Wednesday May 24, 2023

GOOD MORNING

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.

Aponte Hernández urges continued

‘knocking on doors’ to augment draft Puerto Rico status bill’s 49 co-sponsors

By THE STAR STAFF

The new draft of the Puerto Rico status bill, House Resolution (HR) 2757, a bipartisan measure that seeks to hold a congressionally endorsed plebiscite among the options of statehood, independence, and independence through free association, already has 49 co-sponsors.

New Progressive Party (NPP) Rep. José Aponte Hernández made the announcement Tuesday. He stressed that the increase in co-sponsors who support the measure indicates that “the message must continue to be carried in the federal House of Representatives, because when talking about what happens on the island to over 3.2 million U.S. citizens, due to the injustice of the colony and the inequality that we live in, the congressmen understand that something must be done now.”

INDEX

-- Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón and Reps. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.), Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) -- have been joined by 43 new co-sponsors, including four from the Republican party. Republican co-sponsors include Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Don Bacon (Neb.), Lori Chavez (Ore.), and Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.).

“We have to continue to carry the message, knocking on doors and speaking to congressmen about the urgency of addressing this issue of inequality for so many American citizens,” Aponte said. “We have been working on the matter, both in visits to the federal capital and in calls and correspondence with congressmen and the response has been positive. We have to continue making the effort because we continue to see results.”

The at-large lawmaker and former speaker of the island House of Representatives called on supporters of the pro-statehood NPP to continue “knocking on the doors of Congress.”

The six original authors of the bill, filed on April 20

“The issue of equal civil rights, which was the foundation of our nation, is the responsibility of both national parties to attend to,” Aponte said. “They have to see it as a problem for U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico and not minimize it to a partisan political matter. Enough of being the oldest colony in the world, we cannot allow ourselves to continue receiving crumbs and unequal treatment. HR 2757 is the mechanism available for Congress to do justice to U.S. citizens in the territory, who have voted, freely and democratically, in favor of admission during the past three local status consultations.”

Pierluisi says no time for talk of González Colón possibly running for governor

By THE STAR STAFF

For Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, talking about the possibility that Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón will run for governor is a distraction, the governor said Tuesday.

“Those are distractions; that is, I am focused on my work and everyone already knows that I am going to file my candidacy when it is time to do it, which is when the candidacy process opens,” Pierluisi said in response to questions from reporters.

“I don’t have time for distractions.”

“I’m not even going to answer, because it’s really distracting,” the governor added. “I am focused on providing the people of Puerto Rico with the excellent service they deserve. I’m focused

on keeping Puerto Rico’s economy going. I am focused on the reconstruction taking place. How it is going at full capacity. Basically, the construction industry is fully capable of what I’m focused on at the time. I’m sure I’m going to present that candidacy and we’ll see who the other candidates will be. It’s not that no, I’m not afraid of anyone in particular, I’m going, I’m going head-on, I’m going to that re-election based on my worksheet, not based on gossip.”

González Colón has reiterated on several occasions that she is seriously considering seeking the New Progressive Party candidacy for governor in next year’s elections, but doesn’t plan to make any formal announcement until December at the earliest.

Rep. José Aponte Hernández

Governor prods PDP to finish filing amendments to Electoral Code

By THE STAR STAFF

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia urged Popular Democratic Party (PDP) President Jesús Manuel Ortiz González on Tuesday to finish presenting amendments to the Electoral Code.

“The next step is for the Popular Democratic Party to submit a proposal because no, we don’t even know what that party wants,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “We already thought that the party had a proposal, which was the one that had been agreed on. It had been discussed at the level of the Legislative Assembly. They do not agree; they have created a committee there, [where] they have just agreed to be able to consider it.”

“You already know what the position of the NPP [New Progressive Party] is and it’s a matter of what you don’t know is where the Popular Democratic Party stands,” he added. “It has a new president, but so far nothing has come out.”

Asked how long he can wait for the PDP proposal, the governor replied: “Well, what happens is that time passes, it is pressing.”

“We already want to improve the code in the areas where we have consensus, but right now I cannot speak of a consensus when there is no clarity on the part of the

Popular Democratic Party,” Pierluisi said. “Now they are talking about worrying about early voting, they are really talking about postal voting because here we do not see the

rules of procedure have already been amended and there is no early vote in sight beyond what we have always had. He saved vote by mail, because voting by mail is a vote that is here to stay, that is a vote that is taking place at the level of the whole nation.”

On Monday, the PDP president said the areas they are interested in amending are those related to early voting, the selection of the president of the State Elections Commission and the way in which positions are established in the electoral entity.

Meanwhile, NPP House minority leader Carlos “Johnny” Méndez Nuñez said Tuesday that he is waiting for the PDP delegation in the lower chamber to approve the amendments to the Electoral Code.

Méndez added that those amendments were negotiated with House Speaker Rafael “Tatito” Hernández Montañez.

“We have spoken directly with the speaker of the House about the suggested amendments and reached a series of agreements, so … our delegation made a decision in the caucus that was held this morning to wait for the Popular Party delegation to approve the substitute for House Bill 114 and Senate Bill 909, which amends the current Electoral Code. We are ready to act,” Méndez said.

Senator calls on Nicaraguan government to stop religious persecution

By THE STAR STAFF

New Progressive Party Sen. Keren Riquelme Cabrera called on the government of Nicaragua on Tuesday to cease and desist its persecution against religious freedom and the human rights of its citizens.

The at-large senator filed Resolution 664 to express the solidarity and closeness of the Puerto Rico Senate with its Nicaraguan brothers and sisters, and with the Catholic and Evangelical churches of the Central American country, and to request that the government of Nicaragua to cease and desist from its persecution against religious freedom.

“What our Nicaraguan brothers and sisters are experiencing is persecution by a dictatorial regime,” said Riquelme, who authored the measure. “One of the most persecuted sectors are faith-based organizations. Over the past few years we have seen how the authorities of this oppressive regime have kidnapped a bishop, arrested several priests, expelled missionaries, and implemented serious restrictions on religious freedom. We call on the government of [president] Daniel Ortega to stop this abusive and oppressive practice.”

In August 2022, members of the diocese of Siuna denounced the detention of Father Óscar Benavidez, the parish priest of the Holy Spirit Mulukukú Parish.

“We cannot remain silent when violent and callous persecution has been unleashed by the government against dissident groups, including but not limited to churches, civic groups and opponents of the Nicaraguan dictatorial regime,” the senator added.

The Commission on International Religious Freedom revealed in a detailed report that in March the Ortega regime expelled the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s top diplomat in the country, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, for “inexplicable reasons.”

Meanwhile, a judge sentenced one priest to more than four years in prison on “trumped-up charges and authorities arrested another on suspicious grounds.”

Other examples, Riquelme said, are the expulsion of the nuns of Mother Teresa of Calcutta whose only “crime” was to devote themselves to the care of the poorest and most needy, the order for the dissolution of 100 non-governmental organizations with no relation to the government, the murder of an evangelical pastor, the closure of radio stations and religious media, the arbitrary prohibition of public religious demonstrations and the persecution of leaders from all walks of life.

At this time, the Nicaraguan government is also keeping the Bishop of Matagalpa, Msgr. Rolando Álvarez, and a group of priests under house arrest, the senator said.

Popular Democratic Party President Jesús Manuel Ortiz González

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua participates in a multilateral meeting of SICA, the Central American Integration System, in Panama City, April 10, 2015. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)

Governor has no objection to budget structuring established by the House

By THE STAR STAFF

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Tuesday that he has no major objections to the structuring of the budget established by the island House of Representatives, but the determination of how it will be structured will be up to the Financial Oversight and Management Board.

“We have been working with the [oversight] board, because it is the board to which [the House] is going to submit the budget, the budget request of the Legislative Assembly, and it should be doing so sometime in the coming weeks,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “We are working with the board, we agree with the amount of the budget, while there may be some differences in particular allocations. I have to say that the areas that the speaker of the House mentioned as priority areas coincide with proposals that I have made before the board; that is, attending to the University of Puerto Rico, attending to the municipalities, among others, so I see a convergence.”

Regarding funds for the municipalities, Pierluisi said he

believes that there is openness to consider them.

He added that his government is following the discussions in the United States on the federal budget and the implications it would have for Puerto Rico.

“We are monitoring the matter; like the entire legislative process, there is a negotiation taking place and what the Republicans want is not what is necessarily going to be approved,” he said. “That applies to what perhaps Democrats want as well. There will come some kind of middle ground. What I have said, and I repeat, is that if what you are thinking, cut or eliminate unobligated funds related to the pandemic, the vast majority of the funds we have to address the impact of the pandemic have been obligated; that is, the amount in the case of Puerto Rico on that issue should not be so significant. Hopefully, there will be no cut, but what we have done is we have been accelerating the use of all those funds and the obligation of all those funds related to the pandemic.”

President Joseph Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are holding debt limit negotiations to prevent the nation from defaulting on its obligations.

PREPA retirees allege ‘strategy’ to eliminate pension fund

By THE STAR STAFF

The Energy Alliance of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) Employees and Retirees alleged Tuesday that in a “concerted and malicious strate-

gy” between Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, the Financial Oversight and Management Board, and Fiscal Agency Financial Advisory Authority Executive Director Omar Marrero Díaz are eliminating the pension fund of the PREPA Employee Retirement System as soon as the end of May.

The Energy Alliance warned that “Governor Pierluisi and Mr. Omar Marrero do not want the Retirement System to remain alive, they want to make it disappear.”

“Therefore, the $64 million that the fiscal control board authorized to transfer from PREPA’s budget to our Retirement System to cover the months of May and June has not been deposited,” they said. “Those millions of dollars are in the coffers of the Electric Power Authority, which owes us about $950 million.”

Johnny Rodríguez Ortiz, president of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Retirees Association and a member of the alliance, said that “therefore, the Authority requested the balance available in the pension fund to complete the payroll of May 30 and as soon as those checks are cashed, the fund would be practically zero, preventing the Retirement System from fulfilling other contractual obligations, such as the funeral expenses of a member, and liquidations of years of salaries, among others.”

Rodríguez stressed that “we hope that the Retirement System receives the money necessary to cover pensions three days before the checks of our pensioners come out, remembering that Monday, May 29 is a holiday and the checks must be deposited and available on Tuesday, May 30 in the accounts of retirees.”

“We are under the impression that the Board is going to give in to the demands of the bondholders, increasing the [debt payment] offer and publicly disguising that additional amount, such as money for the payment of pensions,” he said. “The members who support these statements denounce the emotional and disorienting abuse that this government continues to cause to our retirees, many of them over 90 years old and others with their health compromised, who call our offices daily to obtain certainty about whether their pension will be available at the end of the month -- an answer we don’t have because the government refuses to provide us with that information and continues to make false promises to us.”

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi

Johnny Rodríguez Ortiz, president of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Retirees Association

Mayors Federation seeks guarantees from fiscal board on $150 million in COVID emergency funds for towns

By THE STAR STAFF

Mayors Federation President Gabriel Hernández Rodríguez has requested through a letter to the Financial Oversight and Management Board the approval of $150 million to ensure that essential services in the 78 municipalities are not interrupted if President Joe Biden signs into law legislation rescinding certain uncommitted funds intended for the COVID-19 emergency.

The proposed law calls for COVID funding that has sat dormant for over two years to be rescinded without delay.

“It is an extremely worrying situation for the municipalities if, in effect the law called the “Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023” is approved, since those unspent funds sent to municipalities provide essential services to citizens in the area of health, education, and security, services to the elderly population, solid waste collection and management services, among other essential services for the well-being of residents,” Hernández

Rodríguez warned in his letter addressed to the executive director of the oversight board, Robert Mujica.

Hernández Rodríguez, who is the mayor of Camuy, said the law will change the State Fiscal Recovery Funds received by the municipalities through

the American Rescue Plan Act. Therefore, the oversight board’s approval and disbursement of $150 million to cover essential services in favor of Puerto Rico’s towns is urgent and essential, he said. He pointed out that the $150 million assigned in the certified Fiscal Plan comes

from the $300 million that has not been earmarked and is recurring until 2027.

“Given the current scenario, it is necessary to allocate the funds to the municipalities as soon as possible so that the services offered to residents are not interrupted due to the lack of economic resources,” said the mayor, who urged the oversight board to carry out the necessary steps to achieve the disbursement of funds.

On April 19, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), unveiled the Republican proposal to raise the debt limit. The Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 would raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion, or suspend it until March 31, 2024, whichever occurs first. The bill also cuts federal programs and services, blocks student debt relief, adds work requirements to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, rescinds unspent COVID aid, and repeals parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. The House passed the bill on April 26 by a 217-215 vote.

New all-inclusive Vista Bahía Hotel in Salinas opens Friday

By THE STAR STAFF

The Puerto Rican chain of all-inclusive hotels on the island that operates the Vista Verde Hotel in Yauco and the Vista Azul Hotel in Aguadilla, will open the doors of the Vista Bahía Hotel in Salinas (formerly the Full Moon Hotel) on Friday.

The all-inclusive lodging has a total of 67 rooms.

“With an impressive sea view, the Hotel will offer an exceptional experience for those seeking a getaway full of family fun and beautiful sunsets,” said Xavier Barrera, physical plant manager at Vista Bahía Hotel, said in a written statement Tuesday. “The rooms of our Hotel are designed and equipped with first-class amenities to guarantee a comfortable and pleasant stay for our guests.”

“Among the amenities and comforts that we will offer, we highlight two swimming pools with a bar, an open-air wood-fired pizzeria, a games room for the enjoyment of children and young people, a basketball court, a shipshaped playground, an activities room and a restaurant with capacity for 332 diners,” he said. “In addition, we will have the rental service for golf carts, kayaks, jet skis and bicycles.”

The hotel will also offer an “all-inclusive” package of breakfast, lunch, dinner and unlimited drinks. Among

the fixed and varied activities that will be offered seven days a week at the hotel, the following stand out: a magic show, children’s characters, artistic activities, live music, jazz nights and karaoke, among others.

“We are excited to welcome our guests to our third Hotel. We have worked hard to create an exceptional environment for visitors to enjoy an unforgettable experience. Our goal is to become the preferred destination for families looking for a fun-filled getaway,” said Yolmarie Ortiz, operations manager.

“Our staff is trained and prepared to provide a hospitable service, ensuring that every detail is taken care of to meet the needs and expectations of our visitors,” she added.

Salinas Mayor Karilyn Bonilla emphasized that “we in the Capital of the Caribbean Sea are very enthusiastic about the opening of the Hotel Vista Bahía, a new quality accommodation alternative for all our local and international tourists.”

“Likewise, job creation is promoted and local tourism is encouraged,” she said. “Know that our municipal administration is open to continue contributing to tourism.”

Investment in the hotel is an estimated $9 million between the purchase transaction and improvements within five years, financed by local banks and private capital. The Hotel Vista Bahía has 101 employees, of which 71

work in newly created jobs.

The opening celebration will kick off the summer in Salinas on Friday with the music of Arnaldo el Más Darling starting at 6 p.m. On Saturday, Barreto El Show and His Plena will perform, also starting at 6 p.m., and Sunday night will feature Rock, DJ and Karaoke, at 5 p.m.

Puerto Rico Mayors Federation President Gabriel Hernández Rodríguez

The all-inclusive Vista Bahía Hotel in Salinas has a total of 67 rooms.

Biden administration pushes to save key COVID programs in debt ceiling talks

By NOAH WEILAND and BENJAMIN MUELLER

Biden administration officials were working Tuesday to preserve funding for key components of the federal coronavirus response in negotiations with House Republicans over a deal to raise the debt limit, according to senior administration officials familiar with the talks.

Administration officials are seeking to protect roughly $5 billion in funding for a program to develop the next generation of coronavirus vaccines and treatments. They are also looking to preserve more than $1 billion in funding for an initiative to offer free coronavirus shots to uninsured Americans, according to the officials.

The funds that the administration is using for the two programs have already been approved by Congress, but they are now potentially in jeopardy because Republicans are seeking to extract spending cuts from the Biden administration as a condition for raising the debt limit.

As one component of a debt limit deal, House Republicans want to reclaim tens of billions of dollars in unspent funds from previously approved COVID-19 relief legislation. It was unclear on Tuesday specifically which funds might be clawed back as part of a deal, though the administration and congressional negotiators have found some agreement on the topic. President Joe Biden said this month that rescinding unspent coronavirus funds was “on the table.”

Representatives for the White House and Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Some White House officials view the vaccine development program, called Project NextGen, as the most important COVID measure to protect in the debt ceiling talks. It is loosely modeled

on the Trump administration’s vaccine development program, known as Operation Warp Speed, which marshaled a series of effective shots to Americans in record time.

Biden administration officials had repurposed other coronavirus response funds this year to support the NextGen program, including some money designated for testing, with the aim of delivering a more durable or effective vaccine as early as next year. While no contracts have been signed with vaccine manufacturers, the program could amount to one of the most ambitious undertakings in the administration’s coronavirus response, which moved into a new phase with the expiration of the public health emergency May 11.

Project NextGen aims to fund the development of coronavirus vaccines that use different technology from those made by

Moderna and Pfizer. Such new vaccines could potentially offer longer-lasting protection against a wider array of coronavirus variants or better defense against infections.

Vaccines administered via the nose or the mouth, known as mucosal vaccines, are among the options that administration officials are planning to support, with the aim of rolling one out as early as autumn 2024, officials said. (In the shorter term, federal regulators are expected to authorize another round of booster shots later this year.)

The project also intends to fund the development of pancoronavirus vaccines, which would protect against different coronaviruses. Officials are planning to fund the development of new monoclonal antibody treatments as well.

Dawn O’Connell, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an interview this month that federal officials were busy surveying possible vaccine options for the project and lining up potential manufacturers.

“We’re looking at all of this and figuring out what the gaps are, what is the thing we need most right now, and investing in those candidates,” O’Connell said, referring to the different technologies that could be used for the vaccines.

By delivering vaccines directly to the nose or the mouth, where the virus first gains entry and starts replicating, scientists hope to be able to head off more infections before they begin, reducing the spread of the virus more dramatically than current injectable shots can.

Public health experts believe pancoronavirus vaccines can potentially broaden people’s immune responses to the virus and, in the process, help people build defenses against new variants before they even arrive.

New report underscores increasing chances of US default in early June

By ALAN RAPPEPORTR

The United States faces an “elevated risk” of running out of cash to pay its bills between June 2 and 13 if Congress does not raise or suspend the nation’s debt limit, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Bipartisan Policy Center, an influential think tank that carefully tracks federal spending.

The analysis underscores the growing possibility that the United States will default on its debt as soon as next week. It comes amid negotiations between the White House and Republicans in Congress to reach an agreement that would also lift the $31.4 trillion borrowing cap.

“Come early June, Treasury will be skating on very thin ice that will only get thinner with each passing day,” said Shai Akabas, the center’s director of economic policy. “Of course, the problem with skating on thin ice is that sometimes you fall through.”

The center said that the Treasury Department would be operating on “dangerously low” cash reserves after Memorial Day and that each day in June would come with increasing risk. The department has been using accounting maneuvers known as extraordinary measures to delay a default since the United States technically hit the debt limit in January, but those are expected to be exhausted soon.

The center noted that the federal government could get a reprieve if it can muster sufficient revenue to make it to June 15, when quarterly tax payments are due. That could push a default, the so-called X-date, into July.

However, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this week that she thought it was unlikely that the federal government would have enough cash on hand to make it to mid-June.

In a letter to Congress on Monday, Yellen reiterated her estimate that the X-date could arrive as soon as June 1. Her warning did not come with the caveats included in her previous updates, which had suggested that the government’s cash reserves could potentially last for a few additional weeks. Instead, she emphasized the urgency of the situation.

“If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, it would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests,” Yellen said.

As the X-date approaches, the Treasury Department has been checking with federal agencies about the timing of upcoming expenditures. Treasury recently sent a memo to agencies to inquire if any scheduled payments could be delayed. The Washington Post reported earlier on the memo.

The communication is similar to what the Treasury Department conveyed during the 2021 debt limit standoff and is part of how it manages its cash reserves.

“To produce an accurate forecast around the debt limit, it’s critical that Treasury have updated information on the magnitude and timing of agency payments,” Lily Adams, a Treasury spokesperson, said. “As in prior debt limit episodes, Treasury will continue to regularly communicate with all aspects of the federal government on their planned expenditures.”

Loyalty Finance LLC

A healthcare worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine at a clinic in San Juan, P.R., May 20, 2022.

Tim Scott begins presidential campaign, adding to list of Trump challengers

Gobierno de Puerto Rico DEPARTAMENTO DE DESARROLLO ECONÓMICO Y COMERCIO Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos AVISO VISTA PÚBLICA

Para conocimiento del público en general y de conformidad con las disposiciones del Artículo 8.6 de la Ley 161-2009, según enmendada, conocida como “Ley para la Reforma del Proceso de Permisos de Puerto Rico”, la Ley Núm. 38 -2017, según enmendada, conocida como “Ley de Procedimiento Administrativo Uniforme del Gobierno de Puerto Rico”, el Reglamento Conjunto para la Evaluación y Expedición de Permisos relacionados al Desarrollo, Uso de Terrenos y Operación de Negocios, en adelante Reglamento Conjunto y cualquier otra disposición de ley aplicable, se informa que la Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos (“OGPe”) celebrará vista pública para el caso que se describe a continuación:

Proyecto/Peticionario:

Ferretería con venta de materiales de construcción (empaque agregado y taller mecánica y soldadura) /Ing.

Henry Contreras Silverio Caso Núm.

2022-445934-CUB-006295

Dueño de la Propiedad:

Sr. Luis A. Benítez Rodríguez

Calificación:

R-1, ahora R-B (94%), VIAL (6%)

Cualquier interesado en acceder y participar en la Vista Pública Virtual puede a través de: www.ddec.pr.gov/vistaspublicas

Fecha: 12 de junio de 2023

Hora: 9:30 a.m.

Dirección de la acción propuesta: Carretera PR-198, Km. 15.6, Parcela B Barrio Ceiba Norte Juncos, Puerto Rico

En la vista del caso de referencia se interesa discutir, pero sin limitarse a: solicitud de consulta de ubicación vía variación en uso consistente en ferretería con venta de materiales de construcción (empaque agregado y taller mecánica y soldadura). La solicitud se evaluará a tenor, pero sin limitarse, a lo establecido en las Reglas 2.2.2, 2.2.3 y 6.1.2 del Reglamento Conjunto y sus disposiciones sobre variaciones en uso. La parte proponente tendrá que justificar su solicitud para la concesión de la variación. Se convoca e invita al público en general a comparecer y participar a la vista pública a celebrarse mediante el método alterno (“virtual”), con acceso al público general, además de las partes reconocidas. Los procedimientos para la celebración de la vista serán los establecidos en las secciones 2.1.10.7 a 2.1.10.15 del Reglamento Conjunto. Si una parte debidamente citada no participa o comparece a la conferencia con antelación a la vista, a la vista pública o a cualquier otra etapa durante el procedimiento adjudicativo, el funcionario que presida la misma podrá declararla en rebeldía, multarla y continuar el procedimiento sin su participación, pero notificará por escrito a dicha parte su determinación según la Regla 2.1.7 (Notificaciones), los fundamentos para la misma, el recurso de revisión disponible y el plazo para ejercerlo

Se advierte que las partes, incluyendo corporaciones y sociedades, podrán, pero no están obligadas a, comparecer asistidas por abogado. Salvo justa causa, la vista no podrá ser transferida. Cualquier solicitud de transferencia de vista tendrá un cargo de $100.00, y deberá ser presentada con no menos de cinco (5) días de antelación a la fecha de la misma a través del Sistema

Unificado de Información (“Single Business Portal”) de la OGPe, expresando las razones que justifican la solicitud. Deberá, además, cubrir los costos que conlleve la notificación de la transferencia y anunciar el nuevo señalamiento mediante la publicación de un nuevo aviso de prensa. El peticionario de la transferencia de la vista notificará y enviará copia de la solicitud simultáneamente a las otras partes ya reconocidas en el proceso y certificará el cumplimiento con lo aquí expuesto en la propia solicitud de trasferencia. El Reglamento Conjunto faculta al Oficial Examinador a imponer una multa de $500.00 a toda persona que observe una conducta irrespetuosa durante la vista, o que intencionalmente interrumpa o dilate los procedimientos sin causa justificada.

Cualquier persona podrá requerir examinar el expediente o solicitar copia de éste mediante solicitud (SCE) a través del Single Business Portal en la página https://sbp.ogpe.pr.gov/ o en cualquier oficina de la OGPe. Podrá, además, haciendo referencia al número de solicitud, presentar por escrito sus comentarios a través de notificaciones_ogpe@ddec.pr.gov o a PO Box 41179, San Juan, PR 00940-1179 en cualquier momento previo a la fecha de la vista. El Oficial Examinador, motu proprio o a solicitud de parte, podrá conceder un término adicional para someter comentarios, que en ningún caso excederá de diez (10) días desde que concluya la vista.

By JONATHAN WEISMAN and MAYA KING

Tim Scott, the first Black Republican elected to the Senate from the South since Reconstruction, announced his campaign for president earlier this week, bringing a positive, aspirational message to a growing field of Republicans running as alternatives to former President Donald Trump.

Scott’s decision, which followed a soft rollout in February and the creation of an exploratory committee in April, came this time with a signal to the Republican establishment that he was the candidate to rally around if the party is to stop Trump’s nomination. He was introduced by the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Thune of South Dakota, and will immediately begin a $5.5 million advertising blitz in the early nominating states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

“Our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing: Victimhood or victory?” he said, repeating the choice three times to a packed and boisterous morning rally in the gym of his alma mater, Charleston Southern University. “Grievance or greatness? I choose freedom and hope and opportunity.”

Long considered a rising star in the GOP, Scott, 57, enters the primary field having amassed $22 million in fundraising and having attracted veteran political operatives to work on his behalf.

But his message of hope and inclusion may not resonate among base Republican voters steeped in Trump’s angry demands for vengeance, and the field of Republicans hoping to take the nomination from Trump is about to grow far more crowded.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, are expected to enter the race in the coming days. Chris Sununu, the popular Republican governor of New Hampshire, hinted over the weekend that he was likely to throw his hat in the ring as well, scrambling the battle for the state with the first Republican primary. Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, is still mulling a run.

With Trump’s most ardent followers unwilling to abandon their standard-bearer, the former president’s critics worry that more opponents will only split the anti-Trump vote and ensure his victory. Thune’s presence onstage Monday was an acknowledgment of that concern and a call to other elected Republicans to get on board with Scott.

“Tim Scott is the real deal,” Thune proclaimed.

Aides to the Scott campaign said his $22 million war chest was more than any presidential candidate in history. (When De-

Santis announces his bid as expected, he will have more money in allied groups, but that kind of political cash does not go as far under campaign finance rules.) The Scott aides also said that the $42 million he has raised since 2022 — much of which has been doled out to other Republicans — had created a depth of loyalties other candidates do not have.

The biggest question looming over Scott’s candidacy may be whether his message of positivity steeped in religiosity can attract enough Republican voters to win in a crowded primary.

One of Scott’s rivals for the nomination is Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor who appointed him to his Senate seat in 2012. The two have split allegiances and in-state support since Haley started her run in February, potentially complicating their efforts in a must-win early primary state.

“I bet there’s room for three or four” candidates from South Carolina, Scott told the conservative radio personality Joey Hudson during a February interview.

Scott has consolidated support from several top Republican donors and political consultants while touring Iowa and New Hampshire, key early nominating states, along with South Carolina, his home base. Longtime political operative Rob Collins and former Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, two well-known figures in Republican politics, are the leaders of his affiliated super PAC. Last month, two top South Carolina operatives, Matt Moore and Mark Knoop, were tapped to lead the group’s in-state operations.

Mick Mulvaney, the former South Carolina congressman and acting chief of staff in the Trump White House, was at the announcement, as was Mark Sanford, the disgraced former governor of South Carolina whose political comeback was cut short by his staunch criticism of Trump. Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle and a major Republican donor, attended as well.

“I’m a huge fan of Tim Scott,” Sanford said.

Scott was a leading Republican voice on police reform negotiations after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, helping draft Republicans’ proposed legislation that called for narrow reforms but did not ultimately pass. In 2017, he spearheaded the creation of Opportunity Zones, an initiative that offers tax incentives to investors in low-income neighborhoods — many of which are predominantly Black.

It’s not clear, however, whether those efforts will result in added support from Black voters on a national stage. For many Black Democrats, Scott’s race matters little in light of his conservative voting record.

“The same Black people that would normally vote Republican, those are the people that will vote for Tim Scott,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y. “The majority of Black people,” he added, “aren’t going to come out for Tim Scott.”

Scott has already been tested as a presidential candidate. Days after starting his exploratory committee, Scott waffled on questions about whether he would support a federal abortion ban and did not specify the number of weeks at which he would restrict access to the procedure if elected president.

Scott’s entry to the race also comes amid soul-searching for Republicans on who will carry the party’s mantle in 2024. Trump has increased his edge in the polls even as he faces new personal and political controversies, including his indictment by a grand jury in Manhattan and subsequent liability in a sexual assault trial involving columnist E. Jean Carroll. Scott has pointedly declined to criticize Trump head-on, preferring oblique references to his own rectitude.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), right, chats with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the committee chairman, during a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee in Washington on March 6, 2023.

A year after a school shooting, divisions run through Uvalde

By EDGAR SANDOVAL and J. DAVID GOODMAN

At a school board meeting this month in Uvalde, Texas, parents and administrators found themselves locked in what had become a familiar argument: Nearly a year had passed since a gunman breached Robb Elementary School and killed 19 children and two teachers. The community was still waiting for officials to fully disclose how it happened.

“Almost a year now, and honestly nothing has changed,” Jesse Rizo, the uncle of one of the massacre victims, told the board. “These people are pretty much begging you guys to answer questions. You came here and you pretty much oppress people. They ask you questions, you don’t have answers.”

Despite the passage of time, there is still strong disagreement over who should be fired for the slow police response to one of the worst school shootings in American history, and what position the town should take on the repeated calls from families of the victims to restrict guns. Neighbors who have known each other for years now find themselves unable to agree and more distant than ever before.

“We used to be a close community,” Rizo said after the school board meeting on May 15. “Now it’s like we don’t know each other anymore.”

United in grief in the weeks after the shooting that ignited a national firestorm over how police respond to mass shootings, Uvalde in the painful months since then has drifted apart, dividing along fault lines that barely existed a year ago.

The fissures run deep and remain raw: between the victims’ relatives lobbying for stricter gun laws, and neighbors who have long been avid hunters and gun owners and bristle at any new restrictions; between supporters of the police, who are the subject of a district attorney’s investigation for their delay in taking down the gunman, and residents who now distrust law enforcement; between those still in mourning and those who would like to move on.

Frictions have occasionally spilled into the open in a city where everyone still shops at the same grocery stores, eats at the same restaurants, attends the same Little League games.

At a recent library event, residents pulled the city manager aside to ask, quietly, about when Uvalde could begin to put the

shooting behind them, starting with finally getting rid of a makeshift shrine to the massacre’s victims that still fills the central plaza. “I’ve had more than one person ask me: When are you going to clean up the plaza?” said the city manager, Vince DiPiazza.

There have been overt displays of anger. The relatives of one of the children killed screamed at the mother of the 18-year-old gunman after running into her by chance on the street last year. A local pastor drew ire for defending the police during a school board meeting last summer. One person urged him to sit down, shouting, “Your time is up!”

“The negativity divides. You have everybody getting mad,” said Berlinda Arreola, the step-grandmother of one of the victims.

Disagreements and lingering resentments have complicated the preparations for Wednesday’s commemoration of the massacre. Officials urged outsiders to stay away from Uvalde, while relatives of some residents planned a memorial march through town.

After more than 100 students walked out of classes last month as part of protests against gun violence, school administrators warned them that they would face consequences the next time.

Long after the gunfire, Uvalde remains on edge. Recently, the City Hall and a large supermarket went into lockdown after residents circulated images of a man walking around downtown with a gun on his shoulder. (It turned out to be a BB gun.) Some parents kept their children home from school during the final full week of classes this month amid social media threats of violence that turned out to be unfounded.

Tensions remain in part because several investigations into the shooting and police response remain unresolved.

An inquiry by the district attorney, Christina Mitchell, remains open into whether charges should be brought against any of the dozens of officers who waited for more than an hour to storm the classroom where the gunman was holed up with students and kill him. Mitchell has said that she intends to present any evidence of criminal wrongdoing to a grand jury. But such a presentation is likely still many months away.

“A case of this magnitude has to be deliberate, has to be thorough, and there cannot be haste,” she said in a statement. “Because I have seen cases that are quickly investigated and justice does not prevail in those cases.”

A medical study to determine whether a faster confrontation with the gunman could have saved any of the children has yet to be completed. The Justice Department, too, is still working on its inquiry into the police response. Vanita Gupta, the department’s third highest-ranking official, visited Uvalde last month to meet with officials and families and reassure them that the investigation was still happening, even if its results were not yet forthcoming.

The department has helped city officials connect with people in other cities torn apart by mass shootings, sharing a kind of grim new playbook for navigating the long, painful aftermath. “It reinforced in my mind that what was happening here is not unusual,” DiPiazza said.

Much of the frustration has been directed at school administrators, who oversee the school district’s small police force. The chief of that force, Pete Arredondo, was immediately singled out by the Texas Department of Public Safety’s director, Steve McCraw, for failing to swiftly confront the gunman.

But a report by a Texas House committee later found “systemic failures” in the police response, not just by Arredondo, but by other agencies, including the state DPS and the city Police Department, which also participated in the response. Both Arredondo and a state police sergeant on scene, Juan

Maldonado, were fired, and the officer who had been acting as the chief of the city Police Department at the time of the massacre resigned.

The school district revamped its Police Department, but the hiring of a new school police chief has not eased tensions. When a father of two students questioned the qualifications of a new police hire during a recent school board meeting, the district responded by barring him from school property for two years.

A letter signed by the new interim school superintendent, Gary Patterson, called the father’s actions disruptive and disturbing.

In addition to the school police chief, the district has hired three additional officers and hopes to bring in several more. “We’re being very careful and trying to hire the right type of person,” Patterson said in an interview. “Our Police Department is the most scrutinized in the world right now.”

The school building where the shooting took place now sits behind chain-link fencing, its windows boarded over, ready for a planned demolition. The sign at one corner of the campus has become a kind of shrine, visited by victims’ relatives and passing motorists, and students have been dispersed to other schools until a new facility can be built.

Gloria Cazares and other family members from Uvalde are overcome with emotion after the Texas House Select Committee on Community Safety votes in favor of a bill to raise the minimum age to buy a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21 in Austin, Texas on May 8, 2023.

Airlines and FAA try to head off summer travel meltdowns

By NIRAJ CHOKSHI

The number of Americans who will fly this summer could eclipse the pre-pandemic high from 2019. That would be great news for airlines, but it could also cause a backlash against the industry if it fails to keep up with demand and delays or cancels thousands of flights.

The recovery from the pandemic has been punctuated by several major travel meltdowns, stranding millions of travelers and angering lawmakers and regulators. In recent months, the Transportation Department has proposed requiring greater transparency around airline fees and requiring companies to more fully compensate people whose flights are delayed or canceled.

A major misstep could increase political pressure on lawmakers and regulators to take a harder line against airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration, which directs air traffic and has also had notable failures in recent years.

“I don’t think they can afford to have a summer like they did last year,” said William J. McGee, a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, a research and advocacy group that has criticized consolidation in the airline business. “This pattern they had last year of canceling flights at the last minute, in many cases due to crew shortages, that’s just unacceptable. They’re not going to be able to do that again, I don’t think, not without some serious repercussions.”

Industry executives and FAA officials say they have made changes after recent disruptions and meltdowns that should make air travel less chaotic and more pleasant this summer than in recent years.

Why have airlines struggled so much?

Nearly every major airline and the air traffic control system has suffered a meltdown at some point during the recovery from the pandemic.

Early on, when coronavirus vaccinations were still being developed and tested and restrictions prevented people from traveling, carriers encouraged thousands of employees to take buyouts or retire early even though the federal government had provided airlines with billions of dollars to pay employee salaries. When air travel quickly rebounded, airlines, like every other business, struggled to hire and train employees, including pilots, flight attendants

Andeno Co

Tasa mínima, promedio ponderado, y máxima para préstamos personales pequeños otorgados para la semana que terminó el sábado, 20 de mayo de 2023

and baggage handlers.

Even when companies got a hold on hiring, airlines remained particularly susceptible to disruptions. During the holidays leading into 2022, a resurgent coronavirus sickened huge numbers of crew members, compounding problems caused by bad weather, and resulting in thousands of flight cancellations nationwide.

Another problem: The aviation system uses technology and ways of doing business that were developed years or decades ago and are showing their age. Around Christmas last year, Southwest Airlines struggled to overcome bad storms because of insufficient equipment and inadequate crew scheduling software and practices, stranding millions of travelers. Weeks later, the FAA briefly stopped all flights from taking off nationwide after a contractor deleted a file in a dated pilot alerting system.

The industry has put in place changes to minimize disruptions, including hiring more staff, reducing the number of flights and adding more resilience to their networks. It appears to be helping: Through early May, weather has by far been the leading cause of flight delays, and cancellations have been limited, compared with 2019.

What will the summer look like?

So far this year, air travel has returned to pre-pandemic levels, with more than 2.1 million people passing through airport checkpoints daily, as many as during the same period in 2019, according to Transportation Security Administration data. Airport traffic has already broken pandemic records on several days this May, according to the TSA.

But traffic could soon exceed even those 2019 volumes. Memorial Day is the start of the summer travel season and is expected to be the third-busiest in more than two decades, with 5.4% more people planning to fly than in the same weekend before the pandemic, according to the AAA travel club.

Dozens of major airports are also expected to see double-digit growth in traffic this summer, from last summer, according to Airlines for America, an industry trade

association. That list includes airports serving big cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle and Denver. It also includes six hub airports for United Airlines, five for Delta Air Lines and four for American Airlines.

What is the FAA doing?

To keep flights running smoothly this summer, the FAA is relaxing rules at some busy airports.

Those rules require airlines to use or lose takeoff and landing slots that they’ve been assigned. But by easing that requirement from mid-May to mid-September, the FAA hopes to encourage carriers to fly fewer, larger planes without fear of losing their spots. The policy applies to the three major airports serving New York City, as well as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The FAA said it relaxed the rules partly because of a staffing shortfall at an air traffic control center that serves the New York airports and employs only about half of its target number of air traffic controllers. Without the change, the FAA said flight delays could increase by up to 45% this summer compared with last summer. The problems could reverberate nationwide because many flights connect in New York.

What are airlines doing?

Some airlines say they’ve prepared for summer by planning to use bigger planes, hiring more staff and more closely watching for early signs of disruptions.

At the FAA’s request, several major airlines have agreed to fly less, but with bigger planes, at some busy airports. United, for example, said it planned to have 30 fewer daily departures out of its Newark, New Jersey, hub than in the summer of 2019. But because it’s using larger planes, the airline said it would offer 5% more seats in the New York area.

The airline, for example, has cut the number of roundtrip flights from Newark to St. Louis, to three flights a day this July from four a day last year. But because it swapped out one of the regional jets that it typically uses with a larger Airbus A319, United is offering 18% more seats on that route this year compared with last year.

“We very, very, very much want to fly a larger schedule,” said Patrick Quayle, a senior vice president for global network planning and alliances at United. “But what we care about most is running a reliable operation.”

Other airlines are also planning to use larger planes on certain routes, a practice that has accelerated in recent years and is known as “upgauging.” Airlines have scheduled about 5% more flights within the United States this summer compared with last summer, and there will be about 10% more seats available, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Compared with the summer of 2019, airlines this summer will fly 10% fewer flights yet offer 3% more seats.

The industry has also aggressively recruited and trained new employees. As of March, passenger airlines employed the equivalent of nearly 487,000 full-time employees, the most since October 2001, according to an analysis of federal data by Airlines for America, the industry group.

Flight crew members at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on May 16, 2023. The airline industry has aggressively recruited and trained new employees.

Wall St ends sharply lower on deadlocked debt ceiling talks

Wall Street indexes were subdued on Tuesday as talks over increasing the U.S. debt limit stretched to another round, keeping investors jittery on prospects of an unprecedented government default.

White House and congressional Republican negotiators will meet again later in the day to discuss how to raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, with just nine days left for the deadline.

This comes after President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could not reach an agreement about the debt ceiling in their meeting a day earlier, but vowed to keep talking.

“Both sides are motivated to not default and to work out a compromise, so that’s the feeling today at any rate. The markets really never expect a default. Not much is priced in for that and so that’s a positive,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments.

Worries over the debt limit pushed yields on one-month Treasury bills to record highs at 5.888%, before falling by midday.

Trading on the S&P 500 index was stuck in a 30-point range in the last two sessions as U.S. debt ceiling talks lingered.

Strategists polled by Reuters see the benchmark index ending the year at 4,150 points, down slightly from Monday’s close of 4,192.63.

Helping limit losses, the S&P Global data showed U.S. business activity rose to a 13-month high in May, lifted by strong growth in the services sector.

The report was the latest indication that the economy held its momentum early in the second quarter despite rising risks of a recession.

The Commerce Department’s April personal consumption expenditure (PCE) index reading, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, is due on Friday.

Broadcom Inc advanced 2.5%, hitting a record high after the chipmaker entered into a multi-billion-dollar deal with Apple Inc to use chips made in the United States. Apple shares fell 0.9%.

Zoom Video Communications fell 7.6% after the video conferencing platform recorded its slowest quarterly revenue growth.

At 12:25 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 3.48 points, or 0.01%, at 33,290.06, the S&P 500 was down 13.15 points, or 0.31%, at 4,179.48, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 41.50 points, or 0.33%, at 12,679.28.

Among retail earnings, Lowe’s Companies Inc cut its annual comparable sales forecast, as demand dwindles for home improvement goods. Lowe’s reverse coursed to gain 2.5%.

BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings Inc dropped 6.9% after the warehouse club operator missed first-quarter revenue

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estimates. Shares of regional lenders extended gains from the previous session, led by a 14.5% rise in PacWest Bancorp.

The KBW regional banking index hit a three-week high, up 2.7%. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.16-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.34-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P index recorded three new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 79 new highs and 44 new lows.

Rare assault inside Russia stretches into second day

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

Fighting raged for a second day Tuesday in the Belgorod region of southern Russia as a Ukrainian-aligned paramilitary group claimed to seize villages and rebuff counterattacks, in the most dramatic instance to date of bringing the war into Russian territory.

The Free Russia Legion, a group of Russian volunteers who have taken up arms to fight for Ukraine, claimed responsibility for the incursion, while Ukraine publicly denied direct involvement, turning the tables on a Russian strategy that preceded the invasion last year of sending unacknowledged weaponry and soldiers into Ukraine.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday afternoon that it had pushed the militants back across the border, adding that scores of “saboteurs” had been killed. That claim could not be verified, and people who said they represented the fighters maintained the attacks were continuing and had gained new ground. Those statements also could not be verified.

The incursion could compel Russia to divert soldiers from a long and unevenly defended front in southeastern Ukraine before a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, military analysts said. It seemed intended as well to unnerve and embarrass the Russian leadership by showing a weakness in border defenses.

Against a bucolic background of green farm fields, smoke billowed from explosions during the fighting, according to drone video verified as authentic by The New York Times.

Representative of the Free Russia Legion said Tuesday that Ukrainian officers were aware of the operation but had not directed it. The tanks deployed in the attack against

Russia, they said, had been captured from Russia’s army in Ukraine. Russia claimed it had captured a U.S.-made armored vehicle designed to withstand land mines that had been used in the attack.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that even if the attackers were ethnic Russians, they are “Ukrainian militants” whose violence justifies Moscow’s broader war against its neighbor.

“This once again confirms that Ukrainian militants are continuing their activities against our country,” Peskov told reporters Tuesday.

A deputy Ukrainian defense minister, Hanna Maliar, described the attackers as “Russian patriots” who “rebelled against the Putin” government.

“These are internal Russian trends dictated by the desire of citizens to change the political system of the country and end the bloody war that the Kremlin has unleashed,” Maliar said Tuesday on Ukrainian television.

The governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said the region had been struck 15 times with artillery Tuesday morning. He later said one civilian had been killed.

Soldiers and armored vehicles, including some bearing Ukrainian markings, were seen in videos posted online from Belgorod on Monday.

In another Russian border region to the north, Bryansk, a military factory warehouse caught fire Tuesday near the town of Dyatkovo, local news media reported. Details were not immediately available.

The Free Russia Legion operates under the umbrella of Ukraine’s International Legion, a fighting force overseen by Ukrainian officers.

Ukrainian commanders in the International Legion knew about the operation but had not directed it, Ilya Ponomarev, an exiled Russian politician who described himself as the political representative of the Free Russia Legion, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Ponomarev maintained the Free Russia Legion’s soldiers had captured about a dozen Russian border guards and were “inside Russia, digging trenches and preparing to defend the land that they liberated.” His claims could not be independently verified.

Ponomarev described the incursion as an effort to “liberate a certain part of Russian land,” to force the Russian military to divert troops fighting in Ukraine and to destabilize President Vladimir Putin’s government.

“We think now they need to reconsider and deploy more forces all along the Ukrainian border,” Ponomarev said.

A spokesperson for the political wing of the Free Russia Legion, Aleksey Baranovsky, said the group captured two villages Tuesday and held in total about 8 square miles of Russian territory.

A senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive mission, said the Free Russia Legion had suffered losses but not enough to affect the fighters’ combat readiness.

Russian judge extends detention of American journalist

By ROGER COHEN

Meeting behind closed doors, a Moscow court on Tuesday extended the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent accused of espionage, for more than three months, until Aug. 30.

The refusal of bail and the extension of Gershkovich’s detention were widely expected, although Russia has presented no evidence to back the espionage accusation. The U.S. government and The Wall Street Journal have vehemently rejected the charges, saying that “reporting is not

a crime.”

Gershkovich’s parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, waited for more than an hour outside the courtroom before being allowed into the hearing. It was their first sighting of their son since his arrest March 29. The couple, who live in New Jersey, arrived in Moscow on Saturday.

State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters in a briefing Tuesday that the United States did not arrange travel for Gershkovich’s parents to attend their son’s hearing. He added that, while he can only imagine their pain, the United States has advised all Americans to avoid traveling to Russia.

After the hearing, Gershkovich’s parents did not comment on what they had seen, but were whisked away in the company of one of Gershkovich’s lawyers. Milman wore a “Free Evan” button. Before going into the hearing, Gershkovich’s father said, “We hope he is doing great and that he can be as strong as his mother.”

Gershkovich, 31, has been held at the Lefortovo jail since he was detained March 29 during a reporting trip to the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg. If convicted, Gershkovich would

face up to 20 years in a Russian penal colony.

A prisoner exchange, such as the one that secured the release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner late last year, would not take place until after a verdict is reached in the case, Russian officials have said. However, the Biden administration is known to be working to secure an early release.

The U.S. government, The Wall Journal Journal, numerous colleagues, groups supporting press freedom and prominent international officials have all condemned Gershkovich’s detention and called the accusations made against him utterly baseless.

Soldiers with the Free Russia Legion training in the Kyiv region of Ukraine, Feb. 7, 2023.

Outside the Lefortovo District Court in Moscow on Tuesday, where the detention of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent accused of espionage, was extended.

For the winner in Turkey, one prize is an economy at the edge of crisis

By BEN HUBBARD

Inflation in Turkey remains stubborn at 44%. Consumers have watched their paychecks buy less and less food as the months tick by. And now, government largesse and efforts to prop up the currency are threatening economic growth and could push the country into recession.

It’s a tough challenge for whoever wins the runoff election for the presidency Sunday. And it’s an especially complicated one if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains in power, since his policies, including some aimed at securing his reelection, have exacerbated the problems.

“The relatively strong economy of the past several quarters has been the product of unsustainable policies, so there will most likely be a contraction or recession,” said Brad W. Setser, an expert in global trade and finance at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Working Turks will feel poorer when the lira falls in value,” he said of the local currency. “People will find it harder to find a job and harder to get a salary that covers the cost of living.”

Economic turmoil in Turkey, one of the world’s 20 largest economies, could echo internationally because of the country’s broad network of global trade ties. It will also likely dominate the immediate agenda of whichever candidate prevails in the runoff election.

During Erdogan’s first 10 years in power, he oversaw dramatic economic growth that transformed Turkish cities and lifted millions of people out of poverty. But some of those gains have been eroded in recent years. The national currency has lost 80% of its value against the dollar since 2018, and year-on-year inflation that exceeded 80% last year and was 44% last month has left many people feeling poorer.

While economic orthodoxy usually calls for raising interest rates to combat inflation, Erdogan has insisted on doing the opposite, repeatedly reducing them, which economists say has exacerbated the problem.

During his reelection campaign, Erdogan showed no intention of changing his policies, doubling down on his belief that low interest rates would help the economy grow by providing cheap credit to increase Turkish manufacturing and exports.

“We will work relentlessly until we make Turkey one of the 10 largest economies in the world,” he said at an election rally this month. “If today there is a reality in Turkey that does not allow its pensioners, workers and civil servants to be crushed under inflation, we succeeded by standing back to back with you.”

In other rallies, he vowed to continue low-

ering interest rates and to bring down inflation.

“You will see as the interest rates go down, so will inflation” he told supporters in Istanbul in April.

In the run-up to the election, with the cost-of-living crisis on many voters’ minds, Erdogan launched a range of expensive policies aimed at blunting the immediate effects of inflation on voters. He repeatedly raised the minimum wage, increased civil servant salaries and changed regulations to allow millions of Turks to receive early government pensions. All of those commitments must be honored by whomever wins the election, meaning greater government spending into the future.

Exacerbating the economic stress is the vast damage caused by the powerful earthquakes that destroyed large parts of southern Turkey in February. In March, a government assessment put the damage at $103 billion, or about 9% of this year’s gross domestic product.

At the same time, the government has heavily intervened to slow the decline of the Turkish lira, mostly by selling foreign exchange reserves. During one week in early May, the reserves declined by $7.6 billion to $60.8 billion, according to central bank data, the largest such decline in more than two decades.

To address that, Erdogan has reached agreements with countries including Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia that would help shore up reserves in Turkey’s central bank.

Saudi Arabia announced a $5 billion deposit in March, and Russia agreed to delay at least some of Turkey’s payment for natural gas imports until after the election.

The terms of most of these agreements have not been made public, but economists said they were part of a short-term strategy by Erdogan more focused on winning the election than on ensuring the country’s long-term financial health.

Should Erdogan win, as many analysts expect he will, few expect him to dramatically change course.

“I don’t think the current government has a plan to fix this because they don’t admit that these problems are due to policy mistakes,” said Selva Demiralp, a professor of economics at Koc University in Istanbul. “I don’t see a way out for the current government.”

Erdogan came out ahead in the first round of elections May 14 with 49.2% of the vote but fell short of the majority needed to win outright. The main opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, won 45%, and a third candidate, Sinan Ogan, won 5.2%. Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu will compete in the runoff.

Most analysts give Erdogan an edge because of his strong showing in the first round and the likelihood that he will inherit significant votes from Ogan, who formally endorsed Erdogan on Monday. Erdogan’s political party and its allies also maintained their majority in parliament, allowing Erdogan to argue that voters should choose him to avoid a divided government.

If Erdogan sticks to the status quo, economists expect the currency to sink further, the government to impose restrictions on foreigncurrency withdrawals and the state to run short of foreign currency to pay its bills.

In its campaign, the political opposition promised to follow more orthodox economic policies, including raising interest rates to bring down inflation and restoring the independence of the central bank, whose policies are widely believed to be overseen by Erdogan himself.

But if he becomes president, Kilicdaroglu will inherit a financial situation that will require immediate attention, economic advisers to opposition parties have said.

In addition to honoring the additional spending added by Erdogan in recent months, a new administration would need to respect his financial arrangements with other countries, the terms of many of which are not clear.

“What are the political terms? What are the financial terms?” said Kerim Rota, who is in charge of economic policy for Gelecek Party, a member of the opposition coalition. “Unfortunately, none of those numbers are reflected in the Turkish statistics.”

If it came to power, the opposition would need both short- and medium-term plans to bolster the government’s finances and restore the confidence of investors, he said. But restricting its ability to maneuver would be the majority in parliament led by Erdogan’s party and its allies.

“We need a very credible medium-term program, but the question is if the majority of the parliament is on the AKP side, how can you manage a five-year program?” he said, using another name for Erdogan’s party.

People walk past a currency exchange office in Istanbul, on May 15, 2023.

Typhoon Mawar could hit Guam with the force of a Category 5 storm

By CHRISTINE HAUSER, JUDSON JONES and MIKE IVES

Typhoon Mawar could hit Guam on Wednesday with the force of a Category 5 hurricane, forecasters warned, as local authorities ordered residents in coastal areas of the Pacific island to evacuate.

A typhoon warning was in effect for Guam, a U.S. territory, and Rota, a nearby island, the National Weather Service said. Guam has a population of more than 150,000 people, many of whom live in coastal communities.

Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero had ordered residents in the island’s low-lying coastal areas to evacuate by 6 p.m. local time Tuesday. Authorities advised all other Guam residents to remain indoors.

Mawar, which had been strengthening Tuesday, was upgraded to a Super Typhoon late in the afternoon, verging on a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 155 mph, the weather service said. The Super Typhoon classification is given to tropical cyclones with winds of 150

Residents in Guam preparing on Monday for the arrival of Typhoon Mawar. The governor of the Pacific island warned that it could take a direct hit from the storm.

mph or higher.

If the storm makes landfall on Guam at the strength of a Category 5 hurricane, it would arrive with more force than Hurricane Ian, which was a Category 4 storm when it slammed into Florida in September, killing at least 114 people and leaving wreckage on a scale

that was staggering even to Floridians who had survived and rebuilt after other powerful storms.

The eye of Mawar was about 85 miles southeast of Guam by 5 a.m. local time Wednesday, the weather service said. Mawar’s winds were expected to remain at between 150-160 mph through Thursday, it said.

Tropical storm-force winds, classified as 39 mph or more, were expected to arrive on the island Wednesday morning and then intensify.

Forecasters with the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, a service operated by the U.S. Navy, said it was “all but certain” that the system would remain at or near Super Typhoon intensity, with sustained surface-wind strength of 150 mph or above.

The intensifying typhoon was moving west-northwest at 5 mph and would likely pass “very near or directly over Guam” on Wednesday, bringing not only high winds but also life-threatening storm surges and 2 feet of rain to some areas, the weather service said.

The biggest impacts of the storm are going

to begin Tuesday evening and peak in the overnight hours into Wednesday, said Brandon Bukunt, a meteorologist with the weather service in Guam.

As the storm approaches the islands, its winds are “going to pick up,” said Bukunt, and outer rain bands could bring heavy downpours, increasing the chances of flooding, including in Guam, which is home to Andersen Air Force Base.

Authorities said Tuesday that the base would close its gates at 10 p.m. and that several military facilities on the island were in a “condition of readiness” for the storm.

The difference between a typhoon and a hurricane is in name only, and based on geography. Typhoons are tropical cyclones that develop in the northwestern Pacific and affect Asia. Elsewhere, they are called hurricanes.

Typhoons can form year-round but are most common from May to October.

Mawar, a Malaysian name that means “rose,” is the second named storm in the western Pacific this season. The first, Tropical Storm Sanvu, weakened in less than two days.

Alert level is raised in central Mexico as volcano spews smoke and ash

An alert level was raised over the weekend for a volcano in central Mexico that was spewing ash and smoke, prompting officials to close schools and public parks, and to prepare for the possibility of evacuations.

The National Disaster Prevention Center of Mexico said Sunday that the alert level was being raised to what is known as Phase 3, which is just shy of an evacuation order, for the area around the volcano, Popocatépetl, in the central region of the country.

Laura Velázquez Alzúa, the head of the center, said at a news conference Sunday that when an alert level is raised to Phase 3, it is possible for a volcano to produce mild to moderate explosions that can hurl fragments of rock, cause ash to fall in surrounding areas, and disrupt air travel. The expulsion of magma is also possible, the center said.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico said at a news conference Monday morning that he was in contact with

federal and local officials about the volcano, adding that it was being monitored constantly.

“We are standing by,” López Obrador said in Spanish.

The disaster prevention center said that authorities in the area surrounding Popocatépetl were preparing evacuation teams and shelters, and that local and state officials were also planning to tour evacuation routes Monday.

“We need to be perfectly sure that our evacuation routes and signs are correct,” Velázquez Alzúa said.

Popocatépetl (pronounced poh-poh-kah-TEH-peh-til), sometimes referred to as a god of rain or the community’s heartbeat, was quiet for decades before it became active in the 1990s. In 2000, a major eruption prompted the evacuation of about 50,000 people from the region. Since then, mild to moderate activity from the volcano has prompted officials to occasionally raise alert levels.

It was unclear on Monday how long this period of raised volcanic activity would continue.

Jessica Ball, a volcanologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said it is normal for active volcanoes, such as Popocatépetl, to go through cycles of increased activity.

“That is pretty much just part of being an active volcano,” she said. “There’s really no cycle on a human time scale that governs which volcanoes erupt at which time.”

A time-lapse video that the center shared on social media Monday showed the volcano spewing smoke and ashes in the early morning.

On Monday afternoon, officials suspended operations at Hermanos Serdán International Airport, a small facility in Puebla, because of ash on the runways.

Officials said at a news conference Sunday that the state of Puebla, which includes a portion of the volcano, had set up 35 shelters with space for up to 22,000 people if evacuations were needed.

The volcano alert level was raised a day after Popocatépetl spewed ash into the sky, prompting the temporary closure on Saturday of the two main airports serving Mexico City, about 55 miles northeast of the volcano.

Officials were preparing evacuation routes and shelters around the volcano, Popocatépetl, and some schools and parks were closed to minimize exposure to falling ash.

Why Ukraine needs those F-16s

By DAVID FRENCH

On Friday morning, local time, I received news of one of the best American decisions of the war: The White House would no longer block its European allies from supplying Ukraine with American-made F-16 fighters, a move that should greatly enhance Ukrainian military capabilities without significantly increasing the risk of unacceptable escalation in its conflict with Russia. (The decision still needs to be approved by some congressional leaders.)

The move came after a diplomatic blitz from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, before this weekend’s Group of 7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. European leaders had signaled a willingness to supply F-16s from their own stocks and train Ukrainian pilots in their use. But until now, the Biden administration had nixed the idea. The reversal is a major, and welcome, policy change.

I have spent the past week in Kyiv, and I can attest to the relentlessness of Ukrainian arguments for advanced fighters. I met with Ukrainian leaders across the full spectrum of government, including the defense minister, the foreign minister and ministers and other officials involved in law enforcement and economic reconstruction. I had never seen as consistent, disciplined messaging as I experienced here, all of it centered on a single, specific idea: Ukraine needs advanced Western fighters. Specifically, they were asking for American-made F-16s.

The high point came when I met with Oleksandr Kubrakov,

the minister for communities, territories and infrastructure development, and even an infrastructure minister began the meeting by handing out a printed argument for supplying F-16s to Ukraine. I expected (and received) that argument from the defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov; I did not expect it from Kubrakov.

To an extent, they were preaching to the choir. I came to Ukraine already believing that Kyiv needed advanced fighters, but I was unsure whether it needed F-16s specifically. After all, European militaries also feature hundreds of Europeandesigned and -manufactured generation 4.5 fighter aircraft. To understand the critical importance of Ukraine’s request — and the rightness of the Biden administration’s decision — some basic background is necessary.

The jet fighter age is described in generations, which are categories of aircraft defined by their capabilities. There’s some disagreement as to how to classify different aircraft, but as a general matter, the first three generations, running from the debut of jet fighters to the middle of the Cold War, are completely obsolete and are not part of the debate. Fourthgeneration planes, like early models of the F-15 and F-16 and the Russian MIG-29 and Su-27, were the best planes of the Cold War and are still in service in most modern militaries, including Russia’s and Ukraine’s.

The apex of current fighter technology is fifth-generation stealth fighters, which include the American F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II and Russia’s Su-57. Generation 4.5 is sandwiched between generations four and five: The fighters aren’t stealthy, but they have vastly upgraded avionics compared with fourth-generation fighters, and they can deploy more highly advanced armaments.

Generation 4.5 fighters include upgraded models of the American F-15, F-16 and F-18, as well as the Eurofighter Typhoon, Sweden’s Saab JAS-39 Gripen and France’s Dassault Rafale. Crucially, the list also includes the Russian Su-30, Su34 and Su-35. Russia has hundreds of generation 4.5 fighters. Ukraine has none. Instead it has a few dozen Soviet-era fourth-generation fighters.

And therein lies the problem. Don’t be deceived by 2022’s top-grossing movie, “Top Gun: Maverick,” in which (spoiler alert) Maverick, played by Tom Cruise, pilots a decades-old fourth-generation F-14 Tomcat to victory over a number of enemy fifth-generation fighters. In the real world, the generation gap would have been decisive.

According to Reznikov, the defense minister, Russia’s Su-35 (to take a key example) can hit targets at a range more than five times as great as Ukraine’s MIG-29 can. Moreover, such 4.5-generation fighters can carry a much greater array of advanced missiles than can Ukraine’s older fighters. This means that Ukrainian planes have a more limited capacity to provide air defense within the country and no ability to create air superiority at or near the zero line, the very edge of the battlefront, Reznikov said.

So why the need for American-made F-16s

and not European-designed generation 4.5 fighters? The defense minister said that overall there may simply be too few of the latter to offer without dangerously depleting the fighter stocks of European allies. By contrast, not only are thousands of F-16s in service across American and allied militaries; many of those aircraft are being replaced by more advanced planes. Thus they are both numerous and available to Ukraine without degrading NATO capabilities.

Finally, it’s important to address the possibility of escalation. The F-16 — especially in the modest numbers under discussion — does not present a substantial threat to Russia itself. It presents a substantial threat only to the Russian invasion. It is not a true deep-strike aircraft, like the B-1 Lancer bomber or even the F-15E Strike Eagle. It is a weapon that Ukraine can deploy in a defensive capacity and that can strike relatively close behind the front line. It is exactly what Ukraine needs.

It is fair to argue about the timing of the Biden administration’s decision to release European F-16s. It’s a decision that could have been made earlier. Moreover, the administration is still allowing Ukraine to receive only F-16s belonging to European allies, not our own planes. But despite that shortcoming, which needs to be remedied soon, the fundamental reality is that allowing Ukraine any F-16s is the right decision. It’s the decision one makes when transitioning from a long-term strategy of simply keeping Ukraine alive toward a strategy of driving Russia from occupied Ukraine and — critically — deterring renewed Russian aggression after this war.

Perhaps the best short argument in support of the Biden administration’s decision was summed up by former Ukrainian defense minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk. He told me to “ask a NATO general how to win this war without aviation.” Providing Ukraine with advanced fighters not only makes its task easier; it’s a sign the Biden administration is ready to turn the page from helping Ukraine simply avoid defeat. Now we are starting to help Ukraine achieve victory — and maintain the peace we pray is soon to come.

POR CYBERNEWS

LA FORTALEZA – En el marco de la celebración de los 30 años de haber sido coronada como Miss Universo, la actriz y presentadora puertorriqueña, Dayanara Torres Delgado, fue reconocida el martes, por el gobernador, Pedro Pierluisi, en un acto celebrado en el Salón de los Espejos de La Fortaleza.

“Hoy nos reunimos aquí para rendir homenaje y reconocer la belleza incomparable de esa excepcional mujer. Nos encontramos ante una figura que ha dejado una huella imborrable en el corazón de nuestro pueblo, en el mundo del espectáculo y en nuestras comunidades. Su presencia, carisma y talento han cautivado a millones de personas alrededor del mundo, y me place poder celebrar y destacar sus logros. Cuando hablo de su belleza, no me refiero únicamente a sus atributos físicos, sino a su genuina luz interior que irradia frente a todos los que ha tocado en su vida. Dayanara Torres personifica esa belleza en todas sus dimensiones. Natural de Toa Alta, es una gran embajadora de la Isla del Encanto y de nuestra cultura y tradición”, dijo el gobernador acompañado Torres y sus seres queridos.

Nacida el 28 de octubre de 1974 en Toa Alta, Puer-

to Rico, a los 18 años Torres Delgado se convirtió en la tercera Miss Universo puertorriqueña. Al finalizar el año de su reinado y entregar la corona en Manila, Filipinas, conquistó la teleaudiencia de ese país, donde trabajó como conductora de programas de televisión y fue protagonista de 12 películas. Además, ha actuado en películas junto a William Forsythe, Tony Danza y LinManuel Miranda, entre otros. Como parte de su labor social, participó del concurso televisivo ‘Mira Quien Baila’ ganando una donación de $55 mil para el Hospital San Jorge en Puerto Rico y en el 2019, a raíz de su diagnóstico de cáncer de piel, educó a la población sobre esta enfermedad.

“Más allá de los aplausos y sus éxitos, Dayanara Torres ha demostrado ser una persona auténtica y humilde. Siempre ha mostrado su orgullo hacia sus raíces, ya que su amor por Puerto Rico y su compromiso con su gente son un ejemplo a seguir para todos nosotros. Hoy, al reconocer la belleza de Dayanara Torres, también celebramos su resiliencia y su espíritu inquebrantable. A través de los altibajos de la vida, ella ha demostrado que la verdadera belleza no se desvanece con el tiempo, sino que crece y se fortalece”, destacó el gobernador quien le entregó un Reconocimiento del Estado.

Por su parte, Dayanara Torres, quien estuvo acompañada de sus familiares y seres queridos, comentó visiblemente emocionada, que “llegar a Puerto Rico para celebrar esta semana se ha convertido en uno de los momentos más importantes de mi vida y no es solo por el hecho de celebrar, porque como boricuas nos encanta celebrar, sino por el significado que conlleva. Puerto Rico, vivo agradecida, bendecida por Dios por tantas bendiciones que me ha podido dejar vivir, por cada persona que puso en mi camino en el momento correcto, por mi pueblo de Toa Alta y su gente que con tanto sacrificio me apoyaron, pero en especial le agradezco a Dios por el cariño del pueblo, de ustedes”, añadió. En el evento de reconocimiento también estuvo presente el alcalde de Toa Alta, Clemente Agosto.

E L CAPITOLIO – La Cámara de Representantes aprobó el martes el Proyecto de la Cámara 1530, que busca establecer un marco regulatorio en términos de seguridad de datos para agencias públicas y empresas.

“El gobierno del futuro es uno con cada vez más procesos digitales para agilizar trámites, aumentar la eficiencia gubernamental y economizar tiempo y dinero a los ciudadanos”, expresó Ortiz González en

Cámara

declaraciones escritas.

“Nuestro propósito es que la isla cuente una legislación de avanzada que coloque a Puerto Rico a la vanguardia en el tema de la ciberseguridad y le provea a nuestros ciudadanos seguridad y confianza en los procesos gubernamentales”, añadió.

La nueva Ley de Ciberseguridad establece como principio de política pública que proveer seguridad a los datos gubernamentales es esencial para fomentar el desarrollo y crecimiento económico sostenible de todos los sectores en Puerto Rico. Entre otras dispo-

siciones, prohíbe realizar cualquier tipo de pago por rescate en respuesta a un ransomware, con algunas excepciones, y crea la Oficina para la Evaluación de Incidentes Cibernéticos, adscrita al PRITS.

Además, la ley eleva a rango de ley el cargo del Principal Oficial de Seguridad Cibernética (Chief Information Security Officer) bajo la oficina del Puerto Rico Innovation and Technology Service (“PRITS”), nombrado por el Gobernador de Puerto Rico, por un término de diez años con el consejo y consentimiento del Senado de Puerto Rico.

EL CAPITOLIO – El presidente de la Cámara de Representantes Rafael Hernández Montañez, dio la bienvenida oficialmente el martes, a la representante del Distrito 29 (Cidra y Cayey), Gretchen Hau Irizarry, durante la sesión legislativa.

“Hoy, oficialmente le damos la bienvenida a la representante Gretchen Hau, quien recibe nuevas responsabilidades para con sus constituyentes y sobre

todo, asume la responsabilidad de dar seguimiento a la gesta y legado de nuestro compañero que fue reclutado para trabajar en el cielo, José Aníbal Díaz Collazo”, expresó Hernández Montañez en declaraciones escritas.

Hernández Montañez también detalló las diferentes posiciones que ocupará la representante en las comisiones de la Cámara de Representantes. Hau Irizarry formará parte de la Comisión de Asuntos Internos, Comisión de Gobierno, Comisión de Desarrollo

Económico, Planificación, Comunicaciones, Alianzas Público Privadas y Energía.

Además, Hau Irizarry fue nombrada como presidenta de la Comisión de Transportación, Infraestructura y Obras Públicas.

Hau Irizarry asumió su posición en la Cámara el 16 de mayo, tras ser certificada como única candidata para ocupar el escaño vacante por el Distrito 19, dejado por el difunto legislador del Partido Popular Democrático.

Pasa al Senado medida que crearía Ley de Ciberseguridad y daría un término de 10 años al Principal Oficial de Seguridad Cibernética

da bienvenida a la representante Gretchen Hau

Gobernador reconoce a Dayanara Torres a treinta años de su reinado en Miss Universe

Graham Nash has a few more songs before he goes

By GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN

Graham Nash was slow to smile on a recent Wednesday afternoon, sitting in early spring sunshine on the porch of a cafe near Washington, D.C. The night before, the 81-year-old singer-songwriter had bounded onto the stage of the Birchmere, a folk bastion, and wooed the sold-out crowd with his tunes that long ago became generational standards, like “Teach Your Children” and “Military Madness.” He shared the songs and candid stories of longtime pals like Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell, landing expertly practiced punchlines.

But he’d awakened in the daze of emotional hangover. Exactly three months had passed since the January death of David Crosby, his best friend and closest collaborator since they first harmonized together in August 1968 at the cottage that Nash would soon share with Mitchell in Laurel Canyon, in the Hollywood Hills.

“It is like an earthquake,” he said, his English accent softened by nearly 50 years in California and Hawaii. “The shock was terrifying. Then I see his face, and it makes me really sad.”

The day’s aftershock stemmed from a video tribute Nash recorded for Neil Young and Stephen Stills to use at an autism benefit. It was another unwelcome opportunity to contemplate all that Nash and Crosby left unsaid during the prior decade, as the pair traded barbs in the press, left an album with Rick Rubin unfinished and rarely spoke. In early January, Crosby emailed Nash to say he wanted to talk, then left a voicemail telling him he wanted to apologize for, as Nash remembered, “all the stupid things I said about you and, particularly, Neil.” After Nash set a time, Crosby stood him up. Three days later, he was dead.

“David was a very interesting couple of people: He was generous, funny and the most unbelievably great musician. On the other hand, he could make an entire room feel bad with two words,” Nash said, making his way through the first of three lunchtime lattes. “I wanted to remember the good music we made and the great times we had, let that satisfy you. But he’s gone.”

Nash is now a member of the rarest class of living rock legend: old enough to have witnessed the genre’s genesis and eager to talk about his wild days, but also inspired enough by his current work to rave about new songs. This year, he reunited with a childhood chum, Hollies co-founder Allan Clarke, for the sentimental and charming album “I’ll Never Forget,” singing backup on most songs. And on May 19, Nash will release “Now,” 13 tracks about American unrest and the renewal inspired by his third marriage and a move to New York.

Still, several of his favorite former musical partners, like

Crosby, drummer Jim Gordon and multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, have all died since January. He knows his life’s work is increasingly a race against mortality.

“I tried to be the best husband, the best friend, the best musician, but I’ll never make it,” he said. “I’m still healthy, but so was David. I could drop dead in the middle of this conversation.”

The Hollies’ suave R&B covers and bittersweet originals made them pop sensations, part of the Beatles’ global sea change. During their first U.S. appearance, they shared a bill with Little Richard and the young guitarist he scolded for upstaging him, Jimi Hendrix.

But soon after his father’s 1966 death, Nash tired of the group’s strict parameters. When he first sang with Stills and Nash in California, he knew his future lay in its libertine lifestyle. He fell in love with Mitchell. His mother didn’t realize he had left the Hollies, his first marriage and England altogether until a copy of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s debut LP arrived, a charttopping postcard home. The split blindsided Clarke, especially because Nash refused to tell him directly.

“He was my brother, really, and he had gone and fallen in love with someone else,” Clarke said, shrugging in a video interview. “I had a family, and I was devastated. What was going to happen to me now?”

That ceaseless need for reinvention — bordering perhaps on an obsession with relevance — has threaded together Nash’s career and life. He indulged drum machines and synths for his lampooned 1986 album, “Innocent Eyes” (perhaps not coincidentally, his final solo album for 16 years). He used augmented reality for a prescient but lambasted high-tech concert

series a decade later. A zealous photographer and art collector, Nash was an early adopter of fine-art digital prints, an enduring side enterprise.

He was a self-professed cad during his first marriage, ultimately leading him to Mitchell. He has always believed he should have proposed to her in the early ’70s, but she worried that he wanted her to play housekeeper to his rock star.

“Am I going tell Joni Mitchell not to write?” he scoffed, loudly, in the cafe. “Get real here.”

In the half-century since they split, he’s never forgotten to send her birthday flowers.

But for the final eight years of his 38year marriage to actress Susan Sennett, he was not in love, something he said they both acknowledged. In 2014, he met artist Amy Grantham, four decades his junior, backstage at a Crosby, Stills & Nash show during one of their final tours. In that first moment, he realized that happiness was again possible. He told Sennett about the attraction, and they split two years later. Sennett died soon after Nash and Grantham’s 2019 wedding in Woodstock, New York.

After a lifetime of restlessness, “Now” feels remarkably content, as if Nash has slipped into a favorite old overcoat to find a cache of new tunes stuffed inside a pocket. There are political jeremiads that decry “MAGA tourists,” plus a nextgeneration hymn that echoes “Teach Your Children.” He wrote “Buddy’s Back,” a glowing celebration of the Hollies forebear, for Clarke; they cut different takes for their respective albums, joyously closing a broken boyhood circle.

Love songs for Grantham shape nearly half the album, gentle and guileless tunes that glow. “It Feels Like Home” is “Our House” recast for the East Coast, Nash walking through the door to find “the answer to a prayer.” He apologizes for lashing out during “Love of Mine,” a true-to-life mea culpa after Grantham told him to stop clogging Manhattan sidewalks. “Now” unspools in hard-won tranquility.

“I really believed, in my mid-70s, ‘I’m coming to the end of my life. It’s all finished,’” he said. “In many ways, Amy saved my life. I wanted to wear my heart on my sleeve, as I try and

always do.”

Graham Nash in New York, April 5, 2023. At 81, the singer-songwriter admits his time could be short, especially after losing David Crosby — but in the meantime, he’s got plenty to say and sing.

Cannes: You’ve never seen a Holocaust film like ‘The Zone of Interest’

tin Amis, who died Friday — is Glazer’s first film in a decade. The British director has only three feature credits to his name, but each one — the raucous “Sexy Beast” (2001), the stunning Nicole Kidman drama “Birth” (2004) and the sci-fi tour de force “Under the Skin” (2014) — is so potent that he has never felt far gone.

Still, Glazer has never had a mainstream breakthrough or significant awards push, and I’m curious if it can come with “The Zone of Interest,” which will be distributed by A24 later this year. A Palme d’Or at Cannes would certainly help, but Glazer’s directing ought to attract a lot of attention: He frames the family’s mundane activities in static wide shots, cutting only when someone enters another room, as if they themselves are under eerie surveillance.

The Cannes jury might also reward Hüller, whose performance as selfish Hedwig is chilling. As Jews are killed next door, she recalls a trip and asks her husband, “Will you take me to the spa in Italy again? All that pampering.” Anything that happens past the walls of her luxurious garden simply doesn’t exist, or else it offers a mercenary opportunity: She eagerly tries on a confiscated fur coat and tells Rudolf to look for more items stolen from the camp’s prisoners. “Chocolate, if you see it,” she wheedles. “Tiny goodies.”

By KYLE BUCHANAN

You might not know where you are when “The Zone of Interest” begins, and that’s by design. This new film from director Jonathan Glazer, which has been hotly tipped for a major prize at the Cannes Film Festival since its premiere Friday night, opens on a bucolic picnic by the lake. Family members chat in German, wander off, attend to children and soak up the sun. And Glazer’s long, wide shots let us settle in, too.

Eventually, they go home, and in their nice two-story house, parents Rudolf (Christian Friedel) and Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) retire to separate beds. In the morning, their daily routines begin: Maids prepare breakfast, children scatter, Rudolf

dresses for work. But it’s all filmed in such faraway wide shots that it may take you a moment — once Rudolf walks into the front yard — to realize that this man is wearing an SS uniform.

From there, you might pick up on more unsettling details. Aren’t the walls that surround Hedwig’s garden topped by barbed wire? Can you barely make out the buildings on the other side, some of which billow smoke? And as the children play, don’t those faint, far-off noises start to sound like gunshots, guard dogs and screams?

This family’s life by the lake is only a bucolic idyll if you have blinders on — and to live there, you must — because it soon becomes clear that Rudolf is a Nazi commandant, and the house that Hedwig describes as her dream home abuts Auschwitz.

“The Zone of Interest” — adapted from the novel by Mar-

And if the film connects enough to become an awards contender down the road, I hope voters will pay attention to its carefully calibrated sound design. In the early going, there’s a hush, the kind of quiet you can have only if something is notably absent. Later, the sounds that drift from the camp are harder to ignore. Perhaps when “The Zone of Interest” began, we were listening through Hedwig’s ears.

As we filed out after the premiere, the man sitting next to me confessed that he only understood 50% of the film. But I think the other 50% is meant to be felt, and for all of Glazer’s formal precision, he leaves plenty of room for viewers to come to their own conclusions. Does the family’s denial have contemporary parallels? How do the rhythms of work and life mitigate unimaginable horrors? And what did you hear in the hush before you could make out the screams?

A scene from Jonathan Glazer’s new drama, “The Zone of Interest.”

Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

By CATHERINE PEARSON and MATT RICHTEL

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy issued a public advisory Tuesday warning of the risks of social media use to young people. In a 19-page report, Murthy noted that although the effects of social media on adolescent mental health were not fully understood, and that social media can be beneficial to some users, “there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”

The surgeon general called on policymakers, tech companies, researchers and parents to “urgently take action” to safeguard against the potential risks.

Why it matters: Young brains are particularly susceptible to social media.

“Adolescents are not just smaller adults,” Murthy said in an interview with The New York Times about the advisory. “They’re in a different phase of development, and they’re in a critical phase of brain development.”

The report noted that “frequent social media use may be associated with distinct changes in the developing brain in the amygdala (important for emotional learning and behavior) and the prefrontal cortex (important for impulse control, emotional regulation and moderating social behavior), and could increase sensitivity to social rewards and punishments.”

The report also cited research indicating that up to 95% of teens reported using at least one social media platform, while more than one-third said they used social media “almost constantly.” In addition, nearly 40% of children ages 8 to 12 use social media, even though the required minimum age for most sites is 13.

Researchers have been struggling to understand the impact of social media use on teen mental health. The data are not straightforward and indicate that the effects can be both positive and negative. For instance, social media enables some young people to connect with others, find community and express themselves.

But social media also brims with “extreme, inappropriate and harmful content,”

the advisory noted, including content that “normalizes” self-harming, eating disorders and other destructive behavior. Cyberbullying is rampant. And the rise in social media use has coincided with declines in exercise, sleep and other activities considered vital to the developing brain.

Moreover, social media spaces can be fraught for young people especially, the advisory added: “In early adolescence, when identities and sense of self-worth are forming, brain development is especially susceptible to social pressures, peer opinions, and peer comparison.”

Background: The increased scrutiny comes amid a mental health crisis among American youth.

The advisory joins a growing number of calls for action around adolescents and social media, as experts probe what role it may play in the ongoing teen mental health crisis. This month, the American Psychological Association issued its first-ever social media guidance, recommending that parents closely monitor teens’ usage and that tech companies reconsider features like endless scrolling and the “like” button.

What’s next: The surgeon general is calling for immediate action.

In the advisory, Murthy expressed an “urgent need” for clarity on several research

fronts. They include the types of social media content that cause harm; whether particular neurological pathways, such as those involving reward and addiction, are affected; and which strategies could be used to protect the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.“Our children have become unknowing participants in a decadeslong experiment,” Murthy wrote. “It is critical that independent researchers and technology companies work together to rapidly advance our understanding of the impact of social media on children and adolescents.”

Murthy also acknowledged that, until now, “the burden of protecting youth has fallen predominantly on children, adolescents, and their families.”

“That’s a lot to ask of parents — to take a new technology that’s rapidly evolving and that fundamentally changes how kids perceive themselves” and ask parents to manage it, Murthy told The Times. “So we’ve got to do what we do in other areas where we have product safety issues, which is to set in place safety standards that parents can rely on, that are actually enforced.”

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Grant & Project Management/Owner’s Representative Services

Federal Public Assistance

Iglesia Evangélica Unida de Puerto Rico

Iglesia Evangélica Unida de Puerto Rico is requesting qualifications and proposals to provide Project Management and Grant Administration services in connection with its Request(s) for Public Assistance for currently open and future declared events. Those interested in applying should request a copy of the complete RFP by contacting Noemi Santos through the email oficinascentrales@ieupr.net no later than May 29, 2023, at 12:00 PM AST. The RFP document must be filled out completely and delivered through the same email due no later than June 1, 2023, at 12:00 PM AST. Iglesia Evangélica Unida de Puerto Rico encourages the participation of Local, Minority, Disadvantaged, Small Business, Veteran and Woman Owned businesses.

The surgeon general called on policymakers, tech companies, researchers and parents to “urgently take action” to safeguard against the potential risks.

Wednesday, May 24, 2023 20

Study offers new twist in how the first humans evolved

By CARL ZIMMER

Scientists have revealed a surprisingly complex origin of our species, rejecting the long-held argument that modern humans arose from one place in Africa during one period in time.

By analyzing the genomes of 290 living people, researchers concluded that modern humans descended from at least two populations that coexisted in Africa for 1 million years before merging in several independent events across the continent. The findings were published last week in Nature.

“There is no single birthplace,” said Eleanor Scerri, an evolutionary archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Geoarchaeology in Jena, Germany, who was not involved in the new study. “It really puts a nail in the coffin of that idea.”

Paleoanthropologists and geneticists have found evidence pointing to Africa as the origin of our species. The oldest fossils that may belong to modern humans, dating back as far as 300,000 years, have been unearthed there. So were the oldest stone tools used by our ancestors.

Human DNA also points to Africa. Living Africans have a vast amount of genetic diversity compared with other people. That’s because humans lived and evolved in Africa for thousands of generations before small groups — with comparatively small gene pools — began expanding to other continents.

Within the vast expanse of Africa, researchers have proposed various places as the birthplace of our species. Early humanlike fossils in Ethiopia led some researchers to look to East Africa. But some living groups

of people in South Africa appeared to be very distantly related to other Africans, suggesting that humans might have a deep history there instead.

Brenna Henn, a geneticist at the University of California, Davis, and her colleagues developed software to run largescale simulations of human history. The researchers created many scenarios of different populations existing in Africa over different periods of time and then observed which ones could produce the diversity of DNA found in people alive today.

“We could ask what types of models are really plausible for the African conti-

nent,” Henn said.

The researchers analyzed DNA from a range of African groups, including the Mende, farmers who live in Sierra Leone in West Africa; the Gumuz, a group descended from hunter-gatherers in Ethiopia; the Amhara, a group of Ethiopian farmers; and the Nama, a group of hunter-gatherers in South Africa.

The researchers compared these Africans’ DNA with the genome of a person from Britain. They also looked at the genome of a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal found in Croatia. Previous research had found that modern humans and Neanderthals shared a common ancestor that lived 600,000 years ago. Neanderthals expanded across Europe and Asia, interbred with modern humans coming out of Africa, and then became extinct about 40,000 years ago.

The researchers concluded that as far back as 1 million years ago, the ancestors of our species existed in two distinct populations. Henn and her colleagues call them Stem1 and Stem2.

About 600,000 years ago, a small group of humans budded off from Stem1 and went on to become the Neanderthals. But Stem1 endured in Africa for hundreds of thousands of years after that, as did Stem2.

If Stem1 and Stem2 had been entirely separate from each other, they would have accumulated a large number of distinct mu-

tations in their DNA. Instead, Henn and her colleagues found that they had remained only moderately different — about as distinct as living Europeans and West Africans are today. The scientists concluded that people had moved between Stem1 and Stem2, pairing off to have children and mixing their DNA.

The model does not reveal where the Stem1 and Stem2 people lived in Africa. And it’s possible that bands of these two groups moved around a lot over the vast stretches of time during which they existed on the continent. About 120,000 years ago, the model indicates, African history changed dramatically.

In southern Africa, people from Stem1 and Stem2 merged, giving rise to a new lineage that would lead to the Nama and other living humans in that region. Elsewhere in Africa, a separate fusion of Stem1 and Stem2 groups took place. That merger produced a lineage that would give rise to living people in West Africa and East Africa, as well as the people who expanded out of Africa.

It’s possible that climate upheavals forced Stem1 and Stem2 people into the same regions, leading them to merge into single groups. Some bands of hunter-gatherers may have had to retreat from the coast as sea levels rose, for example. Some regions of Africa became arid, potentially sending people in search of new homes.

Even after these mergers 120,000 years ago, people with solely Stem1 or solely Stem2 ancestry appear to have survived. The DNA of the Mende people showed that their ancestors had interbred with Stem2 people 25,000 years ago. “It does suggest to me that Stem2 was somewhere around West Africa,” Henn said.

She and her colleagues are now adding more genomes from people in other parts of Africa to see if they affect the models.

It’s possible they will discover other populations that endured in Africa for hundreds of thousands of years, ultimately helping produce our species as we know it today.

Scerri speculated that living in a network of mingling populations across Africa might have allowed modern humans to survive while Neanderthals became extinct. In that arrangement, our ancestors could hold onto more genetic diversity, which in turn might have helped them endure shifts in the climate, or even evolve new adaptations.

“This diversity at the root of our species may have been ultimately the key to our success,” Scerri said.

Excavations at the Jebel Irhoud archaeological site in Morocco, where 300,000-year-old fossils that may be the oldest evidence of Homo sapiens were found in 2017.

The San Juan Daily Star

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO

DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

CENTRO JUDICIAL DE GUA-

YAMA SALA SUPERIOR

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V.

CARLOS JAVIER

SOLIS VEGA T/C/C

JUAN CARLOS SOLIS

VEGA; JANNETTE RUIZ BERNIER Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR

AMBOS

Demandado

Civil Núm.: GM2022CV00738.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria. AVISO DE VENTA EN PÚBLICA SUBASTA.

Yo, HÉCTOR E. MÁRQUEZ NERIS, Alguacil de la División de Subastas del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guayama, a la demandada y al público en general, les notifico que, cumpliendo con un Mandamiento que se ha librado en el presente caso, por el Secretario del Tribunal, con fecha 10 de abril de 2023 y para satisfacer la Sentencia por la cantidad de $54,068.21 de principal, dictada en el caso de epígrafe el 27 de enero de 2023, notificada y archivada en autos el 2 de febrero de 2023, procederé a vender en pública subasta, al mejor postor en pago de contado y en moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, todo derecho, título e interés que haya tenido, tenga o pueda tener la deudora demandada en cuanto a la propiedad localizada en el: Municipio de Arroyo, Puerto Rico, el bien inmueble que se describe a continuación:

Descripción: URBANA: Solar “C” guion nueve (C-9) de la Urbanización Arroyo Village radicado en los barrios Ancones y Palmas del término municipal de Arroyo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de 360.512 metros cuadrados. Linderos: al Norte, en 16.948 metros, con el lote numero 10; al sur, en 16.332 metros, con la calle numero 2; al Este, en 19.788 metros, con la calle número 1 y al Oeste, en 24.00 metros, con el lote número 8. Enclava una estructura de bloques y concreto compuesta de tres cuartos dormitorios, un cuarto de servicio sanitario, cocina, comedor, sala y marquesina a destinarse exclusivamente para vivienda familiar. Como parte del equipo de la vivienda incluye un calentador eléctrico de agua. Finca #9020, inscrita al tomo Karibe de Arroyo, Re-

gistro de la Propiedad de Guayama. Con el importe de dicha venta se habrá de satisfacer a la parte demandante las cantidades adeudadas, según la Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, por el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guayama, cuyas cantidades ascienden a $54,068.21 de principal, intereses a razón del 7.950% anual, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda; $3,534.69 de cargos por demora, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda; más costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado El tipo mínimo para la subasta será la suma de tasación pactada, la cual es $56,000.00 para la propiedad descrita. Si no produjere remate o adjudicación la primera subasta, se procederá a una segunda subasta y servirá de tipo mínimo la cantidad de $37,333.33. Si tampoco hubiere remate ni adjudicación en esta segunda subasta, se procederá a una tercera subasta, en ésta el tipo mínimo será la cantidad de $28,000.00. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta se dará por terminado el procedimiento, pudiendo adjudicarse a opción del demandante. Para el lote descrito, la PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a cabo el día

7 DE JUNIO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA. De no comparecer postor alguno se llevará a efecto una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 14 DE JUNIO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA. De no comparecer postor alguno se llevará a cabo una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 21 DE JUNIO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA. La subasta o subastas antes indicadas se llevarán a efecto en mi oficina, localizada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Guayama. Estudio de Título realizado, surge el siguiente gravamen posterior: Hipoteca constituida por los esposos Solís-Ruiz, a favor de la Autoridad para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda de Puerto Rico por $15,000.00 sin intereses, vencedero el 9 de mayo de 2011, según Esc. #598 en San Juan el 9 de mayo de 2003 ante julio F. Fernández Rodriguez, inscrita al tomo Karibe finca #9020 de Arroyo, inscripción 3era y última. 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, giro postal o cheque de gerente a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal y para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de

toda(s) aquella(s) persona(s) que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de los licitadores y el público en general y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general, una vez por semana durante el término de dos (2) semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, y para su fijación en tres (3) lugares públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como, la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía y se le notificará además a la parte demandada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida. 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. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores, previa orden judicial dirigida al Registrador de la Propiedad de la sección correspondiente para la cancelación de aquellos posteriores. Y para conocimiento de la 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 Guayama, Puerto Rico, a 18 de abril de 2023. HÉCTOR E. MÁRQUEZ NERIS, ALGUACIL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMON BOSCO CREDIT X, LLC, representado por su Agente de Servicios FRANKLIN

CREDIT MANAGEMENT

CORPORATION

Demandante Vs. JOSE LUIS NORMANDIA CRUZ

Demandado

CIVIL NÚM.: DCD2018-0161.

(504). SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO (EJECUCIÓN DE HIPO-

TECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA). EDICTO DE SUBASTA.

Al: Público en General.

A: JOSE LUIS NORMANDIA CRUZ; SCOTIABANK DE PUERTO RICO, (ahora ORIENTAL BANK), por tener Aviso de Demanda anotada a su favor por la suma de $156,782.32.

Yo, EDGARDO ELIAS VARGAS SANTANA, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #193, Alguacil de este Tribunal, a la parte demandada y a los acreedores y personas con interés sobre la propiedad que más adelante se describe, y al público en general, HAGO SABER: Que el día 14 de junio de 2023 a las 10:15 de la mañana en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Bayamón, en la oficina del Alguacil de Subastas en el Cuarto Piso, Bayamón, Puerto Rico, venderé en Pública Subasta la propiedad inmueble que más adelante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se ordenó por la vía ordinaria al mejor postor quien hará el pago en dinero en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del o la Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal de Bayamón durante horas laborables. Que en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta a celebrarse, se celebrará una segunda subasta para la venta de la susodicha propiedad, el día 21 de junio de 2023, a las 10:15 de la mañana y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una tercera subasta el día 28 de junio de 2023, a las 10:15 de la mañana en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado. La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue:

URBANA: PROPIEDAD HORI-

ZONTAL: Apartamento número Ochocientos Dos (802), localizado en el segundo piso del Edificio número Ocho (8) del CONDOMINIO TERRAZAS DE MONTECASINO, cuyo Condominio está localizado en el Barrio Candelaria de Toa Baja y en el Barrio Mucarabones de Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. El apartamento número Ochocientos Dos (802) está localizado en el Barrio Candelaria de Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. Consiste de una vivienda residencial de un piso, con un área superficial de MIL CUATROCIENTOS OCHENTA

Y CUATRO PUNTO SESENTA (1,484.60) PIES CUADRADOS, equivalentes a CIENTO TREIN-

TA Y SIETE PUNTO NOVENTA

Y SIETE (137.97) METROS CUADRADOS. Colinda por el NORTE, con elemento común general exterior, en una distancia de CATORCE PUNTO TREINTA Y TRES (14.33) METROS; por el SUR, con elemento común general exterior y las escaleras y el vestíbulo del Edificio número Ocho (8), en dos (2) distancias de TRECE PUNTO ONCE (13.11) METROS y UNO PUNTO VEINTIDÓS (1.22) METROS; por el ESTE, con el apartamento número Ochocientos Cinco (805) y las escaleras del Edificio número Ocho (8), en dos (2) distancias de SIETE PUNTO TREINTA Y DOS (7.32) METROS y TRES PUNTO OCHENTA Y SEIS (3.86) METROS; y por el OESTE, con el Edificio número Siete (7), en una distancia de ONCE PUNTO DIECIOCHO (11.18) METROS. El apartamento número Ochocientos Dos (802) está compuesto de un (1) recibidor, sala, comedor, cocina, área familiar (“family room”), balcón, pasillo interior, closet de pasillo interior, cuarto de lavandería (“laundry”), un (1) baño en el área del pasillo interior, dos (2) dormitorios con un closet cada uno y un (1) dormitorio principal (“master bedroom”) con un (1) closet con pasillo (“walkin-closet”) y baño. La entrada principal de este apartamento está localizada en su lindero Sur, la cual conecta el recibidor del apartamento con el vestíbulo del segundo piso del Edificio número Ocho (8) del Condominio Terrazas de Montecasino, el cual es un elemento común general del Condominio Terrazas de Montecasino. Le corresponde como elemento común limitado del Condominio Terrazas de Montecasino un (1) estacionamiento doble (“back to back”) identificado con los Números Treinta y Ocho (38) y Treinta y Nueve (39). Este apartamento tiene una participación de Cero punto Ocho Mil Seiscientos Cincuenta y Cuatro por ciento (0.8654 %) en los elementos comunes generales del Condominio Terrazas de Montecasino y una participación de Cero punto Cuatro Mil Cuatrocientos Noventa y Uno por ciento (0.4491 %) en los elementos comunes limitados del Condominio Terrazas de Montecasino. La escritura de hipoteca se encuentra inscrita al Sistema Karibe de Toa Baja, Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección Segunda, finca 32,882, inscripción 4ta. La dirección física de la propiedad antes descrita es: Condominio Terrazas de Montecasino, Apartamento 802, Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. La

subasta se llevará a efecto para satisfacer a la parte demandante la suma de $145,272.53 de principal, intereses al 5.875% anual, desde el día 1ro. de agosto de 2018, hasta su completo pago, más la cantidad de $16,270.80, estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado y recargos acumulados, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta para el inmueble será la suma de $162,708.00 y de ser necesaria una segunda subasta, la cantidad mínima será equivalente a 2/3 partes de aquella, o sea, la suma de $108,472.00 y de ser necesaria una tercera subasta, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado, es decir, la suma de $81,354.00. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el importe de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad hipotecada a ser vendida en pública subasta se encuentra afecta al siguiente gravamen posterior: Aviso de Demanda, del día 2 de octubre de 2014, expedida en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, en el Caso Civil Número DCD 2014-2655, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca, seguido por Scotiabank de Puerto Rico versus José Luis Normandía Cruz, se solicita el pago de la deuda por $156,782.32, más costas, gastos e intereses, anotado el día 23 de mayo de 2018 al tomo Karibe de Toa Baja, Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección Segunda, finca 32,882, Anotación A. La propiedad a ser vendida en pública subasta se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 9 de mayo de 2023. EDGARDO ELIAS

VARGAS SANTANA, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #193, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL, SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN.

EMI EQUITY MORTGAGE, INC. COMO AGENTE DE SERVICIOS DE TRM, LLC.

Parte Demandante Vs. OSVALDO

PAGAN SCHARON, MARIA DE LOS ANGELES PEÑA HERNANDEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Parte Demandados

Civil Núm.: A2CI2012-00742. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y COBRO DE DINERO. ANUNCIO DE SUBASTA. El suscribiente, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Puerto Rico, Sala de San Sebastián, a los demandados de epígrafe y al público en general hace saber que en los autos y documentos del caso de epígrafe estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables y que venderá en pública subasta al mejor postor, en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América en efectivo, cheque certificado, o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, en mi oficina en este Tribunal el derecho que tenga la parte demandada en el inmueble que se relaciona más adelante para pagar la Sentencia que posterior a las peticiones de quiebra radicadas asciende a la suma de $127,680.51 de principal, más los intereses acordadas sobre dicha suma desde el primero de abril de 2018, más los intereses adeudados sobre dicho principal hasta su total pago y completo pago; más recargos acumulados, más cualquier suma de dinero por concepto de contribuciones, primas de seguro hipotecario y riesgo; cargos por demora devengados; más la suma de $15,885.46 como cantidad estipulada para honorarios de abogado, pactada en la escritura de hipoteca; 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: RÚSTICA: Sita en el Barrio Culebrinas de San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, identificado en el plano de inscripción como solar tres (3), con una cabida superficial de novecientos ochenta y siete punto ciento ochenta y uno (987.181) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con solar (2), al SUR, con remanente de la finca principal, al ESTE, con punto común donde converge Carretera Municipal y uso Público y al OESTE, con Oscar Urrutia.

Inscrita dicha hipoteca al folio 171 vuelto del tomo 571 de San Sebastián, finca número 25,867 del Registro de la Propiedad, Sección de San Sebastián. Dirección Física: RD 109 KM 26.6 Lot 3, Culebrina WD, San Sebastián, PR 00685. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a cabo el día 21 DE JUNIO DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, y servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la suma de $158,854.61, 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 28 DE JUNIO DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 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 $105,903.07. Si tampoco hubiera remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 5 DE JULIO DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 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 $79,427.30. 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 correspondientes al procedimiento indicado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante las horas laborables. (Art. 102 (1) de la Ley núm. 2102015). Expedido el presente en San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, a 5 de mayo de 2023. LUIS A. NIEVES RIVERA, ALGUACIL CONFIDENCIAL #659, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE SAN SEBASTIÁN.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

FIRSTBANK

PUERTO RICO

Parte Demandante Vs. SIXTO CRUZ MORALES

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: CG2022CV02460. Salón Núm.: (703). Sobre:

EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA Y COBRO DE DINERO. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: SIXTO CRUZ

MORALES: Y AL

PÚBLICO EN GENERAL:

El Alguacil que suscribe, certifica y hace constar que en cumplimiento de Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Caguas, procederé a vender en pública subasta

y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América. Todo pago recibido por el (la) Alguacil por concepto de subastas será en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del (de la) Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Todo derecho, título, participación e interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Predio de terreno radicado en el Barrio Bairoa del Municipio de Aguas Buenas compuesto de 990.392 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con la Carretera número 795 en dos distancias que forman 48.925 metros; por el SUR, en camino dedicado a Uso Público, en tres distancias que suman 75.976 metros; por el ESTE, con la Carretera Estatal número 795 y camino dedicado a uso público en un punto; y por el OESTE, en 30.00 metros, con el solar G-1 aprobado en el Caso número 78-45-F-08L-KPL. Enclava edificación, con un valor de $30,000.00, según escritura número #22, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 22 de febrero de 1991, ante el notario Francisco L. García Enchautegui, e inscrita al folio 224 del tomo 207 de Aguas Buenas, finca número #9,786, inscripción 2da. Consta inscrita al folio 223 del tomo 207 de Aguas Buenas, Finca Número #9,786, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Segunda de Caguas. La propiedad objeto de ejecución está localizada en la siguiente dirección:

Bo. Bairoa, Carr. 795 km 0.9, Aguas Buenas, P.R. 00703. Se informa que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravamen posterior, una vez sea otorgada la escritura de venta judicial y obtenida la Orden y Mandamiento de cancelación de gravamen posterior. (Art. 51, Ley 210-2015). En relación a la finca a subastarse, se establece como tipo mínimo de licitación en la Primera Subasta la suma de $107,200.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca #1598, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 5 de noviembre de 2003, ante la notario Georgette

M. Rodríguez Figueroa, inscrita al folio 226 vuelto del tomo 207 de Aguas Buenas, finca #9,786, inscripción Séptima. La PRIMERA SUBASTA, se llevará a cabo el día 12 DE JUNIO DE 2023 A

LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en mis oficinas sitas en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Caguas, el tipo mínimo para la primera subasta es la suma de $107,200.00. Si la primera subasta del inmueble no produjere remate, ni adju-

dicación, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 20 DE JUNIO DE 2023 A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo sitio y servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes del precio pactada para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $71,466.66. Si la segunda subasta no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 27 DE JUNIO DE 2023 A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar y regirá como tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta la mitad del precio pactado para la primera, o sea, la suma de $53,600.00. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo, para con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: La suma global de $66,961.74, la cual se desglosa a continuación: una suma principal de $66,589.25, con intereses a 6.125% anual, desde el 1ro de noviembre de 2021, hasta el presente y los que se continúen acumulando hasta su total y completo pago, más una suma diferida de $372.99 (piggy back) la cual no genera intereses, más los cargos por demora que se corresponden a los plazos atrasados desde la fecha anteriormente indicada a razón de la tasa pactada de 5.00% de cualquier pago que éste en mora por más de quince (15) días desde la fecha de su vencimiento, más una suma equivalente a $10,270.00, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otra suma que resulte por cualesquiera otros adelantos que se hayan hecho la demandante, en virtud de las disposiciones de la escritura de hipoteca y del Pagaré hipotecario. Para más información, a las personas interesadas se les notifica que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal, durante las horas laborables. Este EDICTO DE SUBASTA, se publicará en los lugares públicos correspondientes y en un periódico de circulación general en la jurisdicción de Puerto Rico. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los referentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente Escritura de Venta Judicial y el Alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días, de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Si transcurren los referidos veinte

(20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Expedido en Caguas, Puerto Rico, a 10 de mayo de 2023. ALEJANDRO URBINA ROQUE, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #997.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

Demandante V. GARAGE DE MECÁNICA DÍAZ; áNGEL DÍAZ CASTRO T/C/C áNGEL MODESTO DÍAZ CASTRO

Demandados

Civil Núm.: KCD2013-0613.

Sala: 902. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. AVISO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PUEBLO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S. YO, el(la) Alguacil que suscribe, por la presente anuncia y hace constar, que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia, expedido el 27 de enero de 2020 por la Secretaría del Tribunal de San Juan, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, quien pagará el importe de la venta en dinero efectivo o en cheque certificado o de gerente, a la orden del Alguacil suscribiente, en moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, el día 14 DE JUNIO DE 2023, A LA(S) 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en las oficinas del Alguacil del Tribunal de San Juan, todo título, derecho o interés que corresponda a la parte demandada sobre el inmueble que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar comercial de forma irregular silo en la Urbanización Extensión Reparto Metropolitano, Barrio Monacillos del término municipal de San Juan, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 1332.465 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el Norte, en un área de 7.134 metros, en un punto donde convergen lasCalles Nine South East y Fifty Two South East; por el Noroeste, en 28.620 metros, con la Calle Fifty Two South East; por el Noreste, en 26.649 metros con la Calle Nine South East; por el Este, en 28.65 metros, con solar A, segregado; por el Sureste, en 20.593 metros, con la Calle Fifty Two South East; y por el Suroeste, en alineaciones de 32.210 metros y 18.251 metros, con parcela perteneciente a Gulf Petroleum, S.A.

Inscrita al folio 64 del tomo 608 de Monacillos, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección III, finca número 20,736.

Dirección Física: Calle 54 #1256, Urbanización Reparto Metropolitano, San Juan, Puerto Rico. La propiedad descrita anteriormente está afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: Por sí afecta a Condiciones Restrictivas sobre edificación a favor de Fullana Corporation; Servidumbres a favor de la Autoridad de las Fuentes Fluviales de Puerto Rico; y del Gobierno de la Capital. Por sí: SERVIDUMBRE a favor de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados de Puerto Rico, según consta de la escritura número 158, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 6 de diciembre de 1968, ante la Notario Público M.A. Yolanda Pomales Álvarez, inscrita al folio 66 de tomo 608 de Monacillos, finca número 20,736, inscripción 2ª. HIPOTECA: En garantía de un pagaré a favor de Doral Bank, o a su orden, por la suma de $225,000.00, con interés al 7.95%, y vencedero a la presentación, según consta de la escritura número 270, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 30 de diciembre de 2003, ante el Notario Público Manuel L. Correa Márquez, inscrita al folio 96 del tomo 967 de Monacillos, finca número 20736 inscripción 8ª. ANOTACIÓN DE DEMANDA: Es objeto de esta anotación la Hipoteca a favor de Doral Bank, por la suma de $225,000.00 que surge de la inscripción #8ª. DEMANDANTE: Doral Bank; DEMANDADO: Titular, Cantidad Adeudada $309,203.45, por concepto de principal más intereses, según Demanda expedida por el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, en el caso

Civil #KCD2013-0613 el día 14 de marzo de 2013, inscrito al folio 96 del tomo 967, Anotación “B” de fecha del 22 de abril de 2013. ANOTACIÓN DE DEMANDA: Es objeto de esta anotación la Hipoteca a favor de Doral Bank, por la suma de $225,000.00 que surge de la inscripción #8ª. DEMANDANTE: Doral Bank; DEMANDADO: Titular, Cantidad Adeudada $309,203.45, por concepto de principal más intereses, según Demanda expedida por el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, en el caso Civil #KCD2013-0613 el día 11 de marzo de 2013, inscrito al tomo Karibe, Anotación “C” de fecha del 5 de abril de 2019. Servirá como tipo mínimo para la primera subasta en ejecución de la Finca Número 20,736 antes descrita la suma de $225,000.00, conforme a lo estipulado en la Escritura de Hipoteca #270, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 30 de diciembre de 2003 ante el Notario Público Manuel L. Correa Márquez. De no adjudicarse la propiedad en la primera subas-

ta, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA, en las oficinas del Alguacil del Tribunal de San Juan, el día 22 DE JUNIO DE 2023, A LA(S) 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. El tipo mínimo para la segunda subasta será dos terceras partes (2/3) del tipo mínimo dela primera subasta, o sea, $150,000.00. De no adjudicarse la propiedad en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA en en las oficinas del Alguacil del Tribunal de San Juan, el día 29 DE JUNIO DE 2023, A LA(S) 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. El tipo mínimo para la tercera subasta será la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo que se pactara para la primera subasta, o sea, $112,500.00. Esta subasta se hará para satisfacer a la parte demandante, hasta donde alcance, el importe adeudado a XUANLU MUSIC LLC. ascendente a la suma principal de $309,203.45, más los intereses sobre dicha suma al 7.95% anual, desde el día 1ro. de abril de 2012, hasta el total pago de la obligación, más la suma de $22,500.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, más aquellas sumas pactadas en la escritura de hipoteca por concepto de seguro y recargos adeudados desde la fecha antes mencionada y hasta el total pago de la obligación. La venta en pública subasta de la propiedad descrita anteriormente se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte dicha propiedad. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si lo hubiera, al crédito que da base a esta ejecución, continuará subsistente, entendiéndose además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría de este Tribunal durante horas laborables. El Alguacil procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura de venta judicial y se pondrá al comprador en posesión física del inmueble, de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. POR LA PRESENTE, se les notifica a los titulares de créditos y/o cargas registrales posteriores, si alguno, que se celebrará la SUBASTA en la fecha, hora y sitio anteriormente señalados, y se les invita a que concurran a dicha subasta, si les conviniere, o se les invita a satisfacer, antes del remate, el importe del crédito, sus intereses, otros cargos y las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del Acreedor ejecutante, siempre y cuando reúnan los requisitos y cualificaciones de Ley para que se pueda efectuar tal subrogación. Y PARA

SU PUBLICACIÓN en el tablón de edictos de este Tribunal y en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio donde se celebrará la subasta señalada. Además, en un periódico de circulación general en dos (2) ocasiones y mediante correo certificado a la última dirección conocida de la parte demandada. EXPEDIDO el presente EDICTO DE SUBASTA en San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 8 de mayo de 2023. JUAN A. SANTANA GARCÍA, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE SAN JUAN. ***

LEGAL NOTICE

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

IN RE: GUILLERMO JESÚS TIRADO MENÉNDEZ & SHERRY LEE WOOLARD RODRÍGUEZ

Debtor WIGBERTO LUGO MENDER, TRUSTEE FOR THE ESTATE OF GUILLERMO JESUS TIRADO MENENDEZ & SHERRY LEE WOOLARD RODRÍGUEZ

Plaintiff V. ALEXANDRA MARIE GONZALEZ FUENTES AND ENRIQUE ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ FUENTES

Defendants

Case No.: 19-01969. ESL. CHAPTER 7. ADV. NO. 2300032 ESL. COMPLAINT TO OBTAIN COURT APPROVAL FOR THE SALE OF CO-OWNED PROPERTY OF THE ESTATE. SUMMONS BY PUBLICATION.

TO: ENRIQUE

ALEJANDRO GONALEZ FUENTES.

Whereas, the Chapter 7 Trustee of the Estate of Guillermo Jesus Tirado Menendez & Sherry Lee Woolard Rodríguez, appearing as Plaintiff has formally filed a complaint commencing the above adversary proceeding against the Defendants seeking (1) to obtain Court approval for the sale of both the interest of the estate and of a co-owner’s interest on real property with the distribution of all proceeds on this sale to be performed between the estate and the co-owner as per Section §363 (j) and (2) the reimbursement to the estate for the necessary costs and expenses of the adversary proceeding estimated in $500 and attorney’s fees incurred in prosecuting this action estimated in $2,500.

(Docket Entry No. 1). On May 16, 2023, Plaintiff submitted a motion to serve summons by publication pursuant to F.R.B.P.

7004 (c), Rule 4 (e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Rule 4.6 of the Puerto Rico Rules of Civil Procedure, dueto the fact that Defendants are not in Puerto Rico and/or cannot be found and there is no knowledge of their addresses, notwithstanding plaintiff having taken all the pertinent steps to ascertain their whereabouts. The aforementioned motion was granted on 5/17/2023. Pursuant to the Order for Service by Publication entered on 5/17/2023, by the Honorable Enrique S. Lamoutte, United States Bankruptcy Judge (Docket No. 7), you are hereby SUMMONED to appear, plead or answer the Complaint filed herein no later than thirty (30) days after publication of this Summons by serving the original plea or answer in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and serving a copy to counsel for plaintiff: Alexis Betancourt Vincenty, Esq., and/or Wigberto Lugo Mender, Esq., at Lugo Mender Group, LLC, 100 Carretera 165, Suite 501, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00968-8052, telephone number (787) 707 -0404. This Summons shall be published by edict only once in a newspaper of general circulation in the Island of Puerto Rico. Plaintiff has been excused from sending to defendant copy of this Summons and the Complaint, by certified mail/return receipt requested, to defendant’s last known address within ten (10) days following publication of this Summons. Should you fail to appear, plead or answer to the Complaint as ordered by the Court and noticed by this Summons, the Court will proceed to hear and adjudicate this cause against you based on the relief demanded in the Complaint. BY ORDER OF THE COURT, summons is issued pursuant to Rule 7004(c) of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure and Rule 4.6 of the Rules of Civil Procedure for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 17 day of May, 2023. WILMA JAIME, CLERK, U.S. BANKRUPTCY COURT. JOSE ROMO, DEPUTY CLERK.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO

COMMOLOCO INC. (PR)

POR CHRISTOPHER MARTÍNEZ GÓMEZ, MARTIZA MARTÍNEZ SANTOS, MILAGROS PÉREZ SANTOS, MENGANO DE TAL Y

MENGANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; LA SUCESION DE ISMAEL PÉREZ RIVERA COMPUESTA POR WILLY PÉREZ, MILAGROS PÉREZ SANTOS, FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS: CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

Demandados

Civil Núm.: FA2022CV00746.

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: LA SUCESIÓN DE ALEJANDRINA SANTOS OCASIO COMPUESTA

POR MARTIZA MARTÍNEZ

SANTOS, MLLAGROS

PÉREZ SANTOS, MENGANO DE TAL Y MENGANA DE TAL COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; LA SUCESION DE ISMAEL PÉREZ RIVERA COMPUESTA POR WILLY PÉREZ, MILAGROS PÉREZ SANTOS, FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN.

Queden emplazados y notificados que en este Tribunal se ha radicado Demanda sobre Ejecución de Hipoteca en su contra. Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del presente edicto y deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), el cual podrá acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Sí usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar Sentencia en Rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio

solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio ele su discreción, lo entiende procedente. Los abogados de la parte demandante son:

Lcdo. Andrés Sáez Marrero

T.S.P.R. Núm. 18074

TROMBERG, MORRIS & POULIN, LLC

1515 South Federal Highway, Suite 100 Boca Raton, FL 33432 Tel. 877-338-4101 / Fax: 561-338-4077 prservice@tmppllc.com / asaez@tmppllc.com

Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 11 de mayo de 2023. WANDA I. SEGUÍ REYES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. LYDIA E. RIVERA

MIRANDA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL

GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE MAYAGÜEZ BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante Vs. MARIO L. ACOSTA VELÁZQUEZ

Demandado

Civil Núm.: MZ2023CV00274.

Salón: 307. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: MARIO L. ACOSTA VELÁZQUEZ.

POR LA PRESENTE: Se le notifica que contra usted se ha presentado una Demanda sobre Cobro de Dinero. Por la presente se le emplaza a usted y se le requiere que dentro del término de TREINTA (30) días desde la fecha de la Publicación por Edicto de este Emplazamiento presente su contestación 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 de Primera Instancia, Sala de Mayagüez, P.O. Box 1210, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 00681-1210 y notifique a la LCDA. GINA H. FERRER MEDINA, personalmente al Condominio Las Nereidas, Local 1-B, Calle Méndez Vigo esquina Amador Ramírez Silva, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 00680; o por correo al P.O. Box 2342, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 006812342, Teléfonos: (787) 8329620 / (845) 345-3985 / (787) 538-9920, Abogada de la parte demandante, apercibiéndose que en caso de no hacerlo así podrá dictarse Sentencia en Rebeldía en contra suya,

concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPIDO BAJO

MI FIRMA y el Sello del Tribunal hoy 12 de mayo de 2023.

LIC. NORMA G. SANTANA

IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA REGIONAL II. REBECA MEDINA

FIGUEROA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Parte Demandante Vs.

RAFAEL ANTONIO

NEGRÓN SANTIAGO

T/C/C RAFAEL A.

NEGRÓN SANTIAGO

T/C/C RAFAEL A. NEGRÓN

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: BY2023CV02044.

(702). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO, EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A La Parte Demandada: RAFAEL ANTONIO

NEGRÓN SANTIAGO

T/C/C RAFAEL A.

NEGRÓN SANTIAGO

T/C/C RAFAEL A.

NEGRÓN A SUS

ÚLTIMAS DIRECCIONES

CONOCIDAS: URB. RIO PLANTATION, 4 CALLE

2D E, BAYAMON, PR 00961-3538, URB. RIO PLANTATION, 7 CALLE 3

W, BAYAMÓN, PR 009613534, 1030 CORAL RIDGE

DR. APT 101, CORAL SPRINGS, FL 33071-4173.

Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre ejecución de hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que se adeuda las siguientes cantidades $109,230.26 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 5.00% anual desde el 1 de octubre de 2022 hasta su completo pago, más $79.02 de recargos acumulados, los cuales continuarán en aumento hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más la cantidad estipulada de $11,500.00 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: UR-

BANA: Parcela de terreno sitio

en Río Plantation del Barrio Hato Tejas de Bayamón, Puerto Rico, compuesta de 510.00 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE: en 20.25 metros con parcela número 38-12 dedicada a calle; por el SUR: en 21.38 metros con parcela número 38-1; por el ESTE: en 23.98 metros con granja número 39; y por el OESTE: en 25.00 metros con parcela número 382. Esta parcela lleva el número 38-3 del caso Lote 63-1558. Enclava una casa de cemento. Inscrita al folio 240 del tomo 30 de Bayamón Norte, Finca 904. Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección III. La escritura de hipoteca consta inscrita al folio 243 del tomo 30 de Bayamón Norte, Finca 904. Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección III, inscripción séptima. Las escrituras de modificación de hipoteca constan inscritas al tomo Karibe de Bayamón Norte, Finca 904. Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección III, inscripción octava y décima. La demandante es la tenedora por endoso en blanco, por valor recibido y de buena fe del referido pagaré objeto de la presente acción. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la Parte Demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, cuya dirección es: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo Puerto Rico 009703922, Teléfono y Fax: (787) 789-1826, (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 12 de mayo de 2023, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MARILYN COLÓN CARRASQUILLO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de FAJARDO.

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante v. CARLOS ESCRIBANO

MIRO T/C/C CARLOS

FRANCISCO ESCRIBANO

MIRO T/C/C CARLOS F. ESCRIBANO MIRO, SU ESPOSA IDA RAMALLO

DiAZ T/C/C AIDA A.

RAMALLO DIAZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA

Demandado(a)

Civil: FA2022CV01089. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: CARLOS ESCRIBANO

MIRO T/C/C CARLOS

FRANCISCO ESCRIBANO

MIRO T/C/C CARLOS F. ESCRIBANO MIRO, SU ESPOSA IDA RAMALLO

DIAZ T/C/C AIDA A.

RAMALLO DiAZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; Cond The Costa Bonita Beach Resort

Unidad 3404 Apto 34-4C

Culebra, PR 00775;

Dirección Postal: Urb

Santa Maria #1 Calle

Petunia San Juan PR 00919 y PO Box 190874

San Juan PR 00919 (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 12 de mayo de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 15 de mayo de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 15 de mayo de 2023. Wanda I Seguí Reyes, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. F/Ivelisse Serrano Garcia, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

Demandante Vs. SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ ALEXANDRINO MÉNDEZ COMPUESTA POR FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHA SUCESIÓN

Demandados

Civil Núm.: CG2023CV00911.

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

A: FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ ALEXANDRINO MÉNDEZ.

BARRIO JUAN SÁNCHEZ, COND. CHALETS DE ROYAL PALM APT. 2206 EDIF. 22, BAYAMÓN, PR 00966. DIRECCIÓN

POSTAL: 100 CALLE

F APTO. 2205 COND. CHALETS DE ROYAL PALM BAYAMÓN, PR 00956-3053.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días a partir de la publicación de este edicto.

Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Se le apercibe que conforme al artículo 1578 deI Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. §11021, usted tiene 30 días para aceptar o repudiar la herencia desde la publicación de este edicto. A esos efectos, de no rechazarla, se tendrá la herencia por aceptada. Representa a la parte demandante,

la representación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato: BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO

FAS, C.S.P. LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS

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

TEL: 787-751-5290, FAX: 787-751-6155

E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com

En Bayamón, Puerto Rico a 19 de mayo de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. SANDRA BÁEZ HERNÁNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante Vs. SUCESIÓN DE LYDIA

GARCIA MORENO

COMPUESTA POR

SUS HEREDEROS

CONOCIDOS JUAN

ANTONIO RIVERA

GARCIA, ALFREDO

RIVERA GARCIA Y LUIS ANGEL RIVERA

GARCIA; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS

DESCONOCIDOS Y/O

PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHA SUCESIÓN Demandada Civil Núm.: BY2023CV01072.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (IN REM). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE LYDIAA GARCÍA MORENO.

PARCELA #230-K CARR. 872, TOA BAJA, PR 00949. DIRECCIÓN POSTAL: PO BOX 534 SABANA SECA, PR 00952-0534.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días a partir de la publicación de este edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted

deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Se le apercibe que conforme al artículo 1578 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. §11021, usted tiene 30 días para aceptar o repudiar la herencia desde la publicación de este edicto. A esos efectos, de no rechazarla, se tendrá la herencia por aceptada. Representa a la parte demandante, la representación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato:

BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO FAS, C.S.P. LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS

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

TEL: 787- 751-5290,

FAX: 787-751-6155

E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com

En Bayamón, Puerto Rico a 15 de mayo de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. MARTHA E. ROSARIO ROSA, SUB-SECRETARIA. LEGAL NOTICE

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

Demandante V. SUCESION DE FLOR MARIA SANTIAGO

MEDINA T/C/C FLOR M. SANTIAGO DE VARGAS COMPUESTA POR FERNANDO POZO SANTIAGO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLE HEREDERO DESCONOCIDO; SUCESION DE WILLIAM RAMON VARGAS CAPPAS COMPUESTA

POR: ITA VARGAS, ANNIE VARGAS Y PERENCEJO DE TAL, POSIBLE HEREDERO DESCONOCIDO; CARLOS J. VARGAS SANTIAGO, COMO HEREDERO DE FLOR MARIA SANTIAGO MEDINA T/C/C FLOR M. SANTIAGO DE VARGAS Y DE WILLIAM RAMON VARGAS CAPPAS

Demandado(a)

Civil: PO2019CV00989. 406.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA - IN REM. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. A: FERNANDO POZO SANTIAGO COMO HEREDERO DE FLOR MARIA SANTIAGO MEDINA T/C/C FLOR

Development Corporation que radica en el barrio Monacillos de Rio Piedras, con un área superficial de (252.00) metros cuadrados; en lindes por el NORTE, SUR, ESTE y OESTE con terrenos propiedad de la Everlasting Development Corporation y dando frente al Oeste con la calle denominada calle (#12) de la Urbanización”. El referido inmueble consta inscrito a la Finca (6,954) de Monacillos, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección Tercera; Catastro Núm. (062-088-115-20-802). La parte demandante solicita del Honorable Tribunal que declare con lugar la demanda y en su consecuencia ordene al Secretario del Tribunal que expida Mandamiento al Registrador de la Propiedad, para que dicho funcionario proceda a cancelar en los libros a su cargo la referida hipoteca dejando la propiedad aquí descrita libre de dicho gravamen hipotecario. Por el presente Edicto se les emplaza y requiere para que conteste la Demanda radicando el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de San Juan y notificándole con copia de dicha contestación a la abogada de la parte demandante:

Lcda. Beatriz Cay Vázquez RUA 18,234

P.O. Box 1809, Caguas, Puerto Rico 00726-1809 Tel. (787) 731-0526

Email: beatrizcayvazquez@gmail.com

Se le apercibe que si no compareciere usted a presentar alegación sobre dicha Demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del edicto, podrá dictarse Sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda. Por el presente Edicto se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la Demanda. Usted 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, Sala de San Juan y notificándole con copia de contestación a la abogada de la parte demandante. POR ORDEN DEL TRIBUNAL, expido el presente Edicto en San Juan, Puerto Rico hoy 18 de mayo de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA GENERAL. MYRIAM RIVERA VILLANUEVA, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante Vs. LA SUCESION DE FELICITA ESCOBAR CAMACHO COMPUESTA POR RENI HIRAM ROSARIO ESCOBAR; WANDA ROSARIO ESCOBAR; FULANO Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

Demandados

Civil Núm.: BY2023CV01855.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (VÍA ORDINARIA). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO Y MANDAMIENTO DE INTERPELACIÓN. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. A La Parte CoDemandada: (A) FULANO Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE FELICITA ESCOBAR CAMACHO; A LA SIGUIENTE DIRECCIÓN: URB.

BRAULIO DUEÑO A-24, CALLE 1 BAYAMON, PR 00959.

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 por la vía ordinaria en contra de la La Sucesión de Felicita Escobar Camacho, en la cual se alega que adeuda a la parte demandante por concepto de hipoteca la suma de $32,904.16 por concepto de principal, desde el 1ro de noviembre de 2022, más intereses al tipo pactado de 9.25% anual que continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la obligación. Además, La Sucesión de Felicita Escobar Camacho adeuda a la parte demandante los cargos por demora equivalentes a 5.00% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha de vencimiento; los créditos accesorios y adelantos hechos en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca; y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado equivalentes a $3,800.00. Además La Sucesión de Felicita Escobar Camacho se comprometió a pagar una suma equivalente a $3,800.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca y una suma equivalente a $3,800.00 para cubrir cualquiera otros adelantos que se

hagan en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca número 310, otorgada en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, el día 27 de octubre de 2008, ante el notario Duncan Maldonado Ejarque, de la finca número 5,830, inscrita al Folio 156 del Tomo 109 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 Felicita Escobar Camacho. Los co-demandados miembros de La Sucesión de Felicita Escobar Camacho se incluyen en la demanda enmendada ya que como herederos responden por las cargas de la herencia según lo dispuesto en Nuestro Ordenamiento Jurídico. Se les apercibe y notifica que, de no expresarse dentro de ese término de 30 días en torno a su aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la herencia se tendrá por aceptada. También se les apercibe que luego del transcurso del término de 30 días antes señalado contados a partir de la fecha de la notificación de la presente Orden, se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia del causante y, por consiguiente, responden por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme el Artículo 1578 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. 2785. Se ordena a la parte demandante a que, en vista de que La Sucesión de Felicita Escobar Camacho, se incluye a los herederos conocidos y herederos desconocidos de Felicita Escobar Camacho, denominados Fulano y Fulana de Tal como posibles herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de Felicita

Escobar Camacho, 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 secretaría del tribunal. Se le(s) advierte que si dejare(n) de contestar la Demanda en el período de tiempo antes mencionado, podrá dictarse contra usted( es) Sentencia en Rebeldía, concediéndose el remedio solicitado sin más citarle(s) ni oírle(s).

EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y con el Sello del Tribunal. DADA hoy 19 de mayo de 2023, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico. LCDA.

LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. SANDRA BÁEZ HERNÁNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

PR RECOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT JV, LLC

Parte Demandante Vs. MARITZA MEDINA

ACEVEDO Y JOSE

R. AVILES ASENCIO Y LA SOCIEDAD DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: PO2019CV03405. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO ORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: MARITZA MEDINA ACEVEDO, PARA SER NOTIFICADO POR EDICTO.

P/C: LCDO. JOSE FRANCISCO AGUILAR VELEZ. PO BOX 71418, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO 00936-8518.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se les notifica la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 3 de marzo de 2020, 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 16 de mayo de 2023. En Ponce, Puerto Rico, el 16 de mayo de 2023. CARMEN G. TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. LOYDA TORRES IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC COMO AGENTE GESTOR DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS

FUND, LLC

Demandante V. LUIS

OROPEZA COLLAZO

Demandado(a)

Civil: TB2022CV00363. Sala: 503. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: LUIS

OROPEZA COLLAZO. (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 12 de mayo 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 16 de mayo de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 16 de mayo de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. IVETTE M. MARRERO BRACERO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

Demandante V. JUAN RAFAEL DE LEÓN

ROMÁN, DORCAS

JUDITH CORTES MIJON Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR

AMBOS, COOPERATIVA DE AHORRO Y CRÉDITO

HERMANOS UNIDOS, JOHN DOE

Demandadas

Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV04081. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S. S.

A: JOHN DOE

COMO TENEDOR DESCONOCIDO DEL PAGARÉ a favor de Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Hermanos Unidos, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $200,000.00, con intereses al 6.50% anual y vencimiento el 1ro. de abril de 2032, constituida mediante escritura #37 otorgada en San Juan el 8 de marzo de 2002, ante Francisco J. Torrado Martínez, inscrita al folio 1 del tomo 1422 de Río Piedras Norte, finca #6,267, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Segunda Sección de San Juan, inscripción 9na. Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda incoada en su contra dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del presente edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio. Si usted deja de presentar y notificar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Los abogados de la parte demandante son.

ABOGADOS DE LA PARTE

DEMANDANTE:

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

BERMUDEZ & DIAZ LLP

Suite 209 500 Calle De La Tanca San Juan, Puerto Rico 00901

Tel.: (787) 523-2670

Fax: (787) 523-2664

rdíaz@bdprlaw.com

Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y el sello de este Tribunal, hoy 16 de mayo de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ENID DÍAZ RÍOS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

CONSEJO DE TITULARES

DEL CONDOMINIO

CONDADO 609

Demandante V. WIDE RANGE

CORPORATION LLC.;

GLOBAL ENGINEERING GROUP, INC.

Demandado

Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV02821.

Sala: 503. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. DE AMÉRICA, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: GLOBAL ENGINEERING GROUP, INC.

Quedan emplazados y notificados que en este Tribunal se ha radicado Demanda sobre cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que la parte demandada GLOBAL ENGINEERING GROUP, INC., le adeuda solidariamente a Consejo de Titulares del Condominio Condado 609, la suma total de $92,244.21, por concepto de gastos comunes de mantenimiento adeudados a la fecha de radicación, las cantidades que se acumulen por concepto de mensualidades de gastos comunes, intereses, penalidades y recargos que se continúen acumulando, más las costas, gastos y una suma razonable por honorarios de abogado. Se les advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que, si no comparecen a contestar dicha Demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del Edicto, a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal, se le anotará la re-

beldía y se dictará Sentencia concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin más citarles ni oírles. El abogado de la parte demandante es el Lcdo. Rafael Batista Tosado, con dirección física y postal en: 138 Ave. Winston Churchill, PMB 326, San Juan, P.R. 00926; cuyo número de teléfono es (787) 510-8367, y su correo electrónico es: batista.rafael24@gmail. com. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 17 de mayo de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MARÍA I. RÍOS LÓPEZ, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE AGUADILLA JESUS CABRERA CRUZ

Demandante V. ANA ELIZA DÍAZ HERRERA

Demandado(a)

Civil: AG2023RF00087. Sobre: DIVORCIO RUPTURA IRREPARABLE. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. A: ANA ELIZA DÍAZ HERRERA. P/C LCDO. LUIS A GONZALEZ GONZALEZ. PO BOX 613, ISABELA, PUERTO RICO, 006620613.

(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 17 de mayo 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 18 de mayo de 2023. En Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, el 18 de mayo de 2023. SARAHÍ REYES PÉREZ, SECRETARIA. MARÍA VALENTÍN RAMÍREZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

Carmelo Anthony announces retirement after 19 NBA seasons

fruit, thanks mainly to injuries to Stoudemire. But Anthony did provide memorable performances at Madison Square Garden, including a game in 2014 in which he scored 62 points, a franchise record. Anthony also led the Knicks to one of their only playoff series wins of the century, in 2013 against the Boston Celtics.

All told, Anthony played for six teams: the Nuggets, Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers and Lakers.

Anthony’s career had several speed bumps.

He developed a reputation for lax defense and hogging the ball. His former Nuggets coach, George Karl, wrote in his 2017 memoir that Anthony “only played hard on one side of the ball.” And while Anthony’s teams reliably made the playoffs, he made it as far as the conference finals only once, in 2009 with the Nuggets.

Soon, Anthony’s career was hanging in the balance. He appeared in just 10 games for Houston in the 2018-19 season before he was sidelined and later traded to Chicago, though he never played in any games for the Bulls and was quickly waived. He revitalized his career in Portland over the next two seasons by accepting the bench role that he had laughed at in Oklahoma City. He ended his career playing next to James in Los Angeles.

Off the court, Anthony became increasingly outspoken on social issues, including police violence, after appearing in a homemade video titled “Stop Snitching” early in his career. The video discouraged people from talking to the police about crimes.

By SOPAN DEB

Carmelo Anthony, the former New York Knicks star and one of the greatest scorers in NBA history, announced his retirement earlier this week, calling the farewell after 19 seasons “bittersweet.”

Anthony, 38, last played in April 2022 as a reserve for the Los Angeles Lakers and spent the final few seasons of his career in more limited roles.

“Now the time has come for me to say goodbye, to the court where I made my name, to the game that gave me purpose and pride,” Anthony said in a glossily produced video posted to social networks on Monday. The video included career highlights, with the song “All That I Got Is You” by Ghostface Killah featuring Mary J. Blige in the background.

Anthony said he was “excited about what the future holds.”

The Denver Nuggets drafted Anthony third overall out of Syracuse in 2003 after he led the school to a Division I NCAA national championship. Anthony might have been drafted higher if

not for a player he would form a close friendship with: LeBron James, who went first overall to Cleveland.

Anthony immediately demonstrated his prowess for scoring. His elite footwork, burly physique and quick release on his jumper from anywhere on the court made him difficult to guard. Paul Pierce, the Hall of Famer, said earlier this year that he would have rather guarded Kobe Bryant or James than Anthony.

Anthony led the Nuggets to the playoffs in his rookie year. He jab-stepped, up-faked and posted up his way to 10 All-Star Games and six All-NBA teams. Anthony ended his career with 28,289 total points — good for ninth in NBA history. He also won three Olympic gold medals and one bronze.

Many Knicks fans are particularly fond of Anthony, who was born in Brooklyn and pressured the Nuggets to trade him to New York in 2011 so he could team up with a fellow All-Star, Amar’e Stoudemire. The move gave the fan base some optimism after a decade of incompetence from the front office.

The partnership never fully bore

Like many All-Stars before him, Anthony struggled to adjust to a drop-off in his game as he entered the back half of his career. After the Knicks traded him to Oklahoma City before the 201718 season, he appeared to have the best chance of his career to win a championship because he was teaming up with Paul George and Russell Westbrook, perennial All-Stars. But he scoffed at the idea of coming off the bench, and many fans blamed him when the team fizzled out early in the playoffs.

After George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in 2020, Anthony formed a philanthropic investment fund with Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade to invest in communities of color, as well as to push for causes like changes to the criminal justice system.

In his retirement video, Anthony said that he did not believe his legacy to be his on-court feats because his “story has always been more than basketball.”

“My legacy? My son,” Anthony said, addressing his teenage son, Kiyan Anthony. He added: “Chase your dreams. Let nothing hold you back. Let nothing intervene. My legacy now and forever lives on through you.”

Carmelo Anthony during a game in 2012.

Nuggets sweep Lakers to head to first NBA Finals

By TANIA GANGULI

As the Denver Nuggets’ historic celebration began, LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers’ star forward, walked off his home court, his face expressionless.

On Monday night, the Nuggets stamped out the final gasps from the Lakers, who had kept their season alive for weeks after it was presumed finished. Even after the final buzzer, some of Denver’s players couldn’t believe it was over and that they’d actually done it.

The Nuggets are going to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history after completing a four-game sweep of the Lakers in the Western Conference finals with a 113-111 win Monday.

Now, Denver awaits the winner of the Eastern Conference finals, in which the Miami Heat had a 3-0 series lead over the Boston Celtics going into Tuesday night’s Game 4 in Miami.

Nuggets center Nikola Jokic was named the MVP of the Western Conference finals. He smiled warmly as he held his trophy and his teammates surrounded him on the court and patted his head. He had 30 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists Monday.

“Even when you guard him for one of the best possessions that you think you can guard him, he puts the ball behind his head Larry Bird style and shoots it 50 feet in the air and it goes in,” James said, then he smiled wryly. “Like he did four or five times this series.” He added, as he took off his hat and tipped it: “So you do like this to him.”

Denver had not been to the NBA Finals in its 47 seasons in the league. Now the longest drought belongs to the Sacramento Kings, who have not been since 1951, when

SERVICIOS:

they were known as the Rochester Royals. The New Orleans Pelicans, Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies and Charlotte Hornets have never been.

“I’m really happy for the guys and for the organization and just how we fight through,” Jokic said. “I remember the days when nobody was in our — you could hear the ball bounce on the floor and there was no fans.”

For the Nuggets, the win Monday culminated a yearslong process in which their core players grew together, weathered challenging injuries and faced questions about their ability to even compete in the West. Jokic won the league’s MVP award twice, but could get to the conference finals only once.

Denver lost star guard Jamal Murray in April 2021, when he tore the ACL in his left knee. Nuggets coach Michael Malone

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said the day after the injury Murray tearfully asked if the Nuggets would trade him, calling himself “damaged goods.”

“I hugged him,” Malone said. “I said: ‘Hell no, you’re ours. We love you. We’re going to help you get back, and you’re going to be a better player for it.’”

Murray missed the rest of that season and all of 2021-22. In this year’s playoffs, Denver’s patience paid off.

Murray began looking like the player he was before the injury and Jokic continued playing at an elite level, perfectly complemented by Denver’s cast of talented role players.

The Nuggets rose to first in the West in December and never fell out of the top spot. In the playoffs, they beat the Timberwolves 4-1 in the first round and the Phoenix Suns 4-2 in the second round. Despite Denver’s dominance all season, oddsmakers did not favor them to win the championship. The Nuggets embraced that.

“We’re the underdogs,” guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “We don’t get enough credit for what we do.” He continued: “Not being talked about a lot, we take that personal. We just use that energy, continue to prove everybody wrong.”

Even after the first two rounds, some thought the Lakers were dangerous enough to be the team that finally upended the Nuggets.

That confidence in the Lakers had developed only during the playoffs.

For a while, the Lakers seemed doomed because of roster issues and injuries to their stars, James and Anthony Davis.

They began the season with a 2-10 record. In December, when the Nuggets were solidifying their spot atop the West, the Lakers were in 13th.

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Guard Russell Westbrook, who struggled with the Lakers last season, still wasn’t fitting in and was pulled from the starting lineup after three games. Davis injured his foot Dec. 16 against the Nuggets and missed 20 games while he recovered. Not long after Davis returned, James missed several games with a foot injury that some doctors he consulted said would require surgery.

But changes at the trading deadline in February helped. The Lakers shipped out Westbrook and brought in role players — Jarred Vanderbilt, D’Angelo Russell and Malik Beasley. They had also traded for Rui Hachimura in January.

They rose to seventh in the West by

the end of the regular season, and beat Minnesota in overtime in the play-in tournament to secure the seventh seed for the playoffs. In the first round, they quieted a boisterous Memphis team, which had spent most of the season in the top three in the West, beating them 4-2. Then they upset the defending champion Golden State Warriors 4-2, dominating them in the clinching game of the second round.

All the while, Darvin Ham, their firstyear head coach, reminded them how few people expected them to even make the playoffs.

But the Nuggets turned out to be a different type of opponent. They were more cohesive, less dramatic and stronger at center than Memphis and Golden State.

In the Lakers’ first two series, their opponents sniped at them verbally, whether it was Grizzlies guard Dillon Brooks calling James, 38, old, or the Warriors accusing them of flopping for favorable calls. The Nuggets took a different approach, showing deference off the court until the very end.

“I’m not going to say that I’m scared, but I’m worried,” Jokic said after Denver’s Game 3 win. “Because they have LeBron on the other side, and he is capable of doing everything.”

James had looked more fallible in this series than he had in the past. He went 0 for 10 from 3-point range in the first two games, made costly mistakes late in Game 1 and drew ridicule for missing a dunk in Game 2. He had dragged the team through Davis’ postseason inconsistency so far, but the Nuggets wouldn’t let him do it again.

A few hours before Monday’s game, James was going through his pregame warm-up when a group of broadcast workers staged a rehearsal for the Western Conference championship trophy presentation on the court a few yards away from him. James used that as motivation.

He scored 31 points in the first half, making all four of his first-quarter 3-point attempts.

“It was scary,” Caldwell-Pope said. “We know who LeBron is.”

James finished with 40 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. On the game’s final play, James drove to the basket and tried to shoot a game-tying shot through a swarm of Nuggets. Murray was there, and as James gathered to shoot, Murray put both hands on the ball and didn’t let go.

“I knew I had to be there,” Murray said. The clock expired and the Nuggets bench emptied in celebration.

Denver’s Nikola Jokic was named the most valuable player of the Western Conference finals.

Sudoku

How to Play:

Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9.

Sudoku Rules:

Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Aries (Mar 21-April 20)

Frustration could be the word for today. If you’ve made plans to meet a close friend or lover, Aries, don’t count on it happening. Unexpected events might force a postponement. Problems with schedules could have you playing phone tag. This also isn’t a good day to work on creative or artistic projects. The results you want could prove elusive. Spend the day reading!

Taurus (April 21-May 21)

Upsets and disappointments on the part of a family member could have the household in an uproar. Problems with household equipment could throw a monkey wrench into everyone’s routine. On days like this, it’s best for everyone to get out and distract themselves. Movies, sporting events, and museums can help relieve the stress.

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Today you may need to contact a lot of people, Gemini, but the process could be frustrating. People may not be home, messages might not be delivered, or your equipment might not work properly. Unless it’s urgent, it might be better to wait until tomorrow to try to reach them. You could end up too stressed otherwise.

Cancer (June 22-July 23)

Conflict over money could get in the way of your usual cordial relationships, Cancer. Attention to the household budget is definitely needed. Unexpected events may require some immediate purchases that you hadn’t planned on. They might require some scrimping, but you should be able to minimize the need if you plan carefully. Don’t make yourself crazy over anything today. You will get through it!

Leo (July 24-Aug 23)

Your mother and father, or a couple you’re particularly close to, could visit you today, Leo. Plan some distractions like movies or videos, or invite some other people over. Talking with this couple alone might result in heated discussions that accomplish nothing but get everyone worked up and stressed. Whatever happens, don’t let it get you down. Everyone should feel better tomorrow.

Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)

This isn’t a good day to go out, Virgo. Traffic is probably awful. Don’t trust any gossip that comes your way! It’s probably passed through at least half a dozen people and retains little, if any, of the facts. Someone might be passing along rumors for their own reasons, so believe nothing you hear without checking it out.

Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)

Some unusual events could cause you to feel discontented from your life and contemplate some big changes, Libra. Money matters might need attention and could prove frustrating. Outrageous ideas for improving your financial status could come to mind. Make a list of options, then wait a few days before making serious plans. This isn’t the day to start anything new.

Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)

Recent activities have suddenly made you bored with your job and the people you deal with. You may feel restless and contemplate changes to your professional life, Scorpio. This could be appropriate now, but it might not. It’s best to look at your options logically and practically. Don’t be afraid to ask family and friends for their opinions.

Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)

A lack of time to pursue your spiritual and intellectual interests could weigh on your mind today, Sagittarius. Gloom might descend on you, as if responsibilities of the moment are too much for you. Try to be the observer. If a friend came to you for advice with your problem, what would you say? Take your own advice. You might also want to consider streamlining your activities.

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)

An unexpected setback could interfere with reaching a long-term goal as soon as you’d hoped. Don’t let it get you down, Capricorn. A little innovative thought and extra planning could get you back on track. This is a day best spent alone, working on projects of your own. You’re likely to be restless in the company of others. On the upside, good money news could just about make your day!

Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)

Your partner’s family obligations could interfere with things you wanted to do together, Aquarius. Your desire to help could also get in the way of other responsibilities. The best way to handle days like today is to plan carefully. There’s always a way to squeeze it all in. This may be what you have to do.

Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)

A delay in receiving a communication from a distant place could prove frustrating today, Pisces. You may be looking forward to a vacation, but responsibilities that suddenly crop up could postpone the trip. This probably won’t be necessary, but some adjustments need to be made before you can both do what you want and fulfill your responsibilities, too.

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