces durante el término de veinte días en un periódico de circulación general diaria para que los que tengan algún derecho real sobre el inmueble descrito, las personas ignoradas a quienes pueda perjudicar Ia inscripción y en general a todos los que desearen oponerse puedan efectuarlo dentro del término de veinte días a partir de Ia última publicación del presente edicto. La abogada de Ia peticionanIa Ia es Ia LCDA.
ADRÍN I. PÉREZ GARCÍA, 72
Calle Calderón Mujica, Canóvanas, Puerto Rico 00729. Dada en Carolina, Puerto Rico a 13 de marzo de 2023. LCDA. MA-
RILYN APONTE RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL.
RUTH M. COLÓN LUCIANO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO. BANESCO USA, Plaintiff, v. CENTRO
DEL CARIBE, INC.; LABORATORIO CLÍNICO EL CENTRO, INC.; OFICINAS DEL CENTRO, INC.; PUERTO RICO INSTITUTE OF PATHOLOGY, INC.; ELIUD LÓPEZ VÉLEZ; CRISTINA GÓMEZ D’ANGELO; ARMANDO TROCHE OLIVIERI; HIS WIFE KATHERINE DÁVILA MORALES; AND THEIR CONJUGAL LEGAL PARTNERSHIP, Defendants
Case No. 19-1697 (PAD). NOTICE OF SALE. TO: DEFENDANTS AND GENERAL PUBLIC
On February 1, 2022, the Court entered Judgment in favor of plaintiff, Banesco USA (“Banesco”) and against defendants, Centro Citopatológico del Caribe, Inc.; Oficinas del Centro, Inc.; Puerto Rico Institute of Pathology, Inc.; Eliud López Vélez; and Cristina Gómez D’Angelo; (“Defendants”). As of February 27, 2020, Defendants owe Banesco the total amount of $1,380,025.92 consisting of $974,721.66 of principal, plus interest at a rate of $216.54 per diem. The interest continues to accrue until the debt is paid in full. Defendants also owe Banesco accrued late charges and any other advance, charge, fee or disbursements made by Banesco on behalf of Defendants, in accordance with the mortgage deeds, plus costs, charges and disbursements, expenses, plus the amount of $220,550.00 in attorneys’ fees. The amounts owed by codefendant Centro Citopatológico will be satisfied only with the proceedings obtained from the judicial sale of the property. The amounts owed by codefendant Centro Citopatológico del Caribe, Inc. will be satisfied only with the proceedings obtained from the judicial sale of the properties.
Pursuant to said judgment and/or 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, 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: PROPERTY H: URBAN: HORIZONTAL PROPERTY: Apartment No.602 of PELICAN REEF CONDOMINIUM, Apartment Building, located in Corsica ward, of the municipality of Rincón, Puerto Rico. This apartment is built in reinforced concrete. Single level, with its entrance door from the exterior corridor by the east boundary, and that goes to the corridor that leads to the lobby of elevators and stairs by which you reach the first level of the building and from there to the parking building. This apartment has a total area of approximately 715.32 square feet, equivalent to 66.4554 square meters. In boundaries by the NORTH, in 33’9” equivalent to 10.29 meters, with dividing wall that separates it from apartment 603; by the SOUTH, in 33’9” equivalent to 10.29 meters, with a dividing wall that separates it from apartment 601 and the exterior corridor that is a common area; by the EAST, in 30’0” equivalent to 9.14 meters, with dividing wall that separates it from the exterior corridor that is common area; and by the WEST, in 30’0” equivalent to 9.14 meters, with dividing wall that separates it from apartment 603 and with railing that separates it from the common exterior area. This apartment consists: entrance hall, kitchen with closet for laundry equipment, living room, balcony, linen closet, bathroom and master bedroom with closet. This apartment corresponds to parking No.81 on the first level of the parking lot in front of the apartment building.
Percentage: 1.5440% in the common elements of the Condominium. The property described above is recorded at page 119 of volume 161 of Rincón, property number 8,155, Registry of Property, Section of Aguadilla. The property is subject to the following liens: By its origin: Easement in favor of Autoridad de Fuentes Fluviales. By itself:
MORTGAGE in guarantee of note in favor of Popular Mortgage, or to its order, in the principal amount of $189,190.00, with a annual interest rate of 5 7/8% and due on July 1, 2035, as per Deed No. 299, executed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on June 30, 2005, before Notary
Public Namyr I. Hernández Sánchez, recorded at page 119 of volume 161 of Rincón, 2nd inscription. At entry 900 of journal 861, on January 21, 2015,
Deed #3 was presented, executed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on January 28, 2013, before the Notary Public Mayra Rotger Meléndez, through which appeared Alejo Edgar Nery Beyer, t/c/c Edgar Alejo Nery Beyer, Edgar Nery Beyer and Edgar Nery Beijer, single; and María Cristina GÓMEZ D’Angelo, t/c/c Cristina Gómez D’Angelo, Cristina Gómez Nery and Doctor Cristina Nery, single, whose marriage was declared broken and dissolved by Judgment of December 6, 2012, followed in the Court of First Instance, Superior Chamber of San Juan, in Civil Case #KDI2012-1470, which is attached. Alejo Edgar Nery Beyer sells his participation in favor of María Cristina Gómez D’Angelo for the price of $20,000.00. In entry 901 of journal 861, on January 21, 2015, deed #20 was presented, executed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on October 31, 2014, before the Notary Rafael L. Rovira Arbona, through the which appears Cristina Gómez D’Angelo, t/c/c Cristina Gómez Nery, single, to establish a Mortgage as collateral for a promissory note in favor of Banesco USA, or at its order, for the principal sum of $172,500.00, with interest at 12% per year and due on presentation. BANESCO USA Bank is holder by endorsement of the promissory note of $189,190.00 and POSTPONES said debt to the one hereby constituted; attesting the notary to add an “allonge”. At entry 2022-052206-AG01 on April 22, 2022, Order and Writ Attachment dated April 21, 2022 was filed in civil case #19-1697 (PAD) in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. Plaintiff Banesco USA; Defendant: Caribbean Cytopathological Center Inc. Amount claimed: $1,380,025.92. 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 the Order and Writ of Attachment over the property, and for the purposes of the first judicial sale the minimum bid amount is the amount of $172,500.00. Said sale to be made by the appoin-
ted 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 April 21st, 2023, at 10:30 a.m., in the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Federal Building, 350 Chardon 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. 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 3rd day of March, 2023. Aguedo de la Torre, Appointed Special Master.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS SALA SUPERIOR BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Parte Demandante Vs. LA SUCESIÓN DE REYNALDO TORRES CINTRÓN T/C/C REINALDO TORRES CINTRÓN COMPUESTA POR LIZBETH CINTRÓN, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA REPRESENTADO POR EL SECRETARIO DE LA VIVIENDA Y DESARROLLO URBANO (HUD)
Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: CG2022CV00534. (705). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO, EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente anuncia y hace constar que en cumplimiento
de la Sentencia dictada el 4 de agosto de 2022 y notificada el 23 de diciembre de 2023, la Orden de Ejecución de Sentencia del 14 de febrero de 2023 y el Mandamiento de Ejecución del 16 de febrero de 2023 en el caso de epígrafe, procederé a vender el 2 DE MAYO DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina, localizada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Centro Judicial de Caguas, Sala Superior, en la Carretera Número Uno (#1), Intersección con la Número 189, Kilómetro 0.4, Barrio Bairoa, (Entrada Norte Pueblo de Caguas), Caguas, Puerto Rico, al mejor postor en pago de contado y en moneda de los Estados Unidos de América todo título, derecho o interés de la parte demandada sobre la siguiente propiedad: URBANA: Solar marcado con el Número Treinta y uno (31) del Bloque “LL” de la Urbanización denominada Bonneville Heights, Sección Dos B del término Municipal de Caguas, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 315.075 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE: 12.603 metros, con la Calle Número Treinta y Dos (32); por el SUR: en 12.603 metros, con los Solares Números Cincuenta y siete (57) y Cincuenta y Ocho (58); por el ESTE: en 25.00 metros, con el Solar Número Treinta (30); por el OESTE: en 25.00 metros con el Solar Número Treinta y dos (32). Enclava una casa de hormigón armado compuesta de sala, comedor, cocina, marquesina, balcón, tres dormitorios y un baño. Inscrita al folio 78 del tomo 815 de Caguas, Finca 26837, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. La escritura de hipoteca consta inscrita al folio 1 del tomo 1572 de Caguas, Finca Número 26837, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. Inscripción novena (9na). La escritura de modificación de hipoteca consta inscrita al tomo Karibe de Caguas, Finca 26837, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. Inscripción Duodécima (12ma). Dirección Física: Urb. Bonneville Valley, 24 Calle Corpus Christi (Solar 31 del Bloque LL), Caguas, PR 00727-4814. Número de Catastro: 46-225-053-92631-001. El tipo mínimo para la primera subasta será de $98,201.00. De no haber adjudicación en la primera subasta se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA, el día 9 DE MAYO DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA en el mismo lugar, en la cual el tipo mínimo será de dos terceras partes del tipo mínimo fijado en la primera subasta, o sea, $65,467.33. De
no haber adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 16 DE MAYO DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA en el mismo lugar, en la cual el tipo mínimo será la mitad del precio pactado, o sea, $49,100.50. 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 ésta es mayor. Dicho remate se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a la demandante el importe de la Sentencia por la suma de $91,144.00 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 4% anual desde el 1 de noviembre de 2020 hasta su completo pago, más $285.77 recargos acumulados, más la cantidad estipulada de $9,820.10 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo. Surge del Estudio de Título Registral que sobre esta propiedad pesan los siguientes gravámenes posteriores a la hipoteca que por la presente se pretende ejecutar:
a. Hipoteca: Constituida por persona jurídica no expresada, en garantía a un pagaré a favor de Secretary of Housing and Urban Development of the United States, o a su orden, por la suma de $9,738.00 sin intereses y vencedero el 1 de febrero de 2032, según consta de la escritura #47, otorgada en San Juan, el 29 de febrero de 2008, ante el notario Hiram Rodríguez García, inscrita como asiento abreviado al folio 2541 del tomo 1793 de Caguas, finca #26837, Inscripción Décima (10ma). b. Aviso de Demanda: Pleito seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico Vs. La Sucesión de Reynaldo Torres Cintrón también conocido como Reinaldo Torres Cintrón, compuesta por Lizbeth Cintrón, Fulano y Mengano de Tal, Estados Unidos de América, representado por el Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano (HUD), ante el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Caguas, en el Caso Civil Número CG2022CV00534 sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca en la que se reclama el pago de hipoteca con un balance de $91,144.00 y otras cantidades, según Demanda de fecha 24 de febrero de 2022. Inscrita al Tomo Karibe de Caguas. Anotación B. Se notifica al acreedor posterior o a su sucesor o cesionario en derecho para que comparezca
a proteger su derecho si así lo deseaba. Se les advierte a los interesados que todos los documentos relacionados con la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como los de Subasta, estarán disponibles para ser examinados, durante horas laborables, en el expediente del caso que obra en los archivos de la Secretaría del Tribunal, bajo el número de epígrafe y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general en Puerto Rico por espacio de dos semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana; y para su fijación en los sitios públicos requeridos por ley. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante, continuarán subsistentes; entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate y que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores tal como lo expresa la Ley Núm. 210-2015. Y para el conocimiento de los demandados, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, EXPIDO para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes, el presente Aviso de Pública Subasta en Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy 10 de marzo de 2023. ALEJANDRO L. URBINA ROQUE, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #997, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS, SALA SUPERIOR.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO
WILMINGTON SAVINGS FUND SOCIETY, FSB, NOT INDIVIDUALLY BUT SOLELY AS TRUSTEE FOR FINANCE OF AMERICA STRUCTURED SECURITIES
ACQUISITION TRUST
2019-HB1
Demandante Vs.
SUCESION AUREA
BASILISA LUGO URRUTIA
T/C/C AUREA B. LUGO
URRUTIA T/C/C AUREA
LUGO URRUTIA T/C/C
AUREA BASILISA LUGO
T/C/C AUREA LUGO
DE CHRISTIAN T/C/C
AUREA
L. DE CHRISTIAN
compone de un primer principal por la suma de $30,257.30 y un principal diferido por la suma de $1,362.96, más los intereses calculados sobre la suma de $30,257.30 a razón de 9.50% annual, desde el primero de diciembre de 2021, más las primas de seguro hipotecario, y riesgo, recargos por demora computados al 5% sobre cada mensualidad adeudada; más costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado hasta la suma pactada de $5,200.00, y cualesquiera otras sumas que por cualesquiera concepto legal se devenguen hasta el día de la subasta. La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue: UR-
BANA: Parcela marcada con el número doscientos setenta y uno (271) guión “A” en el plano de parcelación de la comunidad rural Buenaventura del Barrio Hoyo Mulas del término municipal de Carolina, con una cabida superficial de trescientos veintinueve punto noventa y seis (329.96) metros cuadrados, en lindes por el Norte, con la calle Clavel; por el Sur, con propiedad de Andrés Maeso; por el Este, con parcela doscientos setenta (270) de la comunidad; y por el oeste, con la parcela número doscientos setenta y uno (271) de la comunidad. Inscrita al tomo móvil mil doscientos ochenta y cuatro (1284) de Carolina, finca número cincuenta y cuatro mil ochocientos cincuenta (54,850), Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, sección II. Dirección Física: 271A Calle Clavel, Buzón 417, Comm. Buenaventura, Barrio Hoyo Mulas, Carolina, PR 00987. Dicha propiedad se encuentra afecta al siguiente gravamen posterior: EMBARGO: Estados Unidos de América contra Miguel A. Santiago, por la suma de $9,533.89, notificación número 182305715, seguro social numero xxx-xx-8889, de fecha 28 de octubre de 2015, anotado al libro 8 folio 12 Asiento 1. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a cabo el día 4 DE MAYO DE 2023, A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, y servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la suma de $52,000.00 sin admitirse oferta inferior. En el caso de que el inmueble a ser subastado no fuera adjudicado en la primera subasta, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 11 DE MAYO DE 2023, A
LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA y el precio mínimo para esta segunda subasta será el de dos terceras partes del precio mínimo establecido para la primera subasta, o a sea la suma de $34,666.67. Si tampoco hubiera remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 18 DE MAYO DE 2023, A
LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA y el tipo mínimo para esta tercera subasta será la mitad del
precio establecido para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $26,000.00. El mejor postor deberá pagar el importe de su oferta en efecto, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se dará por terminado el procedimiento, pudiendo adjudicarse el inmueble al acreedor hipotecario dentro de los diez días siguientes a la fecha de la última subasta, si así lo estimase conveniente, por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada conforme a la sentencia, si ésta fuera igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta y abonándose dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta fuera mayor. Se avisa a cualquier licitador que la propiedad queda sujeta al gravamen del Estado Libre Asociado y CRIM sobre la propiedad inmueble por contribuciones adeudadas y que el pago de dichas contribuciones es la responsabilidad del licitador. Que se entenderá por todo licitador acepte como suficiente la titulación y que los cargos y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes en entendiéndose que el rematador los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse su extinción al precio rematante. Todos los nombres de 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 surgen 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. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Y para conocimiento de licitadores, del público en general y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general diaria en Puerto Rico y en los sitios públicos de acuerdo a las disposiciones de la Regla 51.7 de las de Procedimiento Civil, así como para la publicación en un periódico de circulación general diaria y en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas con antelación a la fecha de la primera subasta y por lo menos una vez por semana. Los autos y todos los documentos corres-
pondientes al procedimiento indicado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante las horas laborables.
(Art. 102 (1) de la Ley núm. 210-2015). Expedido el presente en Carolina, Puerto Rico a 20 de marzo de 2023. HÉCTOR L.
PEÑA RODRÍGUEZ, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE CAROLINA. ****
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE PONCE ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC
COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC
Parte Demandante Vs. DAVID O.
VÉLEZ SOTOMAYOR
Parte Demandada
Civil Núm.: PO2022CV02779. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.
A: DAVID O. VÉLEZ SOTOMAYOR - URB CASA MIA 4727
CALLE PITIRRE PONCE, PUERTO RICO 00728.
POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, el Lcdo. José F. Aguilar Vélez cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 ala dirección jose.aguilar@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO
MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Ponce, Puerto Rico, hoy día 16 de febrero de 2023. En Ponce, Puerto Rico, el 16 de febrero de 2023. CARMEN
TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. SANDRA GONZÁLEZ RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE PONCE ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC
COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC
Parte Demandante Vs. VERÓNICA A. VÁSQUEZ TORRES
Parte Demandada
Civil Núm.: PO2022CV02776. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.
A: VERÓNICA A. VÁSQUEZ TORRESURB COSTA SABANA 4949 PASEO VILA PONCE, PUERTO RICO 00716.
POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, el Lcdo. José F. Aguilar Vélez cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección jose.aguilar@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Ponce, Puerto Rico, hoy día 16 de febrero de 2023. En Ponce, Puerto Rico, el 16 de febrero de 2023. CARMEN TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. SANDRA GONZÁLEZ RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE PONCE ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC
Demandante Vs. RAMÓN L. SEGARRA APONTE
Demandado
Civil Núm.: PO2022CV02576. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.
A: RAMÓN L. SEGARRA APONTE - URB PEÑUELAS
VALLEY CALLE 1 NUM 8 PEÑUELAS, PUERTO RICO 00624 / PO BOX 800549 COTO LAUREL, PUERTO RICO 00780. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, el Lcdo. José F. Aguilar Vélez cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección jose.aguilar@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Ponce, Puerto Rico, hoy día 16 de febrero de 2023. En Ponce, Puerto Rico, el 16 de febrero de 2023. CARMEN TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. SANDRA GONZÁLEZ RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE TOA
ALTA
DIAZ; LA SUCESION DE NARCISO HUECA
NARVAEZ T/C/C HUECA
DIAZ, COMPUESTA POR EDWIN LUIS, NARCISO ANTONIO Y CARMEN MARIA HUECA
VAZQUEZ; HONORABLE SECRETARIO DEL DEPARTAMENTO DE HACIENDA DEL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO; HONORABLE SECRETARIO DEL DEPARTAMENTO DE JUSTICIA DEL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO
Demandado
Civil Núm.: TA2022CV01323.
Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y 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: SUCESION DE ENRIQUE NARCISO
HUECA DIAZ T/C/C
ENRIQUE HUECA
DIAZ, COMPUESTA
POR CARMEN LIDIA
T/C/C CARMEN LIBIA
T/C/C CARMEN LYDIA
Y MARIA ANTONIA, AMBAS DE APELLIDOS
HUECA NARVAEZ
T/C/C HUECA DIAZ; LA
SUCESIÓN DE NARCISO
HUECA NARVAEZ T/C/C
NARCISO HUECA DIAZ, COMPUESTA POR EDWIN
LUIS, NARCISO ANTONIO
Y CARMEN MARIA, TODOS DE APELLIDOS
HUECA VAZQUEZ.
SO HUECA NARVAEZ T/C/C NARCISO HUECA DIAZ. Se le apercibe que de no expresar su intención de aceptar o repudiar la herencia dentro del término que se le fijó, las herencias se tendrán por aceptadas. 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. El abogado de la parte demandante es: Lcda. Melisa Figueroa Castro, 1606 Ave. Ponce de León, Edif. VIG Tower, Suite 706, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 00907, Tel. (787) 919-0073, Fax (787) 722-1932. Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 20 de marzo de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. LIRIAM HERNÁNDEZ OTERO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR BAYAMÓN ABNER LUIS ORTIZ
SANDOVAL Y GISELA
PEREZ FUENTES
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante V.
SUCESION DE ENRIQUE
NARCISO HUECA DIAZ
T/C/C ENRIQUE HUECA
DIAZ, COMPUESTA
POR CARMEN LIBIA
T/C/C CARMEN LIDIA
T/C/C CARMEN LYDIA Y MARIA ANTONIA HUECA
NARVAEZ T/C/C HUECA
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, radicando el original de la contestación ante el Tribunal y sala que se menciona en el epígrafe de este edicto con copia a la parte aquí demandante. 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, lnc., 164 DPR 689 (2005), le ordena que en el término de treinta (30) días, haga declaración aceptando o repudiando las herencias de la SUCESION DE ENRI-
QUE NARCISO HUECA DIAZ
T/C/C ENRIQUE HUECA DIAZ Y LA SUCESION DE NARCI-
Demandante V. FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION (FDIC), POR CONDUCTO DE SUCESORES EN DERECHO DE R&G MORTGAGE CORPORATION, JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y CUALESQUIERA PERSONA DESCONOCIDA CON POSIBLE INTERÉS EN LA OBLIGADÓN CUYA CANCELACIÓN POR DECRETO JUDICIAL SE SOLICITA
Demandados
Civil Núm.: BY2023CV01441. 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 R&G MORTGAGE CORPORATION, por la suma principal de $56,934.00 dólares intereses al 7 7.5% anual y vencedero el día 1 de junio de 2002, constituida mediante la escritura número 502, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 15 de mayo de 1987, ante el notario José E. Salichs, e inscrita al folio 81 del tomo 1,401 de Bayamón Sur, finca número 62,473, inscripción 2da; sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número 18 del Bloque “A” de la Urbanización Alturas de Río Bayamón, la cual está localizada en el Barrio Juan Sánchez del término municipal de Bayamón, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 150.80 metros cuadrados. Colinda por el NORTE, en 13.000 metros, con el solar número 3 del mismo bloque; por el SUR, en 13.000 metros, con la Calle número 5; por el ESTE, en 11.60 metros, con el solar número 17 del mismo bloque; y por el OESTE, en 11.60 metros, con el solar número 19 del mismo bloque. Contiene una casa construida de hormigón y bloques de hormigón para fines residenciales de dos pisos, consta en el primer piso de un baño, sala family, cocina y comedor; en el segundo piso consta de tres habitaciones dormitorios y un baño. Finca Número 62,473, inscrita al folio 81 del tomo 1,401 de Bayamón Sur. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección I de Bayamón. 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 Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy a 20 de marzo de 2023. Lcda. Laura I. Santa Sánchez, Secretaria Regional. Verónica Rivera Rodríguez, Secretaria Auxiliar Del Tribunal I.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-
NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE PONCE ROBERTO JESUS TORRES COMAS Y WINDA WALESKA
VELAZQUEZ ARROYO
Demandante V. BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO; FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO, POR CONDUCTO DE SUCESORES EN DERECHO DE DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION, 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.: PO2023CV00730.
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
First Financial Caribbean Corp.
H/N/C H. F. Mortgage Bankers, por la suma principal de $30,000.00 dólares intereses al 7 7/8% anual y vencedero el día 1 de febrero de 2011, según consta de la escritura número 38, otorgada en San Juan, el día 29 de enero de 1996, ante la notario Gloria B. Aquino Aponte, e inscrita al folio 127 del tomo 1,777 de Ponce, finca número 23,568, inscripción 11m a.; sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar que radica en
el Barrio Machuelo Abajo del término municipal de Ponce, compuesto de 399.00 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en 14.00 metros, con el solar descrito en la aprobación de lotificación con la letra “C” como remanente de la finca principal de Pedro J. Piza; por el SUR, en 14.00 metros, con la Avenida José De Diego; por el ESTE, en 28.50 metros, con Angel Sanz y por el OESTE, en 28.50 metros, con el solar descrito precedentemente con la letra “A”. Enclava edificación, con valor de $15,145.00, según inscripción 2da. Finca número 23,568, inscrita al folio 73 vuelto del tomo 864 de Ponce, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Primera de Ponce. 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 Ponce, Puerto Rico, hoy a 17 de marzo de 2023.
CARMEN G. TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. JESSICA BONILLA RODRÍGUEZ, SUBSECRETARIA.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA
TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INS-
TANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE MAYAGÜEZ
CENTURION INSURANCE AGENCY, INC
Demandante V.
SISTEMA DE RETIRO DE LOS EMPLEADOS DEL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE
Demandado(a)
Civil: MZ2022CV00192. 306. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: JOHN DOE / RICHARD DOE. (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 16 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 23 de marzo de 2023. En Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, el 23 de marzo de 2023.
LCDA. NORMA G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA. WANDA RENTAS BURGOS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE VEGA
BAJA
SALGADO T/C/C
RAMONA SOTO GUZMÁN.
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Parte Demandante Vs. LA SUCESIÓN DE RAMONA SOTO SALGADO T/C/C
RAMONA SOTO GUZMÁN COMPUESTA
POR FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS
Parte Demandada
Civil Núm.: VB2023CV00145.
(201). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA “IN REM”. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO E INTERPELACIÓN. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
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 las siguientes cantidades: $24,152.95 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 7.375% anual desde el 1 de abril de 2015 hasta su completo pago, más $727.38 de recargos acumulados, los cuales continuarán en aumento hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más la cantidad estipulada de $2,600.00 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: PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL: Condominio Patio de Vega Baja: Apartamento: C-3. Cabida: 373.39 pies cuadrados. Su descripción legal es como sigue: Propiedad Horizontal: Apartamento residencial número C-3 de una planta forma irregular localizado en la primera planta del Condominio Patio situado en la calle José Julián Acosta del Municipio de Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, teniendo un área aproximada de 34.69 metros cuadrados¡ equivalentes a 373.39 pies cuadrados. El apartamento colinda por el: NORTE: en una distancia de 19’ 4”, equivalentes a 5.89 metros lineales con espacio exterior; por el SUR: en una distancia de 19’ 4” equivalentes a 5.89 metros lineales con el apartamento número C-4; por el ESTE: en una distancia de 26’ 6”, equivalentes a 8.08 metros, con espacio exterior; y por el OESTE: en una distancia de 26’ 6”, equivalentes a 8.08 metros lineales con pasillo comunal y apartamento número C-2. La puerta de entrada de este apartamento está situada en su lindero ESTE, a través de la cual se llega al exterior del edificio. El área de vivienda consta de sala, comedor, cocina, un cuarto de dormitorio, con closet, un baño y lavandería. Tiene una participación de 9.6326% en los elementos comunes del condominio. La propiedad y la escritura de hipoteca constan inscritas al tomo Karibe de Vega Baja, Finca 33875, Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección IV. La demandante es la tenedora por endoso, por valor recibido y de buena fe del referido pagaré objeto de la presente acción. Se interpela a los
demandados para que acepten o renuncien a la herencia de la causante dentro de los 30 días subsiguientes a la fecha que fuesen emplazados o requeridos que contesten, para darle cumplimiento el Artículo 1578 del nuevo Código Civil de Puerto Rico, 31 L.P.R.A. §11021, entendiéndose que, si no se expresan dentro de dicho término, aceptan el caudal relicto; la renuncia se hará por instrumento público o por escrito judicial. 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, Teléfonos: (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 23 de marzo de 2023, en Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. Lcda. Laura I. Santa Sánchez, Secretaria Regional. Maritza Rosario Rosario, Secretaria Auxiliar Del Tribunal I.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN ASOCIACIÓN DE RESIDENTES LOS MONTES, INC.
Demandante V. DENNISSE IVETTE DE JESÚS LÓPEZ
Demandado(a)
Civil: BY2022CV06097. Sala: 501. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. A: DENNISSE IVETTE DE JESÚS LÓPEZ. (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 27 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 28 de marzo de 2023. En 28, Puerto marzo, el 28 de marzo de 2023. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. NEREIDA QUILES SANTANA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN
ORIENTAL BANK
Demandante V.
JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE
Demandado(a)
Civil: VB2023CV00073. Sala: 403. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE. (Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 24 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 24 de marzo de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 24 de marzo de
2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. KATHERINE SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE AÑASCO BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante V. IRVING D MIRANDA SANCHEZ
Demandado(a)
Civil: AÑ2018CV00111. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: IRVING D MIRANDA SANCHEZ. (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 26 de enero 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 24 de marzo de 2023. En Añasco, Puerto Rico, el 24 de marzo de 2023. LCDA. NORMA G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA. LUZ NELDY CHICO ACEVEDO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS
Y CREDITO DE CAGUAS
Demandante Vs. LUIS RAUL
MELENDEZ CRUZ
Demandado
Caso Núm.: CG2022CV03274.
Salón Núm.: 701. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y COBRO DE DINERO. AVISO DE SUBASTA.
El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, hago saber a la parte demandada, que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el 16 de marzo de 2023, por la Secretaria del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor la siguiente propiedad: [CALLE PADIAL #34, CAGUAS, PR]: FINCA: No. 3169, inscrita al folio 156 del tomo 205 de Caguas, Registro de la Propiedad, Sección Primera de Caguas. URBANA: Solar marcado con el No. 39 hoy 35 de la Calle Padial de Caguas, Puerto Rico, compuesto de 8 metros cincuenta centímetros de frente, por diecisiete metros treinta centímetros de fondo, encerrado una superficie de ciento cuarenta y siete metros cinco centímetros cuadrados, colindante por el NORTE, con propiedad de Manuel Cervera; par el SUR, con propiedad de Teodoro Diaz; por el ESTE, con propiedad de Ramon Casillas hoy Cecilia Selles y por el OESTE, con la Calle Padia en que radica, comprende una casa de dos plantas de madera con techo de zinc, balcón al frente en ambos pisos y con instalaciones sanitarias y de luz eléctrica. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada a su favor, el día 16 de diciembre de 2022, por virtud de la cual se condenó a la parte demandada pagar a la parte demandante la suma principal de $8,977.77 por concepto de principal, recargos por $1,361.38 e intereses por $157.50 sobre dicha suma al 7.00% de interés anual desde el día 8 de enero de 2019 hasta su total y completo pago, así como la suma adicional de $6,700.00 por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, $6,700.00 para cubrir intereses además de los garantizados por ley, $6,700.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que pueda hacerse bajo la hipoteca, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato de préstamo. La venta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posteriores 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 personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. 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 de curso legal de los
número #241, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 17 de noviembre de 2014, ante el notario Anne M. Galanes Vidal. Se le advierte a los licitadores que la adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el mismo acto de la adjudicación en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica, y para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda(s) aquella(s) persona(s) que tenga (n) interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción de los gravámenes que se están ejecutando, que los mismos serán eliminados del Registro de la Propiedad, y para conocimiento de los licitadores y el público en general, y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general, una vez por semana durante el termino 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 y a su abogado o abogada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo siempre que haya comparecido al pleito. Si el (la) deudor (a) por Sentencia no comparece al pleito, la notificación será enviada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a las últimas direcciones conocidas. Se les advierte a todos los interesados que todos los documentos relacionados con la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como la de la subasta, estarán disponibles para ser examinados en la Secretaría del Tribunal. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titulación y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere al crédito de ejecutante, continuarán subsiguientes entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Y para conocimiento de la parte demandada, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, expido el presente Aviso para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes.
Librado en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 21 de marzo de 2023.
EDGARDO ELÍAS VARGAS
SANTANA, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #193, DIVISIÓN DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA
TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE
BAYAMÓN SUCESION DE LUIS ALICEA COSME, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO COMO LUIS ALICEA REPRESENTADO POR ELEAZER ALICEA NIEVES, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO
ELEAZER MEDINA, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO ALICE MEDINA; LUZ ESTHER ALICEA NIEVES, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO
LUZ ESTHER ALICEA, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA
COMO LUZ E. ALICEA, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO LUCY ALICEA; LUISA ALICEA
NIEVES, DILIA ALICEA NIEVES, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO DILIA THEODOSAKIS, LUIS ALICEA HERNÁNDEZ, DORIS ALICEA
HERNÁNDEZ, SAMUEL ALICEA HERNÁNDEZ, LUIS ANGEL ALICEA
HERNÁNDEZ, LUIS
RICARDO ALICEA
MATOS, DANIEL OMAR
ALICEA CRUZ, DANIEL
ANTONIO ALICEA
DELGADO, SONIA DE LA CRUZ COLLAZO Y ANGELITA RODRÍGUEZ
RAMOS, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO
ANGELITA RODRÍGUEZ, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA
ANGELA RODRÍGUEZ
RAMOS, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO
ANGELA RODRÍGUEZ
Demandante V. DANIEL RICARDO
ALICEA CRUZ
Demandado(a)
Civil: BY2022CV00953. Sala:
505. Sobre: DIVISIÓN DE BIENES HEREDITARIOS. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: DANIEL RICARDO ALICEA CRUZ.
38292 EZRA CIRCLE, AVONPARK, FL 33825. (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 23 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 notifica-
ción. 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 24 de marzo de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 24 de marzo de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. MILITZA MERCADO RIVERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN
FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO
Demandante Vs. SUCESIONES DE JAIME
MATOS RESTO Y DE MIRIAM RUIZ SANTIAGO
Demandados
Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV01124.
Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA - IN REM. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO E INTERPELACIÓN. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.
A: SOLIMAR PRADOS RUIZ; RICARDO MATOS; FULANO Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JAIME MATOS RESTO Y DE LA SUCESIÓN DE MIRIAM RUIZ SANTIAGO.
POR LA PRESENTE se les emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá radicar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ sumac/, salvo que se presente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá radicar el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente y notifique con copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, Lcda.
Marie L. Quiñones Tañón, al PO BOX 9022512, San Juan, P.R. 00902-2512; Teléfono: (787) 724-0230. En dicha demanda se tramita un procedimiento de cobro de dinero y ejecución de hipoteca bajo el número mencionado en el epígrafe. Se ale-
ga en dicho procedimiento que la parte Demandada incurrió en el incumplimiento del Contrato de Hipoteca, al no poder pagar las mensualidades vencidas correspondientes a los meses de septiembre de 2022, hasta el presente, más los cargos por demora correspondientes. Además adeuda a la parte demandante las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado en que incurra el tenedor del pagaré en este litigio. De acuerdo con dicho Contrato de Garantía Hipotecaria la parte Demandante declaró vencida la totalidad de la deuda ascendente a la suma principal de $81,295.29, más intereses a razón del 3.50% anual, desde el 1 de agosto de 2022, hasta el presente y los que se continúen acumulando hasta su total y completo pago, más adelantos para el pago de seguros y contribuciones, entre otros; más una suma equivalente a ($10,439.70) más una suma adicional de ($250.00), por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado todo según pactado. La parte Demandante presentará para su inscripción en el Registro de la Propiedad correspondiente, un AVISO DE PLEITO PENDIENTE (“Lis Pendens”) sobre la propiedad objeto de esta acción cuya propiedad es la siguiente: URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Apartment two hundred one (201) is situated on the second floor of the building in the southeast comer of the section which compases the easter extreme of the building. It consist of regular rectangular shaped body measuring approximately thirty five feet nine and a half inches long, by twenty nine feet ten and a half inches wide and on open balcony, thirteen feet seven inches long by five feet seven inches wide, that is an área of one thousand one hundred thirty six square feet and eighty six hundredths of another, equivalent to one hundred five square meters with seventy five hundreds of another, bounding on the NORTH, with the party wall which separates it from family unit two hundred sixteen which with the said apartment (family-unit) two hundred one from the Eastern end of the building on the SOUTH, with an exterior wall whichs separates it from the common yard on the southern side of the building, on the WEST, with a party wall which separates it from the family unit apartment 202, and with on interior wall which separates it from the common public lobby, to which the entrance door of the apartment open and which leads to the common stairway and elevators, on the EAST, with and exterior wall which separates it from the common yard of the Eastern side of the building. This apartment consist of two bedrooms with their closets, Westinghouse electric
range model XF-130 counter and a thirty gallon capacity water heater. Le corresponde un porcentaje en los elementos comunes de .620 por ciento y en los elementos restringidos de 7.23 por ciento. Consta inscrita al folio 290 del tomo 457 de Sabana Llana, finca número #18,610, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección V de San Juan. SE LES ORDENA a ustedes a que dentro del término legal de treinta (30) días, contados a partir de la fecha de notificación de la presente Orden, acepten o repudien la participación que les corresponda en la herencia de las Sucesiones de Jaime Matos Resto y Miriam Ruiz Santiago. De no hacerlo dentro de dicho término, se dará la herencia por aceptada. SE LES APERCIBE que de no hacer sus alegaciones responsivas a la demanda dentro del término aquí dispuesto, se les anotará la rebeldía y se dictara sentencia, concediéndose el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, sin más citarle ni oírle. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal en San Juan, Puerto Rico. A 28 de marzo de 2023. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria Regional. Brenda Hernández Zavala, Secretaria De Servicios A Sala.
LEGAL NOT ICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR E.M.I. EQUITY MORTGAGE, INC. Demandante Vs. JOSE ORLANDO MELENDEZ RIVERA Y KATIANA MEDINA MEDINA
Demandados Civil Núm.: BY2023CV00748. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (VÍA ORDINARIA). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
A LA PARTE CODEMANDADA: JOSÉ ORLANDO MELENDEZ RIVERA Y KATIANA MEDINA MEDINA, A SUS DIRECCIONES
CONOCIDAS: (A) PO BOX 77 VEGA ALTA, PR 00692;
(B) BARRIO PALMAREJO SECTOR LANDRON LOTE D COROZAL, PR 00783;
(C) SR 164 KM 16.0 INT. BARRIO PALMAREJO COROZAL, PR 00783. Por la presente se le(s) notifica que se ha radicado en la Secretaría de este Tribunal una Demanda en Cobro de Dinero
y Ejecución de Hipoteca en su contra, en la cual se alega entre otras cosas que la parte demandada adeuda ala parte demandante por concepto de hipoteca la suma $112,112.02 por concepto de principal, desde el 1ro de junio de 2022, más intereses al tipo pactado de 3.50% anual que continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la obligación. Además la parte demandada adeuda ala parte demandante los cargos por demora equivalentes a 4.00% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha de vencimiento; los créditos accesorios y adelantos hechos en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado equivalentes a $11,488.00. Además la parte demandada se comprometió a pagar una suma equivalente a $11,488.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca y una suma equivalente a $11,488.00 para cubrir intereses en adición a los garantizados por ley y cualquiera otros adelantos que se hagan en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca número 74, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 10 de febrero de 2021, ante la notario David Cardona Dingui, de la finca número 4,799, inscrita al Folio 245 del Tomo 97 de Corozal, Registro de la Propiedad Barranquitas. Por razón de dicho incumplimiento, y al amparo del derecho que le confiere el Pagaré, el demandante ha declarado tales sumas vencidas, líquidas y exigibles en su totalidad. Este Tribunal ha ordenado que se le(s) cite a usted(es) por edicto que se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general. Por tratarse de una obligación hipotecaria y pudiendo usted tener interés en este caso o quedar afectando por el remedio solicitado, se le emplaza por este edicto que se publicará una vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de Puerto Rico. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal y notifique copia de la Contestación de la Demanda a las oficinas de CARDONA & MALDONADO LAW OFFICES, P.S.C. ATENCION al Lcdo. Duncan Maldonado Ejarque, P.O. Box 366221, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-6221; Tel (787) 622-7000, Fax (787) 625-7001, Abogado de la Parte Demandante. Dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto,
apercibiéndole que de no hacerlo así dentro del término indicado, el Tribunal podrá anotar su Rebeldía y dictar Sentencia, concediéndose el remedio solicitado sin más citarle(s) ni oírle(s). EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y con el Sello del Tribunal. DADA hoy 27 de marzo de 2023, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. IVETTE M. MARRERO BRACERO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA SALA
SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO MARIA S RIVERA RAMOS
Demandante V. EX - PARTE
Demandado(a)
Civil Núm.: QU2022CV00081. Sala: 401. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: PERSONAS
IGNORADAS O DESCONOCIDAS
A QUIENES PUEDA PERJUDICAR LA INSCRIPCIÓN SOLICITADA O QUE ESTIMEN QUE SE LESIONA SUS DERECHOS TITULARES O REALES POR
DICHA INSCRIPCIÓN
Y AL PÚBLICO EN GENERAL, ASÍ COMO A CUALQUIER PERSONA CON INTERÉS, DUEÑOS O POSEEDORES ANTERIORES DESCONOCIDOS O SUS HEREDEROS Y/U ORGANISMOS PÚBLICO MAS AFECTADOS.
(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 febrero 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 23 de febrero de 2023. En ARECIBO, Puerto Rico, el 23 de febrero de 2022. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA. ANABEL PÉREZ RÍOS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE FAJARDO SALA SUPERIOR BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante Vs. GLADYS INEZ BENITEZ TORRES T/C/C GLADYS INES BENITEZZ TORRES
Demandados
Civil Núm.: FA2022CV00233. Sala: 307. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (VÍA ORDINARIA). EDICTO DE SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente CERTIFICA, ANUNCIA y hace CONSTAR: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que le ha sido dirigido al Alguacil que suscribe por la Secretaría del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE FAJARDO, SALA SUPERIOR, en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor en efectivo, moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, giro postal y/o cheque de gerente a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal el 11 DE MAYO DE 2023, A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en su oficina sita en el local que ocupa en el edificio del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE FAJARDO, SALA SUPERIOR, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble de su propiedad que ubica en: B-63 CALLE RÍO
SABANA, URBANIZACION RIVER EDGE HILLS, LUQUILLO, PUERTO RICO 00773 y que se describe a continuación:
URBANA: Solar radicado en la Urbanización River Edge Hills, localizada en el Barrio Sabana del Municipio de Luquillo, Puerto Rico, que se describe en el Plano de Inscripción de la Urbanización con el número, área y colindancia que se relaciona a continuación: Número de Solar: Bloque “B” Lote número sesenta y tres (B-63). Área de Solar: cuatrocientos cincuenta y nueve punto setecientos cincuenta y cinco metros cuadrados (459.755 m.c.). En lindes: por el NORTE, en treinta punto cero cero metros (30. 00 m.), con el Lote “B” guión sesenta y cuatro (B-64); por el SUR, en veintiséis punto treinta y cuatro metros (26.34 m.), con la Calle Río Espíritu Santo; por el
GOS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE ARECIBO
WILMINGTON SAVINGS
FUND SOCIETY, FSB, NOT INDIVIDUALLY BUT SOLELY AS TRUSTEE FOR FINANCE OF AMERICA STRUCTURED SECURITIES
ACQUISITION TRUST 2019-HB1
Demandante Vs.
MIRIAM JOSEFINA CRUZ
VÉLEZ T/C/C MIRIAN
JOSEFINA CRUZ VÉLEZ
T/C/C MIRIAM J CRUZ
VELEZ T/C/C MIRIAM CRUZ VÉLEZ T/C/C
MIRIA M CRUZ VELEZ
T/C/C MIRIAN CRUZ
VÉLEZ T/C/C MIRIAM
CRUZ-VÉLEZ; Y A LOS
ESTADOS U NIDOS DE AMÉRICA
Demandados
Civil Núm.: AR2023CV00124.
Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA - IN REM. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
A: MIRIAM JOSEFINA
CRUZ VÉLEZ T/C/C
MIRIAN JOSEFINA CRUZ
VÉLEZ T/C/C MIRIAM
J CRUZ VELEZ T/C/C
MIRIAM CRUZ VÉLEZ
T/C/C MIRIAM CRUZ
VELEZ T/C/C MIRIAN CRUZ VÉLEZ T/C/C
MIRIAM CRUZ-VÉLEZ.
POR LA PRESENTE, se les emplaza y se les notifica que se ha presentado en la Secretaria de este Tribunal la Demanda del caso del epígrafe solicitando la ejecución de hipoteca y el cobro de dinero relacionado al pagaré suscrito a favor de Senior Mortgage Bankers, Inc. o a su orden, por la suma principal de $186,000.00, con intereses computados sobre la misma desde su fecha hasta su total y completo pago a razón de la tasa de interés de 5.060% anual, la cual será ajustada mensualmente, obligándose además al pago de costas, gastos y desembolsos del litigio, más honorarios de abogados en una suma de $18,600.00 equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original. Este pagaré fue suscrito bajo el affidávit número 281, ante el notario Alfredo A. Infante Gutierrez. Lo anterior surge de la hipoteca constituida mediante la escritura número 9 otorgada el 29 de abril de 2014, ante el mismo
notario público, inscrita al folio 57 del tomo 1,350 de Arecibo, finca número 51,180, inscripción 6ta. La Hipoteca Revertida grava la propiedad que se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Solar identificado con el número cinco (5), en el plano de inscripción, radicado en el Barrio Hato Arriba del término Municipal de Arecibo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de quinientos cuarenta y nueve punto setecientos noventa y ocho (549.798 m.c.) metros cuadrados. En lindes: NORTE, con el solar número siete (7); SUR, con Uso Público “A”; ESTE, con uso público existente, segregado mediante el caso número 93-06-E100-APL, Uso Público “A” y “B”; OESTE, con el solar número cuatro (4). Finca Número 51,180, inscrita al folio 150 del tomo 1,320 de Arecibo. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección I de Arecibo. Se apercibe y advierte a ustedes como personas desconocidas, que 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. De no contestar la demanda radicando el original de la contestación ante la secretaria del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Carolina, y notificar copia de la contestación de esta a la parte demandante por conducto de su abogada, GLS LEGAL SERVICES, LLC, Atención: Lcda. Genevieve Lopez Stipes, Dirección: P.O. Box 367308, San Juan, P.R. 009367308, Teléfono: 787-758-6550, dentro de los próximos sesenta (60) días a partir de la publicación de este emplazamiento por edicto, que será publicado una sola vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general en la isla de Puerto Rico, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia, concediendo el remedio solicitando en la Demanda sin más citarle ni oírle. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal hoy 29 de marzo de 2023. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ALEXANDRA ÁLVAREZ NATAL, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA
TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INS-
TANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE MAYAGÜEZ
CASCADE FUNDING
MORTGAGE TRUST HB2
Demandante V.
SUCESION DOROTEO RODRIGUEZ DEL LLANO T/C/C
DOROTEO RODRIGUEZ
COMPUESTA POR ALAIS
RODRIGUEZ TORRES, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS
SUCESION DE BIENVENIDA TORRES
RAMOS T/C/C
BIENVENIDA TORRES
FELICIANO T/C/C
BIENVENIDA TORRES DE RODRIGUEZ T/C/C
BIENVENIDA TORRES
T/C/C BIENVENIDA RODRIGUEZ
COMPUESTA POR
ALAIS RODRIGUEZ
TORRES, ANGEL GARCIA
TORRES, MADELINE
GARCIA TORRES, RICHARD GARCIA
TORRES, YOLANDA
FELICIANO TORRES, FULANO DE TAL Y
SUTANO DE TAL COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DE NOMBRES
DESCONOCIDOS, CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Y LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA
Demandado(a)
Civil: AÑ2020CV00053. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA (IN REM). NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: ALAIS RODRIGUEZ TORRES, ANGEL GARCIA TORRES, MADELINE GARCIA TORRES, RICHARD GARCIA TORRES, YOLANDA
FELICIANO TORRES, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION BIENVENIDA
TORRES RAMOS T/C/C
BIENVENIDA TORRES
FELICIANO T/C/C
BIENVENIDA TORRES DE RODRIGUEZ T/C/C
BIENVENIDA TORRES
T/C/C BIENVENIDA
RODRIGUEZ.
(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 04 de noviembre de 2022, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta no-
tificación 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 29 de marzo de 2023. En Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, el 29 de marzo de 2023. LCDA. NORMA G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA. NILDA TORRES ACEVEDO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR E.M.I. EQUITY MORTGAGE, INC.
Demandante Vs. LA SUCESION DE ROSENDO CASTRO NIEVES COMPUESTA POR FULANO Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)
Demandados
Civil Núm.: BY2023CV01314.
Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (VÍA ORDINARIA). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO Y MANDAMIENTO DE INTERPELACIÓN. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
A La Parte Co-
Demandada: FULANO Y FULANA Y FULANO DE TAL COMO MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE ROSENDO CASTRO NIEVES, A LAS SIGUIENTES DIRECCIONES: (A) URB. REPARTO VALENCIA
Z-18 CALLE 1 BAY AMON, PR 00959-3740; (B) URB. VILLA RICA, 2DA EXTENSION C-41 CALLE 3 BAYAMON, PR 00959;
(C) URB. VILLA RICA C-41 CALLE 3 BAYAMON, PR 00959.
Por la presente se le(s) notifica que se ha radicado en la Se-
cretaría de este Tribunal una Demanda en Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en contra de La Sucesión de Rosen do Castro Nieves, en la cual se alega que adeuda a la parte demandante por concepto de hipoteca la suma de $114,403.30 por concepto de principal, desde el 1ro de noviembre de 2022, más intereses al tipo pactado de 4.75% anual que continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la obligación. Además La Sucesión de Rosendo Castro Nieves adeuda a la parte demandante los cargos por demora equivalentes a 4.00% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha de vencimiento; los créditos accesorios y adelantos hechos en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca; y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado equivalentes a $12,273.50. Además La Sucesión de Rosendo Castro Nieves se comprometió a pagar una suma equivalente a $12,273.50 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca y una suma equivalente a $12,273.50 para cubrir cualquiera otros adelantos que se hagan en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca número 324, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 24 de agosto de 2018, ante el notario David Cardona Dingui, de la finca número 24,593, inscrita al Folio 106 del Tomo 541 de Bayamón Sur, Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección Primera. Por razón de dicho incumplimiento, y al amparo del derecho que le confiere el Pagaré, el demandante ha declarado tales sumas vencidas, líquidas y exigibles en su totalidad. Este Tribunal ha ordenado que se le(s) cite a usted(es) por edicto que se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general. Quedan emplazados y notificados de que en este Tribunal se ha radicado una demanda enmendada en su contra. Se les ordena a que dentro del término de treinta (30) días, a partir de la notificación de la presente Orden, acepten o repudien la participación que les corresponda en la herencia de Rosendo Castro Nieves. Los co-demandados miembros de La Sucesión de Rosendo Castro Nieves se incluyen en la demanda enmendada ya que como herederos responden por las cargas de la herencia según lo dispuesto en Nuestro Ordenamiento Jurídico. Se les apercibe y notifica que, de no expresarse dentro de ese término de 30 días en torno a su aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la herencia se tendrá por aceptada. También se les apercibe que luego del transcurso del término de 30 días antes señalado contados a partir de la fecha de la noti-
ficación de la presente Orden, se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia del causante y por consiguiente, responden por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme el Artículo 1578 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. 2785. Se ordena a la parte demandante a que, en vista de que La Sucesión de Rosendo Castro Nieves, se incluye a los herederos conocidos y herederos desconocidos de Rosendo Castro Nieves denominados Fulano y Fulana y Fulano De Tal como miembros desconocidos de la Sucesión de Rosendo Castro Nieves, proceda a notificar la presente Orden mediante publicación de un edicto a esos efectos una sola vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de la Isla de Puerto Rico. Se le(s) emplaza y requiere que dentro de los sesenta (60) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto excluyendo el día de la publicación de este edicto conteste(n) la demanda radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la Contestación de la Demanda a las oficinas de CARDONA & MALDONADO LAW OFFICES, P.S.C. ATENCIÓN al Lcdo. Duncan Maldonado Ejarque, P.O. Box 366221, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-6221; Tel (787) 622-7000, Fax (787) 6257001, Abogado de la Parte Demandante. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del tribunal. Se le(s) advierte que si dejare(n) de contestar la Demanda en el período de tiempo antes mencionado, podrá dictarse contra usted( es) Sentencia en Rebeldía, concediéndose el remedio solicitado sin más citarle(s) ni oírle(s). EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y con el Sello del Tribunal. DADA hoy 28 de marzo de 2023, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico. LCDA. Laura I. Santa Sánchez, Secretaria Regional. Lureimy Alicea González, Secretaria Auxiliar Del Tribunal.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
CENTRO JUDICIAL DE MAYAGÜEZ SALA SUPERIOR BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante V. LA SUCESIÓN DE BILLY CARL PESANTE CRESPO
T/C/C BILLY PESANTE CRESPO, COMPUESTA
POR: BILLY’S KARLS
PESANTE RECIO Y
JESÚS
PESANTE RECIO VILMA I. RECIO VERA T/C/C VILMA RECIO VERA POR SÍ Y EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA; DEPARTAMENTO DE HACIENDA; DEPARTAMENTO DE JUSTICIA
Demandado
Civil Núm.: MZ2022CV01689. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y 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: VILMA I. RECIO VERA T/C/C VILMA RECIO VERA POR SÍ Y EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA.
Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que deben 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 BILLY CARL
PESANTE CRESPO T/C/C BILLY PESANTE CRESPO. 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 009366603. Tel. (787) 919-0073, Fax (787) 641-5016. Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 21 de marzo de 2023. Lcda. Norma G. Santana Irizarry, Secretaria General. Wanda I. Bracero Cintrón, Secretaria Auxiliar.
DE PUERTO RICO
TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN
BANCO POULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V. BURNAC MORTGAGE INVESTORS
REPRESENTADA POR LTD, LA CUAL CAMBIÓ DE NOMBRE A APPEAL INVESTMENT LTD Y POSTERIORMENTE SE FUSIONÓ, SUBSISTIENDO BURNAC CORPORATION; R-G PREMIER BANK OF PUERTO RICO, HOY ORIENTAL BANK; FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO MAS CUAL Demandado(a)
Civil: SJ2023CV00242. Sala: 802. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE HIPOTECA REPRESENTADO POR PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: BURNAC MORTGAGE INVESTORS LTD, LA CUAL CAMBIÓ DE NOMBRE A APPEAL INVESTMENT LTD Y POSTERIORMENTE SE FUSIONÓ, SUBSISTIENDO BURNAC CORPORATION; FULANO DE TAL, Y MENGANO MAS CUAL. (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 27 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 28 de marzo de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 28 de marzo de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. ELSIE PRATTS MELÉNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
The day after Atlanta acquired him in a March 2022 trade, and before he had even played a game for the Braves, Matt Olson knew he wanted to be with the team for a long time.
It helped that the contract extension they were offering Olson was substantial: $168 million over eight years for a power-hitting, slickfielding first baseman who was still in his 20s. And it helped that the team was good: Atlanta had won the 2021 World Series and its window for contention was still wide open.
As he considered the extension, Olson, who had spent the previous six years with the Oakland Athletics, said he didn’t really know anyone on the Atlanta roster he could chat with to gain behind-the-scenes insight. In a way, he didn’t need it. He already knew what he was getting into.
Atlanta is home. Olson, 29, was raised in Lilburn, Georgia, a suburb about 30 minutes from Turner Field, the team’s former stadium. He grew up watching and rooting for the Braves when they were enjoying a stretch of winning 14 consecutive division titles, five National League pennants and the 1995 World Series, a run that began before he was born. His wife is also from Atlanta. They married and bought a home there. Their parents still live in the area, too.
“Braves Country has a pretty big pull,” Olson said, using the fan base’s nickname during a recent interview at the team’s spring training facility in North Port, Florida.
“It’s such a big area in the Southeast,” he continued. “Same thing happened to the winning teams growing up when I was a kid. It was always easy to tune in and visualize yourself being a Brave. For the chance to come around and with everything here in place to want to be here, it’s part of the pull.”
As the Braves, who were to begin their season Thursday on the road against the Washington Nationals, have once again been built into one of the premier franchises in Major League Baseball, they have been fueled in part by that local connection. Center fielder Michael Harris II, who won the 2022 NL Rookie of the Year Award, is also from the Atlanta area (Stockbridge) and also signed a long-term contract extension last season ($72 million over eight years).
The chance to remain at home for the foreseeable future, Harris said, was “100%” of his motivation to sign the deal. If another team — say, the bigger-market New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers — had drafted him instead and offered that same contract, Harris
said, it wouldn’t have meant the same.
“Just knowing what we have over here, the type of people in the locker room and how we compete every night, it’s just fun to be on this team,” Harris, 22, said late last season. “I wouldn’t trade it for any other team.”
And then there’s relief pitcher Collin McHugh, who has lived in the Atlanta area since he was a child and said he turned down better free-agent offers from other teams before the 2022 season to return home on a twoyear, $10 million deal.
“I felt like I was toward the back end of my career, and I always wanted to play here,” said McHugh, 35, who pitched for four other MLB teams over the previous nine years. “And it was like, ‘If they can make a competitive offer, then yeah.’ There’s an opportunity cost, but the opportunity cost is weighted in the way of living in my own house an extra 80 days a year.”
Major league players come from all over the world and suit up for whoever drafted, signed or traded for them. Star outfielder Aaron Judge, for example, is from California but will most likely play his entire career for the Yankees. Two-way phenomenon Shohei Ohtani is from Japan but chose the Los Angeles Angels in 2017.
The same is true for many Braves players, several of whom are from California (such as starting pitcher Max Fried) and Texas (relief pitcher A.J. Minter), while several others, such as Guayama, Puerto Rico-born left fielder Eddie Rosario, are from Latin America. Dansby Swanson, the Atlanta area native who starred for the franchise for seven years, turned down a substantial offer from Atlanta to sign a much larger contract (seven years, $177 million) with
the Chicago Cubs this winter. So representing a hometown team isn’t always possible, and when it happens, it’s sometimes by coincidence.
“Don’t get me wrong: I love Georgia and I love Atlanta,” said Alex Anthopoulos, Atlanta’s general manager, who has overseen five straight NL East crowns and a World Series title since he took over in late 2017.
“There’s a lot of great qualities,” he continued. “But in being objective about it, there’s a lot of great cities in the United States. But a big part of it is players want to win. Of course everyone wants to have security and things like that, but they also want to win.”
Olson said the winning culture of the team under Anthopoulos was the No. 1 reason he wanted to be in Atlanta — even from afar. He added, “You hear stuff about teams throughout the league and if you watch them,
even without being in it, you get a sense for it.”
But Atlanta, players said, still manages to hold a special place in their hearts. During the franchise’s record run from 1991 to 2005, with stars such as Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, the team built a large and ardent fan base not only because of its success on the field, but also because of its wide reach through its national broadcasts on TBS.
Harris said he remembered watching both Joneses when he was growing up. Olson said he watched on television but also attended games often with his father and brother. McHugh said he knew which key Braves players back then were Georgia natives, such as catcher Brian McCann and outfielder Jeff Francoeur. Even as adults and while on other MLB teams, Olson and McHugh said they kept tabs on their hometown team.
“Atlanta is a big talent hot spot in the country for baseball,” McHugh said before rattling off the names of cities in the Atlanta metropolitan area. “But something goes into having guys who represent the kids who are watching the game and growing up in Decatur or in Stone Mountain or Lilburn or Alpharetta. There’s something to that.”
Despite playing in one of the most competitive divisions in the MLB, Atlanta is expected to contend for the NL East title and a World Series trophy this season. Also lurking in the division are the Philadelphia Phillies, who lost to the Houston Astros in the 2022 World Series, and the New York Mets, who won 101 regularseason games but fell in the wild-card round to the San Diego Padres, whom the Braves will host in their home opener on April 6. To get past those rivals, Atlanta may need a lot of help from its hometown players once again.
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Connecticut led Gonzaga by just 7 points when the sneakers stopped squeaking on the court for halftime and the teams headed toward their locker rooms in their regional championship game in the men’s NCAA tournament last weekend.
It was there that Adama Sanogo, a 6-foot-9 power forward who had 6 points and 8 rebounds for the Huskies in the first half, made a critical halftime adjustment. Near the end of the break, when the time was right, he made a beeline for the oranges. He also grabbed a banana and drank coconut water.
It was the first time he had eaten all day.
As a practicing Muslim, Sanogo is observing Ramadan, a month of spiritual discipline that emphasizes fasting, prayer and contemplation. The holy month started on March 22 and extends to April 20; fasting is daily from dawn to sundown.
Ramadan, which follows the shorter Islamic lunar calendar and moves slightly each year, regularly presents a challenge for high-level athletes. When the games and the fasting run parallel paths, players must work to stay both hydrated and well fueled.
Both of UConn’s games in Las Vegas last week started before sundown there. Sanogo, who is leading the Huskies in points and rebounds this season, played the entire contest against Arkansas (4:16 p.m. local start time) on Thursday during the fasting period. Saturday’s game against Gonzaga was later, with a tipoff of 6 p.m.; that afforded Sanogo a chance to refuel at the break, when sundown ar-
rived just before 7 p.m.
“That was good,” said Sanogo, who went with fruit and water rather than solid food despite not having eaten in some 14 hours because he “didn’t want to eat something heavy and go back to the game.”
A Huskies co-captain along with Andre Jackson Jr., Sanogo has been a leader both with his play and by example in his three years at the school. The self-discipline and strength on display this month, though, are earning him even more respect from teammates.
On an empty stomach against Arkansas on March 23, Sanogo finished with 18 points, a game-high 8 rebounds and 2 blocks. In what would become an 82-54 thrashing of Gonzaga on Saturday, Sanogo led UConn with 10 rebounds and contributed 10 points, 6 assists and a block.
“I have no clue how he can do it,” said guard Jordan Hawkins, the team’s second-leading scorer behind Sanogo. “I can’t do it. I definitely can’t even go 30 minutes without eating. So him doing it for a whole day and still performing at a high level the
way he is, it’s unbelievable.”
Sanogo, a junior, smiled when asked how he does it, and flashed a gleaming smile that appears frequently. There is no evidence that not eating makes him hangry. His friendly, easygoing nature belies the fierce competitiveness that he takes onto the court. Muscular and wide-bodied, he is a force on the boards, leading UConn to a No. 2 national ranking in both rebounding percentage overall and rebounding margin per game.
Sanogo said he has fasted during Ramadan since he was 13 or 14 years old. “It’s something that I’m used to, and so I don’t feel it now,” he said.
Two of Sanogo’s teammates are observing Ramadan and fasting with him, though neither of them comes close to carrying Sanogo’s workload, at 26.5 minutes played per game. Hassan Diarra (13.3 minutes per game) is a junior guard from Queens, and Samson Johnson (4.5 minutes) is a sophomore forward from Togo.
During the day, Sanogo and the others cannot swallow anything, including water. They are able to rinse out their mouths as long as they spit out the liquid. Sanogo keeps lip balm with him to combat dry lips.
The UConn men’s basketball training staff, led by James Doran, watches Sanogo to make sure he is receiving the proper nutrition, including calling him at 4:30 or 5 a.m. to ensure he doesn’t miss his window to eat and drink before sunrise. Frequently, Sanogo said, he will keep a burrito bowl from Chipotle in his hotel room refrigerator overnight and microwave it in the early morning.
That has worked well for the Huskies’ two tournament games during Ramadan for all but one person: Sanogo’s roommate, Nahiem Alleyne, a senior guard from Buford, Georgia.
“I help make sure he eats,” Alleyne said. “But when he goes back to bed, he doesn’t turn off the light. So I’m like, ‘Yo, what’s up with that?’ He’s a bozo for that.”
Most mornings on the road, Alleyne said, Sanogo goes right back to sleep after he eats, and Alleyne is left lying in bed wondering whether he will be able to drift off again. But, he said, he’ll happily trade lost sleep for team wins.
“He’s a great guy, a hardworking guy,” Alleyne said. “I mean, he’s a guy who’s never satisfied with himself.”
Sanogo grew up in Bamako, Mali, with five older sisters and one younger brother. He mostly played soccer as a youngster, not turning to basketball until he was 12. He speaks four languages: English, French, Arabic and Bambara, a native language of Mali.
“Great family background. Comes from a great pedigree,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said, adding: “He works so hard at everything he does. I think innately he just feels like he’s got a lot of confidence because he knows he’s putting in tremendous work.”
In some ways, things will be a bit easier for Sanogo now that the Huskies have reached the Final Four. UConn and Miami are scheduled to play the second game on Saturday, after San Diego State and Florida Atlantic, with a local tip time of 7:49 p.m. in Houston.
With the sunset scheduled for 7:40 that evening, Sanogo will not have time to digest a full meal. But this time, the fruit and coconut water won’t have to wait until halftime.
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
Answers on page 30
Aries (Mar 21-April 20)
Dynamic Mars aligns with prudent Saturn in Pisces, which could find you dealing with an emotional block. If you’re worried about the outcome of a plan, then it may be nothing like you envisage. Meanwhile, subtle fears might be holding you back from doing something that could be helpful to you. Be patient with yourself and break key tasks into baby steps for best results.
Taurus (April 21-May 21)
Proceed with caution,†may be your mantra of the moment, and perhaps this is wise if you’re moving into unknown territory and aren’t comfortable with new tasks or challenges. Sooner or later though, you’ll need to confront them and get moving, so it might be good to make a start by taking things one at a time. The tried and trusted can be easier, but also a tad boring for you.
Gemini (May 22-June 21)
The continued emphasis on your friendship zone suggests that getting out and socializing can do you so much good. It could be especially beneficial if you’re willing to move in new circles. And yet a more cautious alignment may see you hesitating regarding an opportunity that might be equally fortuitous. Research it, and if all seems well then give it a go. You have nothing to lose.
Cancer (June 22-July 23)
It’s always wise to be prudent, especially concerning vibrant opportunities, which is why the current Mars/ Saturn tie could be useful. If you have plans, then examining the facts can leave you with a better understanding of what you should do next. Yet being too cautious might also stop you in your tracks. Have a brilliant idea? Get others on board, and you can’t go wrong.
Leo (July 24-Aug 23)
It might seem as though someone is trying to hold you back or is being a tad awkward, but are they, Leo? A frustrating blend of energies hints that they too may be experiencing difficulties. Giving yourself and others some leeway is probably the best way ahead. Where finances and business are concerned, avoid taking short cuts. Attention to detail will ensure a good outcome.
Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)
The Sun in a transformational zone can be a call to make changes that might lead to a new lease of life. Yet a side of you may resist this urge, as it would mean a step into the unknown. Do you really want things to stay as they are, Virgo? Even a small shift could make a big difference to you. Plus, a Mars/Saturn tie can give you the stamina to see something through to the end.
Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)
Relationships may be a priority, with the Sun in Aries encouraging you to spend more time with your partner and to be proactive regarding other important associations. When it comes to romance though, Pluto newly in Aquarius can put you in touch with powerful emotions. You might be surprised at how much you feel for someone, even if you’ve only recently met them.
Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)
Much as you might try to forget about something, the coming days could see it bubbling up into your awareness to be resolved. If you feel you need to chat, this is a good time to connect with someone who can talk it over with you. Not only might it help you feel lighter, but getting a fresh perspective may make it seem so much less of an issue than it’s appeared to be, Scorpio.
Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)
Serious about getting your place in order? If so, the current Mars/Saturn link can kickstart a cleaning fest like no other. If you suffer from too much clutter, this aspect encourages you to get organized and get your place ship shape. And if you have a lot of housework to do, you’ll be ready to try out a variety of cleaning methods that will get everything sparkling, Archer.
Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)
A tie-up between Mars and Saturn, suggests that if you take time to plan adequately at the start of a project, you’ll have a much better chance of success. Be rigorous about getting the necessary information and creating a strategy, and the rest should be a breeze. Find it difficult to broach a certain issue, Capricorn? The longer you put it off, the harder it may become. Try just doing it!
Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)
As Mars aligns with Saturn in your financial sector, it can make you aware of the need for a careful and controlled approach regarding money matters. This may be a good time to work on a budget, savings plan, or on ways to increase your income. And selling what you already have but no longer need, can get you off to a great start by putting some extra cash in your pocket.
Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)
You might be looking at the pros and cons of getting involved in a relationship, and this could be preventing you from taking the plunge. With feisty Mars aligning with sensible Saturn in your sign, you’ll be ready to ask friends for their take. While Mars may inspire you to break the ice and see what happens, Saturn could bring hidden fears to the surface, so you can tackle them, Pisces.
