Wednesday Nov 24, 2021

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

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Secretary of State Outlines Ongoing Efforts to Protect the Rights of Brothers Jailed in Mexico P6 After Closing Arguments at Hearings, Judge Takes Debt POA Under Advisement P4

DAILY

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The Holiday Travel Crush Has Begun.

Are the Airlines Up to It?

Not a Pretty Picture

Citing Graphic Videos Posted on Social Media, Governor Expresses Concerns About Puerto Rico’s Image Amid Surge in Slayings

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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

GOOD MORNING

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November 24, 2021

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.

Teachers appeal to Judge Swain to save their pensions

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uerto Rico Teachers Association (AMPR by its Spanish initials) President Víctor Bonilla Sánchez on Tuesday insisted that his organization and its Local Union, through their legal representatives, made a convincing case before Judge Laura Taylor Swain in their objection to the debt adjustment plan (PAD by its Spanish acronym).

He said he sought to demonstrate that teachers are the group of public servants who will receive the worst treatment if the plan, also referred to as the plan of adjustment, or POA, is approved. While the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico has said that under the plan current pensions won’t be cut, the oversight board has also said it has control over the plan and could alter future benefits.

“Under the debt adjustment plan, active teachers will not only suffer from their pensions being frozen, but their retirement age will also be delayed,” Bonilla Sánchez said at a press conference. “That delay is at least eight to 10 years in most cases. The PAD also does not contemplate the claims that teachers have, as a result of the treatment that this plan gives them.”

José Vélez Castro, interim vice president of the AMPR, said that with the completion of the final arguments of the opponents of the plan, only the response arguments of the oversight board remained and the case would then be submitted for adjudication by Judge Swain. The lawyers of the AMPR and its Local Union are analyzing alternatives before the possible determination of the court to confirm, or not, the PAD. “The AMPR tried to negotiate a better deal in front of the board, an effort that was plagued with lies and misinformation by other groups such as the Teachers Federation and FADEP [the Spanish acronym for the Public Education Defense Coalition],” Vélez Castro said. “These groups today have nothing to offer the teaching profession.”

Sybaris Morales Paniagua, interim general secretary of the AMPR Local Union, said that if the DAP is confirmed as it is, the freezing of the teachers’ pension plan will be effective the same day.

“What we emphasize will happen: those teachers who do not meet the requirements to retire as of the approval of the [debt adjustment] plan, will see their retirement frozen immediately and their new retirement

age will be 63 years of age,” Morales Paniagua stressed.

“From that moment on, the possibility of a disability pension will not be available, if they need it, and they will not be able to buy time, either.”

She clarified, however, that “those teachers who at that date already meet the criteria to retire will not lose that right.”

“These teachers can remain working or qualify for retirement in accordance with the requirements of the law and regulations for these purposes,” she said.

Regarding the Social Security benefit, Bonilla Sánchez said that if the DAP is approved, everyone who is under 45 years of age will automatically qualify for Social Security, on a date not yet established.

“Those who are 45 or over may enter by filling out an application for these purposes and submitting within the term granted by the government,” he said.

Puerto Rico Teachers Association President Víctor Bonilla Sánchez

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Judge takes POA confirmation under advisement

By THE STAR STAFF

U

.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain took the matter of confirming the plan of adjustment (POA) that would restructure some $33 billion in central government debt under advisement on Tuesday rather than issuing an immediate ruling after the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico wrapped up its arguments in favor of the debt deal.

At 11:20 a.m., Swain ended closing arguments on the largest bankruptcy ever in the municipal market’s history. Before that, the judge also took under advisement rulings on whether to grant the Title VI qualifying modification for the Puerto Rico Infrastructure Financing Authority (PRIFA) and the Convention Center District Authority. PRIFA’s debt will be repaid through rum excise taxes.

The restructurings of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and the Highway and Transportation Authority are still pending.

During Tuesday’s arguments, oversight board attorney Brian Rosen, a lawyer with Proskauer Rose, addressed releases that are part of the plan and to which opponents objected. He noted that the releases were a key component of the plan negotiation process: a robust give and take that takes place during mediation. He said they were important in getting creditors on board with the plan support agreement.

Rosen asserted that the oversight board inserted language into both the plan and

U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain confirmation order that states there are no third-party releases.

He also discussed exculpation provisions under the plan. Like releases, Rosen said, exculpation provisions are customary in the context of a major restructuring, and are intended to apply only within the Title III process.

Michael Mervis, another lawyer with Proskauer Rose, objected to arguments made by retail bondholder Peter Hein on Monday. Hein asserted that the oversight board’s best interest study from McKinsey & Co. Puerto Rico Consulting “fell apart after a witness admitted that the analysis McKinsey conducted was based on legal assumptions that the [board]

itself provided.” The study evaluated whether creditors would be better off in their recoveries outside of the bankruptcy.

Mervis said Hein never disputed that given all the litigation involved in the case, legal assumptions had to be used. Mervis argued that using legal assumptions is only bad if the assumptions themselves are. He said Hein was actually challenging whether bond debt should be paid before operating expenses.

Hein argues that bondholders should be paid, but the oversight board disagrees.

Hein has also argued that under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, or PROMESA, the court must consider other statutory frameworks that can provide creditors with a better recovery than the proposed plan. He has also said Puerto Rico has sufficient money to repay existing debt.

Martin Bienenstock, also a lawyer with Proskauer Rose, objected to arguments raised by the Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority against the inclusion of Acts 80, 81 and 82 in the list of laws the oversight board wants to preempt. The laws protect pension benefits. He said changes to public employee pensions are a critical part of the proposed POA and that legislative efforts to enact pension reforms this month were inconsistent with the fiscal plan certified by the board.

He insisted teachers’ pensions are protected under the debt deal but that there is not enough cash to honor their claims. He also said the last two fiscal plans called for hikes in the salaries of teachers, disputing claims

they have not received a raise.

Unions representing teachers and other public employees had argued the plan impacts them unfairly. The proposed changes to the pension systems are projected to save $4.7 billion over the next 10 years, but a teachers union argued Monday that, aside from the freeze and elimination of cost-of-living adjustments reducing their benefits, they would also likely delay retirement for current teachers by about three years.

The POA will impose a freeze on defined benefit pensions and eliminate cost-of-living adjustments for government retirees. An 8.5% reduction in monthly pensions for retirees receiving more than $1,500 in an earlier version of the plan was eliminated.

Lawyers also asked the court to reject claims from some creditors that they were not getting just compensation as part of eminent domain and that the POA violates the Takings Clause. Those creditors have challenged the constitutionality of the plan, and Swain earlier this week gave the U.S. Justice Department until Jan. 7 to determine if it will intervene in the challenge.

The confirmation hearings began on Nov. 8, about four years after the oversight board filed the bankruptcy cases in 2017. The board filed a revised version of the eighth amended POA before starting the confirmation hearings, and again last Sunday.

The proposed plan would reduce the commonwealth’s outstanding debt by almost 80%, from $33 billion to $7.4 billion.

Gov’t to issue $70.9 million in Christmas bonuses Dec. 3

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

G

ov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia announced on Tuesday a disbursement of $70.9 million for the payment of the Christmas bonus for public employees on Friday, Dec. 3.

Likewise, he announced that this Friday, Nov. 26, following Thanksgiving, a day off will be granted for Puerto Rico government employees.

“That time of year has come when we organize ourselves financially to fulfill our responsibilities and also celebrate the holidays that are already so close,” Pierluisi said in a written statement. “For this reason, and in anticipation of many, we announce to government employees that the Christmas bonus will be delivered on Dec. 3.”

Friday, Dec. 24, Christmas Eve, and Friday, Dec. 31, New Year’s Eve, will also be granted as days off, as will Friday, Jan. 7, the day after Three Kings Day, the governor added.

Pierluisi stressed that the aforementioned days off will not apply to agencies that provide essential services. Each agency must determine which departments will continue to work to guarantee citizens’ access to its services.

The governor noted that “during Christmas, we all stop or pause to take advantage of quality time with our people and this year is no exception, even more so when we maintain low statistics for COVID-19 infections, which allows a little more flexibility to share memorable moments with our people.”

“We urge our employees to take advantage of these days to recharge their batteries and enjoy this long-awaited holiday season, always remembering the necessary preventive measures to avoid infection,” he said.

A disbursement of $70.9 million for the payment of the Christmas bonus for public employees will be issued on Dec. 3.

The San Juan Daily Star

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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Citing graphic videos posted on social media, governor expresses concerns about island’s image amid homicide wave

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

G

ov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Tuesday that the dissemination of videos of slayings -- such as the double homicide that occurred on a highway in Guayama on Monday -- does not help the image that Puerto Rico wants to project for tourism.

“Crime is always shocking. And yes, today because of technology we can witness them, and that is horrible,” the governor at a press conference. “Also, it is unfortunate from the point of view of the projection of Puerto Rico abroad, which is something that I am always very zealous about protecting, because the reality is that right now we have

rising tourism.”

“These things affect the quality of life of our people and also, the image of Puerto Rico before the world,” he added.

Some 525 homicides have been reported on the island so far in 2021.

Pierluisi insisted that the police are on the street doing their job.

“Am I satisfied with the effort of the police? Definitely yes,” he said. “Am I satisfied with the level of crime we have?

Definitely not.”

The governor said there are different types of killings, whether through fights, drug violence, drug trafficking or stalking, in which victims are monitored by their would-be killers and targeted in a moment of vulnerability.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi “Here we are going to work every day against crime and I know that I speak on behalf of the Puerto Rico Police,” Pierluisi said.

From the start of the past weekend through press time on Tuesday, at least 18 homicides were reported.

Fiscal board postpones schedule for developing next gov’t budget

By THE STAR STAFF

T

he Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico is postponing the schedule for developing the commonwealth’s fiscal year (FY) 2022-23 budget until the plan of adjustment (POA) that would restructure some $33 billion in debt is confirmed and the updated fiscal plan is certified, according to a letter.

A letter sent this week by the oversight board’s executive director, Natalie Jaresko, to Senate President José Luis Dalmau Santiago, House Speaker Rafael Hernández

Natalie Jaresko, executive director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico

Montañez and Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia states that in light of the POA confirmation proceedings being held, the oversight board will defer sending the budget schedule, FY 2023 forecast of revenues, and FY 2023 budget targets until after the POA is confirmed and the updated Fiscal Plan is certified.

Nevertheless, Jaresko asked the commonwealth government to submit certain information for the FY 2023 budget no later than Jan. 31, 2022, the letter dated Nov. 22 read.

The POA confirmation would prohibit the implementation by the commonwealth of laws seeking to expand benefits for retired government employees, the oversight board said in a press release.

The oversight board asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico to rule that Act 80-2020, Act 81-2020, and Act 82-2020 are preempted under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) and are inconsistent with the POA for the commonwealth.

If implemented, the three laws would add certain new benefits to participants in the Employees Retirement System and the Teachers Retirement System that were insolvent when PROMESA was enacted because previous administrations failed to adequately fund the government’s promises to retirees.

The oversight board included Acts 80, 81, and 82

among those commonwealth laws that are preempted in connection with the U.S. District Court’s confirmation order confirming the POA. The Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority opposes the last-minute inclusion.

The proposed order to confirm the POA would prevent such efforts for a period of 10 years, subject to relief from the prohibition under certain conditions, to ensure the oversight board’s mandate under law to help Puerto Rico achieve fiscal responsibility and to ensure that pension benefits are actually funded.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Secretary of state: Ongoing efforts to protect the rights of brothers jailed in Mexico

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

S

ecretary of State Omar Marrero Díaz on Tuesday summarized the steps that the Puerto Rico government has taken in the case of the Zapata Hernández brothers, who have been detained in Mexico for alleged sexual assault against a minor.

“Once the State Department became aware of the arrests of the Zapata Hernández brothers, we established immediate and direct communication with the United States Consulate in Playa del Carmen and the Mexican Consulate in Puerto Rico to guarantee their rights and due process of law,” Marrero Díaz said in a written statement. “It is important to understand that the role of the Puerto Rico Department of State is to act as a liaison between the Zapata Hernández brothers, American citizens residing in Puerto Rico, the United States Consulate in Playa del Carmen and the Mexican Consulate in Puerto Rico; also to ensure that the young people have access to guarantees and protections under applicable international law and treaties in force between Mexico and the United States.”

He noted that at the beginning of July

2021, the island State Department, through Assistant Secretary of Foreign Relations Félix Lizasuaín, guided the family members and channeled communication between the two systems so that they could receive assistance on criminal proceedings in a jurisdiction outside the United States, as in this case. In turn, they were provided with a list of lawyers validated by the consulate for their evaluation and corresponding action.

Another of the steps taken by the State Department was to coordinate a visit for the staff of the U.S. Consulate in Playa del Carmen to visit the young people in the detention center to ensure their physical integrity, that they were in good health, to receive religious visits, if required, and to confirm special nutrition service for one of the brothers.

Meanwhile, following allegations by relatives of an alleged violation of the young people’s rights, the State Department requested the intervention of the Chief of Mission of the U.S. Consulate in Playa del Carmen, Natalia Rincón.

However, Marrero Díaz indicated, the Puerto Rican brothers declined to make an official statement under oath through the consulate to raise the matter with local authorities.

Puerto Rico Secretary of State Omar Marrero Díaz The secretary of state noted that this is a necessary requirement, in accordance with current regulations, to activate the corresponding diplomatic process.

“Repeatedly, the assistant secretary of Foreign Relations of the Department of State

of Puerto Rico is holding direct conversations with the father of the young people, in which they discuss each procedural stage of the case, in addition to guiding them on immigration status, aid, recommendations and advice on the handling of this matter,” Marrero Díaz said.

According to the information obtained, the brothers continue to receive family visits, medical attention and supplies on a weekly basis.

“This is a case that moves the people and as a father I understand the frustration and despair of this family,” he said. “I agree to continue making all necessary efforts until the termination of this case, in accordance with the applicable rule of law. We will not lower our guard and we will continue to act with prudence and discretion so as not to affect the judicial process. Our north star will continue to be to ensure the integrity of the process.”

The brothers were supposed to be released at the beginning of November, through the collaboration of an international human rights organization. However, that release did not occur.

Both are accused of sexually abusing a minor under 17, while vacationing with their parents at the end of June, at a hotel in Playa del Carmen in Cancún.

Resident commissioner pushes for inclusion of veterans initiatives in defense bill

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

R

esident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón insisted on Tuesday that her initiatives in favor of veterans and the military be included in HR 4350, The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for fiscal year 2022.

The measure passed the House of Representatives and the Senate is expected to pass its version of the legislation next week.

This would result in a conference committee that would reconcile both proposals.

González Colón sent letters to Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman and minority leader, respectively, of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, and to their counterparts in the House, Reps.

Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), where she advocated for their amendments and bills that had already re- Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González ceived bipartisan support and were included Colón

in the House version.

The first amendment will require the secretary of Defense to assign a nongovernmental research team of public health experts to study the impact of exposure to hazardous chemicals on the health of individuals residing near the so-called Superfund sites, a name given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to contaminated sites, related to the old Roosevelt Roads base in Ceiba, as well as in Culebra and Vieques.

The second amendment would prevent the removal of the LCM-8 landing and service platform of the National Guard in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico National Guard used those ships as part of the response to the Hurricane Maria emergency and for the past two years while Department of Public Transportation (DTOP) ships were being repaired. Recently, soldiers from the island National Guard delivered lifesaving supplies of food, water and other essentials from the platforms.

Although the ships are scheduled for replacement, the current transition plan has no deadline for the delivery of the new MSV (L) units. The amendment seeks to ensure that there will be no gap between the withdrawal of the LCM-8 and the acquisition of the MSV (L) units.

Another of the amendments filed by the resident commissioner would require that the secretary of the Army of the United States install a small modular firing range (Modular Small Arms Range) for the Army Reserve in Puerto Rico.

Currently, Reserve soldiers must travel to the National Guard firing range at Camp Santiago in Salinas to conduct annual firearms assessments. The new firing range would help reduce the administrative burden and concentrate efforts on the training and preparation of personnel.

González Colón also advocated for two of her bipartisan bills that are contained in the measure.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

7

Victims at Christmas parade were young musicians and dancing grannies

By SHAWN HUBLER and GIULIA HEYWARD

T

hey were grandmothers and grandchildren, high school band members and husbands, strutting down Main Street in a celebration that had kicked off the local holiday season for more than a half-century.

After a year of trauma and strife, the members of the Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, seemed to be marching for normalcy itself Sunday when a maroon SUV roared down upon them, turning the crowd’s cheers into horrified screams.

At least five people were confirmed dead Monday, with at least 48 people injured, as authorities investigated the tragedy that erupted after they said a man fleeing from a knife fight rammed into the parade route. At least 18 of those hospitalized were children, including 10 in intensive care.

Three of those killed were members of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, a group of women whose pompom routines have been a staple of local holiday parades since the 1980s: their choreographer, Virginia Sorenson, 79; LeAnna Owen, 71, a dancer; and Tamara Durand, 52, a new member performing for the first time. A fourth was a dancer’s husband, Wilhelm Hospel, 81, and the fifth, Jane Kulich, 52, a Citizens Bank teller, had been marching just behind the group with her company float.

“She was vibrant, energetic,” David Durand, 52, said of his wife, Tamara, the group’s youngest member.

“She was that kind of person that captured your attention as soon as she walked into the room,” he said. “She literally danced her way through the day.”

In a Facebook post, the group said it was “devastated.”

“Those who died were extremely passionate Grannies,” the statement said. “Our group was doing what they loved, performing in front of crowds in a parade putting smiles on faces of all ages, filling them with joy and happiness.”

Videos of the parade street showed nine members of the troupe, in their signature blue winter jackets with white fur hats and white pompoms, dancing by to “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Greg Bentz, 52, a childhood friend of Kulich, said the bank employee had been handing out candy along the parade route when the SUV struck her. “She had a ton of friends,” he said, describing Kulich as “chippy, cheery and outgoing.”

“She was an angel,” said her niece, Desiree Kulich, 42. “She was always giving back to the community. She was a churchgoing — just a really good — person.” Kulich’s death had devastated her husband and three children, the niece added.

At a news conference Monday, the chief medical officer of the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Dr. Michael Gutzeit, said 18 children had been brought to the hospital after the parade, all between the ages of 3 and 16. The medical director of the hospital’s intensive care unit, Dr. Michael Meyer, said 10 of them were in the ICU and six were in critical condition.

Another hospital, Aurora Medical Center-Summit, said in a statement that it was treating 13 patients, including three in critical condition. Officials at Froedtert Hospital said it

Mourners gather at a candlelight vigil for the victims of Sunday’s parade attack, at Cutler Park in Waukesha, Wis., on Monday, Nov. 22, 2021. had received seven patients.

The School District of Waukesha canceled classes for several days because of the tragedy. Officials with the Xtreme Dance team, another group that marched, asked for thoughts, prayers and “privacy to process the tragic events.” GoFundMe accounts posted on behalf of families of the dance troupe’s members said that at least one child, the daughter of a single mother with five children, had lost a kidney and suffered a broken pelvis and lacerated liver.

A photo that organizers said had been taken shortly before the crash showed the girls performing in black outfits with silver and white knit caps and white pompoms.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee said a priest was among the injured, along with parishioners and students at a local Catholic school.

As a frigid dusk fell Monday, hundreds gathered at a nearby park to mourn the victims. “Tonight is the first night to healing our community, and we take a small step to lift up those in need,” Mayor Shawn Reilly told the gathering.

“Tonight I ask for your prayers.”

The tragedy upended what participants and onlookers described as a joyous night in Waukesha, a bedroom community about 20 miles west of Milwaukee. Last year’s parade had been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, and this year’s had come on the heels of the

acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse an hour away in Kenosha, in a politically charged case that had left Wisconsin and the nation divided and raw. More than 60 entries, from the Fire Department to the Waukesha Old Car Club to Santa Claus, were scheduled to march through downtown.

Witnesses described chaos in the moments after a driver plowed through the barricades and into the parade; authorities later arrested a suspect they identified as Darrell E. Brooks, 39. Mikey Randa, 14, said he was marching with his high school football team when he saw a young girl hit by the car.

“The car just flew past us; there was a lot of panic,” he said, adding that he initially did not grasp what had happened. Mikey said he then saw five or six bodies lying on the ground.

“I’m still in a bit of a shock,” he said.

Jason Kellner, 49, said he had just watched his son, a drum player in the Waukesha South High School marching band, pass by when he saw the SUV heading toward the crowd. After passing through an intersection, Kellner said, the car “started mowing people down.”

He said that as he ran to find his son, he saw several apparent victims on the ground and a bloody saxophone.

But he found his son unharmed by the side of the road.

“I’ve never felt a worse feeling,” Kellner said, “wondering what I’m going to find when I get to my kid.”

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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

Man who threatened Democrats online sentenced to 19 months in prison

By REBECCA DAVIS O’BRIEN

S

teeped in white supremacist and antisemitic propaganda, Brendan Hunt was bent on sowing chaos and intimidating Democratic lawmakers when he posted calls on social media to take up arms against the U.S. Capitol, prosecutors said at his trial in April.

The case tested the line between political speech and illegal threats — a question that continues to figure prominently in court cases and public debates around the country since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and Hunt was eventually convicted of threatening to murder Democratic members of Congress.

But as his sentencing approached, Hunt’s lawyers sought to paint a different picture of their client. They called Hunt, 37, a “radical thinker” with wide-ranging opinions and talents, whose trial — for what they describe as his “worst moments” — pushed the constitutional limits on protected speech. They said he had been changed by his 10 months in custody, during which he forged an unlikely friendship with another prisoner: disgraced R&B superstar R. Kelly.

In Brooklyn on Monday, Judge Pamela K. Chen sentenced Hunt to 19 months in prison — more than the time served that Hunt’s lawyers had requested, but less than prosecutors had sought. The punishment, she said, reflected the gravity of his actions and his lack of evident remorse.

The sentence did not, however, reflect distaste for Hunt’s offensive beliefs, Chen said. “The defendant was not convicted of, nor is he going to be sentenced for, committing a thought crime, or for simply exercising his First Amendment rights,” the judge said. “It was not simply outlandish political expression. The defendant here crossed the free speech line when he threatened members of Congress.”

Hunt was not at the Capitol riot, though his trial was held in its shadow. His conviction carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

In a statement to the court Monday, Hunt criticized prosecutors for portraying him as “some neo-Nazi white supremacist,” calling it “lazy rhetoric” and saying their case was “based on fear.” He also apologized to his family, and said he was “truly sorry” for how he expressed his anger.

“I felt, for a long time, powerless to push back on what I saw as unfairness in the way conservatives were treated,” Hunt said, also citing the partisan name-calling “that was tolerated by the media when it was convenient to them.”

He said that his response to this “was terribly misguided, was wrong, and I’ve paid a heavy price.”

Before the charges, Hunt, an aspiring actor, held a clerical job with the New York state courts system.

(He has since been fired.) He also had a long history of

Brendan Hunt in a picture from his account on the video-hosting site BitChute. promoting violent conspiracy theories online, including that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax and that grunge rock star Kurt Cobain, who killed himself in 1994, was murdered.

The case against Hunt centered on a series of social media posts he made starting in December 2020, in which he encouraged the public execution of prominent Democrats in Congress, including Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A central question at the trial was whether a “reasonable person” would view Hunt’s statements as serious threats. Prosecutors had to show that Hunt meant to interfere with the official duties of members of Congress, or to retaliate against them for certifying the election.

The statements included two Dec. 6 Facebook posts in which he described the Democratic lawmakers as “high-value targets,” and exhorted like-minded citizens to “start up the firing squads, mow down these commies, and lets take america back!”

The jury also saw a profanity-laced, 88-second video posted on the video-hosting site BitChute on Jan. 8, titled “KILL YOUR SENATORS,” in which Hunt urged others to join him in an armed insurrection around President Joe Biden’s inauguration. That same day, in a post on the social media website Parler, he urged others to “bring your guns” on Inauguration Day. Hunt testified at trial in his own defense, an unusual move in criminal trials because it exposes the defendant to cross-examination and charges of perjury. He said that

he was not attempting to intimidate members of Congress, and that his statements had no intended audience. “I was letting off steam and it was more online blathering than anything,” he said.

Hunt said he had spent two years listening to heated political rhetoric from Republicans and Democrats, “and getting wrapped up in it.” It felt like he was in the stands of a football stadium, he said, “with everybody drinking beer,” and “then all of a sudden I felt like the lights in the stadium went out and the spotlights all came on me.”

After a weeklong trial, the jury found Hunt guilty.

Jurors said they found the video to be an illegal threat, but not the Facebook and Parler posts; they only had to find one of the posts was a threat to convict Hunt.

Hunt’s lawyers said his time behind bars was like a boot camp: He learned to “look down, not ask questions, accept his subservience,” and made “lasting friendships with some of the most unlikely characters.”

As evidence of his artistic talents and his ability to “find positive ways to endure troubles,” his lawyers included in their sentencing memorandum portions of comic strips Hunt drew while incarcerated — one of which featured Kelly, who was among Hunt’s rotation of cellmates before Kelly’s racketeering and sex-trafficking trial. (Kelly was found guilty in September.)

The two lived together for a few weeks over the summer while Hunt awaited sentencing, and the comic depicts the pair discussing Kelly’s music and attempting yoga poses.

That image of Hunt — palling around and lifting weights with Kelly, who is Black, in a jailhouse comic strip — appeared to be an effort to counter federal prosecutors’ description of Hunt as a violent white supremacist, and to show a more sensitive side of their client.

At Monday’s sentencing hearing, which lasted nearly four hours, one of Hunt’s lawyers, Leticia Olivera, said the government had “assigned labels” to Hunt, and wanted the judge “to assess his future dangerousness based on his unpopular views.”

In their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors wrote that Hunt threatened his own family members, “consumed white supremacist and antisemitic propaganda” online, and expressed an affinity for Adolf Hitler. They noted that Hunt repeatedly referred to members of Congress as part of a “ZOG,” or “Zionist Occupied Government,” an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The BitChute video, prosecutors wrote, “was no poorly worded off-the-cuff statement.” Rather, in the days after the Jan. 6 attacks, Hunt “deliberately used the shock of this event to amplify his own threats.”

In court Monday, Ian C. Richardson, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the effect of Hunt’s threats was not just felt by the elected officials, but by anybody who might seek higher office. “Those people are going to think twice if people like the defendant can get away with threatening to murder them,” he said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

9

Biden bets big on continuity at the Fed

By NEIL IRWIN

I

n the end, President Joe Biden bet that the leaders of the Federal Reserve could finish what they started.

Jerome Powell, who was reappointed Monday as head of the central bank, and Lael Brainard, a Fed governor newly nominated to be his No. 2, had steered the economy from the depths of the pandemic to its current place — a robust job market coupled with very high inflation. Biden’s bet is that they are best positioned to try to rein in the latter without undoing the former.

Another way to put it: Powell’s great second-term challenge is to try to undo some of the unpleasant side effects of his first-term actions without accidentally causing a recession.

The decision is not without risk for Biden. High inflation is walloping his approval ratings, and in polls Americans say they are deeply dissatisfied with the economy despite a low unemployment rate, a booming stock market and strong growth in wages. If Biden wanted to pivot to full “whip inflation now” mode, the clearest way to do it would be with his appointment power to the one entity of the U.S. government most explicitly charged with maintaining stable prices.

Instead of taking some abrupt turn, the president is entrusting Powell and Brainard — who has been a key player at the Fed throughout the pandemic economic response — to wean the economy from its diet of zero interest rates and other forms of monetary stimulus without starving it.

It is a bet that as seasoned central bankers who have credibility with markets, they will have more ability to thread that needle than fresh faces would.

“Why am I not picking fresh blood or taking the Fed in a different direction?” Biden said at an afternoon event announcing the nominations. “Put directly, at this moment both of enormous potential and enormous uncertainty for our economy, we need stability and independence at the Federal Reserve.”

If they move too gingerly in winding down this period of very cheap money, it could feed into the inflationary psychological dynamics that may already be setting in. In that cycle, high spending levels, rising consumer prices and higher worker pay feed into a spiral that creates a lot of discontent without leaving anybody better off.

But if they were to accelerate the pace of interest rate cuts, there are opposite risks. It is easy for the Fed to break things when it raises interest rates, as the world saw most notably in late 2015 when a shift toward tighter money caused a steep pullback in heavy industry, agriculture and related fields. Many financial markets look bubblier now than they did then, and it is anybody’s guess what might happen to stocks and countless other risky assets if the second-term Powell Fed tilted toward tighter money.

The economic recovery, while robust so far, may not be firmly entrenched. The unemployment rate is low at

4.6%, but that masks millions of people who have dropped out of the labor force. And it remains uncertain how many of them will return as the effects of the pandemic fade.

Powell and Brainard have spoken repeatedly of the importance of keeping an open mind on how strong the labor market can get, and of the human costs of preemptively cutting off a jobs recovery. They will be loath to take any action that might stop further healing in the job market.

“I am committed to putting working Americans at the center of my efforts at the Federal Reserve,” Brainard said Monday.

It is Powell’s focus on achieving as strong a job market as possible that probably secured his renomination, against the wishes of many progressives. While acknowledging his commitment to full employment, many on the left — and at least three Democratic senators — had wanted a candidate with a more agreeable philosophy on regulating the financial system and using the Fed’s powers to try to fight climate change.

So what did Biden gain with his choice for continuity in the top two jobs at the central bank, a move that has disappointed key allies on the left?

Powell and Brainard are known quantities. Now, a newly minted central banker won’t have to face the typical bumps that come with starting in the world’s most important economic policy job. Powell and predecessors Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke each had difficult communications miscues in their early months.

The decision to reappoint Powell, a Republican and

former private equity executive who was named to lead the Fed by former President Donald Trump, is also a mild gesture of bipartisanship. His Senate confirmation should be a notch easier than alternatives. This is assuming enough Republican senators vote to confirm him to make up for defections on the left, including those telegraphed by Sens.

Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley and Sheldon Whitehouse.

“Especially now in such a politically divided nation, I believe we need to do everything we can to take the bitter partisanship of today’s politics out of something as important as the independence and credibility of the Federal Reserve,” Biden said.

Notably, Biden did not accompany his nominations of Powell and Brainard with two other key Fed nominations: for a vice-chair for supervision or an open governor’s seat.

The president will come under intense pressure from the left to use those vacancies to include candidates with a more aggressive regulatory bent and to add racial diversity to the seven-member Board of Governors. (All six current members are white.)

None of that changes the basic discomfort in which the Powell Fed now finds itself.

Inflation, for now at least, is far above the Fed’s 2% target, and the job market is strengthening rapidly. Yet its monetary policies look like those from 2014, when the labor market was limping along and inflation was below the Fed’s goals.

Can Powell bring down inflation without breaking the economy? Biden is betting the answer is yes, and the success of his presidency may depend on it.

President Joe Biden announces in Washington on Monday, Nov. 22, 2021, that Jerome Powell, left, will be renominated to a four-year term to lead the Federal Reserve.

10

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

Thanksgiving will cost more this year. That could cost Democrats, too. promise once-in-a-generation investments that Democratic candidates plan to run on next year, with many of the policies in the bills broadly popular.

But, despite rising wages and falling unemployment, Democrats are also in danger of being swept aside in a hostile political environment shaped in large part by the highest inflation in 30 years, which has defied early predictions that it would be short-lived as the country pulled out of the pandemic.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., in a vulnerable House district, wrote to Biden this past week that inflation was the most pressing concern of her constituents. A former CIA analyst in Iraq, she urged the president to pressure Saudi Arabia to increase oil output.

Slotkin, who won her seat in the midterm wave of 2018, is one of two Michigan Democrats Margie Kulaga with her daughter, Heaven, 12, after grocery shopping in Royal in highly competitive districts that include the Detroit suburbs. In the Donald Trump years, Oak, Mich., Nov. 17, 2021.

Democrats had mixed results in the populous blame either party for inflation, but in a season region, advancing in white-collar communities

By TRIP GABRIEL of discontent, her disapproval fell more heavily but losing ground with their traditional union amantha Martin, a single mother shopping on Democrats who run Washington. She voted supporters. ahead of Thanksgiving, lamented how rising for President Joe Biden but is disappointed with In an interview, Slotkin said that during a gas and grocery prices have eaten away him and his party. “I think I would probably give recent visit home, she heard constantly about the at the raise she got this year as a manager at somebody else a shot,” she said. high costs of gas and groceries, and experienced As Americans go on the road this week them herself. “I buy groceries; I drive a ton,” she McDonald’s.

Gas “is crazy out of hand,” Martin said as to travel for family gatherings, the higher costs said. “Thanksgiving week is going to be more she returned a shopping cart at an Aldi discount of driving and one of the most expensive meals expensive by a long shot than last Thanksgiving.” market in Auburn Hills, a Detroit suburb, to of the year have alarmed Democrats, who fear She acknowledged the political peril that that inflation may upend their electoral prospects rising consumer prices could pose for her party if collect a 25-cent deposit.

Her most recent fill-up was $3.59 a gallon, in the midterms. Republicans are increasingly it continues next year. “Kitchen-table issues affect about $1 more than the price in the spring. Her confident that a rising cost of living — the ultimate Michigan and the Midwest more than any other raise, to $16 an hour from $14, was “pretty good, kitchen-table issue — will be the most salient national issue going on in Washington,” she said. but it’s still really hard to manage,” Martin said. “I factor in delivering a red wave in 2022.

In interviews with voters in suburban Democrats’ passage in quick succession of Detroit, including from Slotkin’s district and got a raise just to have the gas go up, and that’s the $1 trillion infrastructure law and, in the House, that of the second vulnerable Democrat, Rep. what my raise went to.”

Martin, 35, a political independent, doesn’t of a $2.2 trillion social safety net and climate bill, Haley Stevens, residents almost universally acknowledged the pain of rising prices on their budgets. But it was unclear, from their accounts, RECUPERE SU SALUD FÍSICA that Democrats would suffer politically. Most FISIATRÍA (FAAPMR) voters ascribed blame according to their party DRA. DORIS M. ESTERAS VÁZQUEZ (FAAPMR) Fellow American Academy PM&R DR. ERIC RAMÍREZ DÍAZ (FAAPMR) leanings — as they do on almost all issues in an era of hyperpolarization.

REUMATOLOGÍA DRA. GRISEL RÍOS SOLÁ (FACR) Fellow American College of Reumatology Margie Kulaga of Hazel Park, a Trump voter in 2020, said she paid 49 cents a pound, up Board Certified Doctors from 33 cents a pound last year, for a 23-pound Aceptamos los principales Planes Médicos y Advantage turkey that she had just bought from a Kroger Servicios Integrados de Salud: market. Prices for meat and eggs have risen by • Terapia Física • Medicina Deportiva • Proloterapia (Inyecciones de Azúcar) • Kinesio tappings • Carpal Tunnel • Rehabilitación Ortopédica 11.9% in the Midwest from a year ago, according • Problemas de Artritis • Manejo del Dolor con Inyecciones • Masajes Terapéuticos • Dolor de Espalda y Cuello to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• Estudio de Electromiografía • Estudios de Conducción Nerviosa • Tracción Cervical y Lumbar • Ejercicios de Estabilización de Espalda “I blame Biden, his whole administration,’’ Llámenos para una consulta Kulaga, 55, said. “I never used to cut coupons, 787.961.3636 / 787.744.6800 but now I do.”

Plaza Gatsby 2do. piso Suite 240 Caguas On the other hand, Gloria Bailey, 63, a o escribaIFCPR2015@YAHOO.COM special-education teacher who lives in the suburb

S

of Redford, is a Biden supporter who said rising costs should not be laid at his doorstep.

“The coronavirus has affected a lot of shipments and deliveries and crops and drivers who bring the food to market,” she said.

Consumer prices in Michigan and the Midwest rose by 6.6% in October, more than the national average, compared with a year ago.

The causes are the same as what drives the national spike, the steepest in 31 years, economists say — high demand for goods by consumers spending again after the pandemic lockdown and a global supply chain with lots of kinks still to be worked out. Gas prices are high partly because of a choke on production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Some economists — and many Republicans — blame Democrats’ $1.9 trillion COVID relief aid in the spring for overstimulating demand. They warn that Democrats’ new big spending measure, the Build Back Better plan, which targets struggling families and workers with the most substantive programs since the Great Society in the 1960s, will further push up prices.

The White House counters that inflation is tied to short-term bottlenecks in the supply chain; its major domestic spending, the administration said, will eventually tame inflation by making businesses and workers more productive.

Moody’s Analytics, an economic forecaster favored by the White House, predicted that if the Build Back Better plan passes (it is now in the Senate), it will slightly raise inflation in 2022, to 2.5% in the final quarter. That is close to the Federal Reserve’s target rate.

Still, predictions early this year by the Fed that inflation was “transitory” have not borne out.

In the meantime, Americans’ approval of Biden’s handling of the economy is falling. In a Quinnipiac University national poll released this past week, only 34% of Americans approved of the president’s handling of the economy.

“I believe it is the single biggest issue that affects the electorate,” said Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC that focuses on House races. “For a voter, it does not require them knowing every nuance of fiscal policy and how that relates to inflation. They are fundamentally feeling the pain already, and they have one group of people to blame for it: Democrats, who control all of Washington.”

One such potential voter is Jessica Bryen, a stay-at-home mother of two. “I consider myself a regular middle-of-the-road person, but I don’t like what’s going on right now,” she said. “Since Biden took office, things went up.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

11

The holiday travel crush has begun. Are the airlines up to it?

By SYDNEY EMBER and NIRAJ CHOKSHI

W

idespread flight cancellations.

Excruciating waits for customer service. Unruly passengers.

And that was all before the holiday travel season.

Even in normal times, the days around Thanksgiving are a delicate period for the airlines. But this week is the industry’s biggest test since the pandemic began, as millions more Americans — emboldened by vaccinations and reluctant to spend another holiday alone — are expected to take to the skies than during last year’s holidays.

A lot is riding on the carriers’ ability to pull it off smoothly.

“For many people, this will be the first time they’ve gotten together with family, maybe in a year, year and a half, maybe longer, so it’s very significant,” said Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial pilot who is a spokesperson for FlightAware, an aviation data provider. “If it goes poorly, that’s when people might rethink travel plans for Christmas. And that’s what the airlines don’t want.”

The Transportation Security Administration said it expected to screen about 20 million passengers at airports in the 10 days that began Friday, a figure approaching pre-pandemic levels. Two million passed through checkpoints Saturday alone, about twice as many as on the Saturday before last Thanksgiving.

Delta Air Lines and United Airlines both said they expected to fly only about 12% fewer passengers than they did in 2019. And United said it expected the Sunday after Thanksgiving to be its busiest day since the pandemic began 20 months ago.

Many Thanksgiving travelers seem to be going about their travel routines as usual, with some now-familiar pandemic twists.

“Airports are busy right now, and everything seems back to normal,” said Naveen Gunendran, 22, a University of Illinois student who was flying on United from Chicago to San Francisco on Saturday to visit relatives. “But we’re all packed together, and we just have to hope everybody is being safe.”

The pent-up travel demand has

elevated the cost of tickets. Hopper, an app that predicts flight prices, said that the average domestic flight during Thanksgiving week was on track to be about $293 round-trip this year, $48 more than last year — although $42 cheaper than in 2019.

While the industry is projecting optimism about easy traveling, the influx of passengers has injected an element of uncertainty into a fragile system still reeling from the pandemic’s devastation.

Some airlines have experienced recent troubles that rippled for days — stymying travel plans for thousands of passengers — as the carriers struggled to get pilots and flight attendants in place for delayed and rescheduled flights, a task complicated by thin staffing.

“We’ve said numerous times: The pandemic is unprecedented and extremely complex — it was messy going into it, and it’s messy as we fight to emerge from it,” the president and chief operating officer of Southwest Airlines, Mike Van de Ven, said in a lengthy note to customers last month.

His apology came after Southwest canceled nearly 2,500 flights over a fourday stretch — nearly 18% of its scheduled flights, according to FlightAware — as a brief bout of bad weather and an equally short-lived air traffic control staffing shortage snowballed.

Weeks later, American Airlines suffered a similar collapse, canceling more than 2,300 flights in four days — nearly 23% of its schedule — after heavy winds slowed operations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, its largest hub.

American and Southwest have said they are working to address the problems, offering bonuses to encourage employees to work throughout the holiday period, stepping up hiring and pruning ambitious flight plans.

According to FlightAware, just 0.4% of flights were canceled Sunday, which the TSA said was nearly as busy as the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 2019.

Major airlines have just started to report profits again, and only after factoring in billions of dollars of federal aid. While the aid allowed carriers to avoid sweeping layoffs during the pandemic, tens of thousands of employees took generous buyouts or early-retirement packages or

volunteered to take extended leaves of absence.

That has made ramping back up more difficult, and the pandemic has created new challenges. Flight crews have had to contend with overwork and disruptive and belligerent passengers, leaving them drained and afraid for their safety.

Helene Albert, 54, a longtime flight attendant for American Airlines, said she took an 18-month leave by choice that was offered because of the pandemic.

When she returned to work Nov. 1 on domestic routes, she said, she saw a difference in passengers from when she began her leave.

“People are hostile,” she said. “They don’t know how to wear masks and they act shocked when I tell them we don’t have alcohol on our flights anymore.”

The number of such unruly passengers has fallen since the Federal Aviation Administration cracked down on the behavior earlier this year. But the agency has so far begun investigations into 991 episodes involving passenger misbehavior in 2021, more than in the last seven years combined. In some cases, the disruptions have forced flights to be delayed or even diverted — an additional strain on air traffic.

Layered on top of the industry’s

struggles during the holiday season is the perennial threat of inclement weather.

Forecasters have cautioned in recent days that gathering storm systems were threatening to deliver gusty winds and rain that could interfere with flights, but for the most part, the weather is not expected to cause major disruptions.

“Overall, the news is pretty good in terms of the weather in general across the country cooperating with travel,” said Jon Porter, the chief meteorologist for AccuWeather. “We’re not dealing with any big storms across the country, and in many places the weather will be quite favorable for travel.”

Even so, AAA recommended that travelers arrive two hours before departure for domestic flights and three hours ahead for international destinations during the Thanksgiving travel wave.

Some lawmakers warned that a Monday vaccination deadline for all federal employees could disrupt TSA staffing at airports, resulting in long lines at security checkpoints, but the agency said those concerns were unfounded.

“The compliance rate is very high, and we do not anticipate any disruptions because of the vaccination requirements,” R. Carter Langston, a TSA spokesperson, said in a statement Friday.

Travelers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on Monday, Nov. 22, 2021. Thanksgiving travel will be a major test of whether the airline industry is ready to return to normal operations.

12

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

$15 minimum wage for federal contractors will take effect Jan. 30

By NOAM SCHEIBER

E

mployees of federal contractors will make at least $15 per hour under a final rule that the Labor Department announced earlier this week, providing a likely wage increase for over 300,000 workers, according to administration estimates.

The wage floor will affect contracts that are executed or extended beginning Jan. 30, 2022. The current minimum wage for contractors is $10.95 under a rule enacted by the Obama administration in 2014 and is scheduled to rise to $11.25 on Jan. 1. Both rules require that the minimum wage increase over time to account for inflation.

Paul Light, an expert on the federal workforce at New

York University, has estimated that 5 million people work for employers that have federal contracts, including security guards, food workers, janitors and call center workers, but most already make more than $15 per hour. The rule will also apply to construction contracts entered into by the federal government.

Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh said in a statement that the rule “improves the economic security of these workers and their families, many of whom are women and people of color.”

President Joe Biden announced the rule in April when he signed an executive order directing the department to issue it. Biden’s announcement came amid a series of prolabor moves by the administration, which included reversing

Trump-era rules softening worker protections and enacting legislation that allocated tens of billions of dollars to strengthen union pension funds.

Administration officials said they did not expect the minimum wage increase to result in significant job losses or cost increases, contending that the higher wage would improve productivity and reduce turnover, providing employers and the government with greater value.

The federal minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour, though many cities and states have laws setting their wage floors substantially higher. The House of Representatives has passed a bill to raise the federal minimum to $15 per hour by 2025, but the legislation has not advanced in the Senate.

Investors hung their hats on Peloton and Zoom last year. What now?

By MATT PHILLIPS

P

eloton’s pricey exercise bikes were the hot product for fitness buffs in the early days of the pandemic. Jumbo screens and upbeat instructors made being on them mimic the experience of an in-person spin class in the living room.

What happens now that people can get the real thing again?

Shares of companies like Peloton and Zoom Video, the online conference software that replaced face-to-face communications for countless schools and businesses, were darlings of the stock market for the better part of last year. But as the economic reopening gains speed — aided by rising vaccination numbers and promising new treatments for those who get sick — some of the stocks at the center of the socalled stay-at-home trade collapsed.

“The markets clearly sense the pandemic is over,” said Ben Emons, managing director for global macro strategy for Medley Global Advisors in New York. “We’re in a full reopening and we’re moving toward a normalized situation.”

That has been bad news for the share prices of some of last year’s hottest stocks. Peloton dived 35% in a single trading session this month, after it deeply cut its sales forecast for the coming year. CEO John Foley said on a conference call with analysts that the company knew it would be a challenge to duplicate the results it had during the peak of the pandemic.

But he added, “Our long-term thesis of fitness moving into the home is unchanged.”

Peloton’s shares fell last week when the company undertook a $1 billion stock offering. As of last Thursday its shares were down 68% for the year.

Other once-hot stocks have also skidded. Shares of the online education company Chegg plunged almost 50% in a single trading session Nov. 2, and are off 70% in 2021. Zoom Video plummeted 17% on a single day in late August, after it noted that strong demand for its products showed signs of easing as the pandemic abated. So far this year, it is down

24%.

Instead, many investors are shifting their attention to corners of the market they considered no-go zones last year, with businesses including airlines, live events companies and commercial real estate firms posting large gains.

The turn away from stay-at-home stocks has not sapped the market’s overall momentum. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to close at a new high of 4,704.54 on Thursday, and is up more than 25% this year. After the index’s head-spinning recovery last year, and a nearly 29% gain in 2019, stocks are on track for the best three-year run since the late 1990s.

Investors owe the bulk of the market’s gain this year to so-called cyclical stocks, such as oil companies and financial firms, whose profits and share prices tend to mirror the trajectory of the economy, rising and falling as growth quickens or slows.

It is a stark switch from the kinds of stocks that were at the epicenter of last year’s remarkable rise — and a huge surge in trading.

As lockdowns forced much of the country to stay home — often with ample extra money from government stimulus and little else to do — millions of neophytes tried

their hand at trading stocks. Many of them bought shares in the products they were being exposed to for the first time, like Peloton, or those they were using more frequently, like Clorox. As the economy went through one of the worst economic shocks on record, these companies seemed like they would be able to grow profitably through, and perhaps because of, the crisis.

“The stay-at-home stocks were the place to be because that was where the growth was,” said Eric Mintz, portfolio manager at Eagle Asset Management, an investment firm in St. Petersburg, Florida.

It was a disparate group of stocks: Shares of Zoom Video were up nearly 400% last year while Peloton rose about 470%.

Online retailer Etsy, which suddenly became a key source of homemade masks, jumped 300%. And internet furniture store Wayfair rose 150% as people nestled down and spruced up their homes.

At the end of last year, one of the funds Mintz comanages — the roughly $9 billion Carillon Eagle Mid Cap Growth Fund — owned sizable stakes in one of those stocks, a slug of Peloton shares worth roughly $136 million.

But in the first half of 2021, the fund sold out of that position and has built stakes in companies that are tied to infrastructure spending, home improvement and health care, and that Mintz thinks offer strong potential for growth over the near term.

Not every company that surged over the past 20 months has come back to earth.

Etsy, for example, is up 63% in 2021, as the company has been successful at converting those who went to the site for face coverings into repeat customers. And the online security company Zscaler — which soared more than 300% last year — has only continued to climb, rising 83% so far this year.

But the pandemic darlings are not finished, even if their most explosive growth has petered out. Some investors believe that nearly two years of stay-at-home life have so altered our behaviors that companies like Peloton and Zoom Video will remain part of our daily routines for the foreseeable future.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

13 Stocks

Nasdaq leads losses as tech weakness dents Wall Street T

he Nasdaq lagged its Wall Street peers on Tuesday as rising Treasury yields weighed on major technology stocks, while gains in banks and energy helped limit losses in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones.

The S&P tech subindex sank 1.2% as rising yields dented appeal of the high-growth sector. Tesla Inc and Microsoft Corp were the worst performers among trillion-dollar tech firms, falling 3.2% and 1.4%, respectively.

Treasury yields extended gains from Monday as investors ramped up expectations for interest rate hikes next year after Jerome Powell was nominated by President Joe Biden as Fed Chair for a second term.

On the other hand, the S&P banks subindex rose 1.6%, with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of America rising between 1% and 2.3% in tandem with higher yields.

The S&P 500 energy index jumped 2.8% and was the best-performing sector, tracking higher oil prices after a move by the United States and other consumer nations to try to cool the market fell short of some expectations.

“What you may be seeing with growth stocks is investors are rotating into different sectors, they are not rotating out. They are still bullish,” said Eric Schiffer, chief executive of private equity firm Patriarch Organization in Los Angeles.

An IHS Markit survey showed U.S. business activity slowed moderately in November amid labor shortages and raw material delays, but remained comfortably in expansion territory on strength in the manufacturing sector.

At 12:03 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 4.76 points, or 0.01%, at 35,614.49 and the S&P 500 was down 19.22 points, or 0.41%, at 4,663.72. The Nasdaq Composite was down 196.46 points, or 1.24%, at 15,658.30.

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 had slipped from record highs on Monday, as Powell’s nomination prompted a volatile session.

The CBOE volatility index briefly rose to a more than one-month high earlier on Tuesday.

With the Thanksgiving holiday expected to keep volumes low this week, markets could see high volatility.

“Because it’s illiquid you’ll probably see greater volatility in individual stock names and the potential for greater movement in the market based on any news that hits it,” said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments In New Vernon, New Jersey.

Among other stocks, Zoom Video Communications Inc fell 18.6% after its third-quarter revenue growth rate slowed to 35% as demand for its video-conferencing tools eased from pandemic-fueled heights last year.

Best Buy Co Inc slid 14.5% after the electronics retailer forecast fourth-quarter comparable sales below expectations due to supply chain issues.

Chipmakers Micron Technology and Western Digital Corp rose 1.0% and 5.3%, respectively, outpacing their peers after Mizuho upgraded the stocks to “buy” from “neutral”.

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14

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

‘Vaccinated, recovered or dead’: Europe fights COVID-19 wave — and itself

A Christmas market in Salzburg, Austria, was closed on Monday, Nov. 22, 2021, after the country entered a national lockdown as Europe experiences a menacing fourth wave of the coronavirus, with soaring rates of infection.

By STEVEN ERLANGER

A

ustria went into a major lockdown earlier this week to try to break the strong fourth wave of COVID-19 spreading across Europe, while the German health minister, Jens Spahn, warned that by the end of this winter “just about everyone in Germany will probably be either vaccinated, recovered or dead.”

“Immunity will be reached,” Spahn said at a Berlin news conference. “The question is whether it’s via vaccination or infection, and we explicitly recommend the path via vaccination.”

European governments are toughening their measures against COVID-19 in the face of soaring infection rates — more than 2 million new cases each week, the most since the pandemic began — and popular resistance, with violent protests over the weekend in numerous countries.

Tens of thousands of people protested official crackdowns and vaccine requirements in Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland and Croatia, with scattered violence and police use of tear gas and water cannons. Some protesters were organized by far-right parties, but many were simply fed up with almost two years of intermittent state controls over their lives in the name of public health.

Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam, Netherlands, where some of the worst protests erupted, called them an “orgy of violence” and said football hooligans were believed to have been involved.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, defended the right to demonstrate. “But what I will never accept is that idiots use sheer violence against the people who work for you and me every day to keep this country safe under the guise of: ‘We are dissatisfied.’ “ Europe is once again the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, accounting for more than half the world’s reported COVID-19 deaths this month, according to the World

Health Organization. The four countries with the world’s highest rates of reported new cases in the past week are Austria and three that border it, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic; 27 of the top 29 are in Europe.

With vaccination rates lagging and winter approaching, more governments are ringing alarm bells.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told her Christian Democratic Party on Monday that the situation is “highly dramatic” and that the latest surge is worse than anything Germany had suffered so far.

In what may be her last month as chancellor, as a new government is being formed, she warned that hospitals would soon be overwhelmed unless the fourth wave of the virus is broken and called on Germany’s 16 states to enforce even tighter restrictions to block the spread.

Germany, like many European countries, is at the same time pressing for citizens to get booster shots. But it faces a dwindling supply of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which was partly developed in the country.

While the European Medicines Agency is poised to approve the vaccine for use on children ages 5 to 11 this week, first doses for children are not scheduled to be delivered to European Union countries until Dec. 20, Spahn said.

On Thursday, 553,000 vaccines were administered in Germany in one day, a daily total not seen since early August. Three-quarters of those shots were boosters, according to the health ministry.

Neighboring Austria on Monday began its fourth lockdown, one of the few in Western Europe since vaccines became widely available. Most stores, restaurants, sporting venues and cultural institutions shut, leaving the streets cold and quiet in the weeks before Christmas.

The lockdown, which only allows people to leave home to go to work or to procure groceries or medicines, will last at least 10 days and as many as 20 and comes after months of struggling attempts to halt the contagion through widespread testing and partial restrictions.

Austria has also announced that vaccination will be compulsory as of Feb. 1 — the first Western country to take that step and one of only a handful around the world.

Some critics, including the editorial board of the Financial Times, have called it too high a price in terms of individual freedom and a sign of political failure.

Opposition to the measures has been led in Austria by the far-right Freedom Party, the third-largest in Parliament, which has been amplifying conspiracy theories about the vaccines, spreading doubt about their effectiveness and promoting ivermectin, a drug typically used to treat parasitic worms, mostly in horses, that has repeatedly failed against the coronavirus in clinical trials.

Alexander Schallenberg, Austria’s chancellor, said he originally had opposed compulsory vaccination, but “we have too many political forces, flimsy vaccine skeptics and spreaders of fake news in this country.”

On Saturday, some 40,000 Austrians marched in Vienna to protest the new measures.

France presents a contrast, in that President Emmanuel Macron has used more suasion. Proof of vaccination or a recent negative test is required to patronize restaurants and cinemas, which has encouraged many reluctant French to get vaccinated without a national mandate. But anti-vaccination groups remain active in France as well.

About 68% of Germans and 66% of Austrians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and hospitals are mostly filled with those who have not been vaccinated at all. Early in the pandemic, scientists thought 70% to 80% vaccination might be enough for a population to reach “herd immunity.” But the virus is now so widespread, with new variants arising and some vaccinated people suffering “breakthrough” infections, that many experts say herd immunity is unattainable.

Vaccination rates in most of Western Europe are higher, but the levels in Eastern Europe are far lower — from 59% in the Czech Republic to 24% in Bulgaria.

Belgium is highly vaccinated, at 75%, but a rise in cases has caused the government to impose tighter restrictions, including more working from home and wider mandatory mask wearing. That prompted a protest in Brussels on Sunday of an estimated 35,000 people near the EU headquarters. Some protesters threw stones and set fires, police made more than 40 arrests, and three officers were hurt.

The WHO chief for Europe, Hans Kluge, earlier this month blamed the region’s woes on insufficient vaccination despite the availability of vaccines and said that the continent could see half a million more deaths by February.

“We must change our tactics, from reacting to surges of COVID-19 to preventing them from happening in the first place,” he said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

15

Bulgaria bus crash kills at least 45

By LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA

A

t least 45 people died when a bus caught fire and crashed on a highway in western Bulgaria on Tuesday, officials and local news outlets said.

The bus had North Macedonian plates, and most of the victims were from that country, BTV television reported, citing an official from the North Macedonian Embassy in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.

Nikolai Nikolov, the head of the fire safety department at the Bulgarian Interior Ministry, told BTV that 52 people had been traveling on the bus when it crashed around 2 a.m. local time. BTV said

the accident occurred on the Struma motorway as it was traveling from Sofia to Blagoevgrad.

North Macedonia’s foreign minister, Bujar Osmani, told BTV that the bus had taken a trip to Istanbul over the weekend.

“At least 45 people were killed after a bus caught fire and crashed, or crashed and then caught fire,” Nikolov was quoted as saying, according to Reuters. He added that children had been among the victims.

Some people jumped through windows of the bus to escape the flames, local news outlets reported. Seven people with burns and lacerations were taken to a hospital in Sofia, Maya Argirova, head of the burn clinic in Pirogov Hospital, told reporters.

Additional details were not immediately available.

On Tuesday, the minister for foreign affairs of Bulgaria, Svetlan Stoev, and Osmani of North Macedonia spoke by phone, according to a release posted on Bulgaria’s site for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Osmani was en route to the Pirogov Hospital, where he would meet with Stoev, according to the release.

On Twitter, Stoev said that Bulgaria would do everything to take care of the victims and find the cause “of the tragedy.”

Zoran Zaev, the departing prime minister of North Macedonia, expressed condolences to the families of the victims, BTV reported.

“I am horrified by the tragedy, I am sorry for the incident,” said Zaev, who announced in October that he would step down as prime minister and leader of his center-left party, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, after a defeat in local elections.

Stefan Yanev, the acting prime minister of Bulgaria, who visited the site of the crash, told reporters, “This news shook us and demanded that the Bulgarian state react very quickly and make it possible to investigate this road accident.”

In 2018, a tourist bus carrying 33 pilgrims from a village north of the capital to a monastery crashed near Sofia, killing at least 16 people and injuring 26 others.

2 Canadian journalists arrested at Indigenous protest are freed on bail

By IAN AUSTEN

T

wo journalists arrested at an Indigenous protest against a pipeline last week in western Canada were released Monday on bail, but journalism groups in the country condemned the decision to continue with contempt charges against them.

Amber Bracken, a photographer, and Michael Toledano, a filmmaker, were arrested Friday as they covered a protest by Indigenous Canadians against construction of a natural gas pipeline.

Heavily armed members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took them into custody along with 13 protesters, accusing them of violating an injunction granted to the company constructing the pipeline through a remote region of British Columbia to a ship terminal being developed by several large energy companies, including Shell, Petronas and PetroChina.

The arrests followed two recent court decisions that upheld the rights of journalists to work unimpeded at protests, particularly ones involving Indigenous people.

“I’m cognizant that the charges have not been dropped, and so, in that way, I think it’s still very much fasten your seat belts,” said Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists. “This ultimately has an effect on chilling media freedoms.”

David F. Sutherland, Bracken’s lawyer, said that while she had agreed as a condition of bail to follow the long list of rules laid out in the injunction meant to prevent actively obstructing construction, the photographer will not have to stay out of the exclusion zone set up by police, allowing her to continue her work.

Sutherland said the submission to the court from the police made at the request of the pipeline company does not demonstrate that she violated the injunction. Nevertheless, she must appear again at a hearing on contempt of court charges on Feb. 14.

“There’s no allegation at all against Amber Bracken which would indicate a breach of the injunction,” Sutherland said. “We absolutely categorically deny any breach.”

Toledano’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment, but Sutherland said that he had been released on the same terms.

Bracken, a freelance photographer, was on assignment for The Narwhal, a Canadian online magazine. Last year, she was recognized by the Canadian Association of Journalists with an award for pushing back at earlier attempts by the police to exclude journalists from reporting on demonstrations against the same pipeline.

She reported on that dispute for The New York Times, among other publications.

Tolendano was at the site to make a documentary for some of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation who have established a checkpoint to keep pipeline workers off the disputed land.

The exact circumstances of the arrests remained unclear.

In a statement, the British Columbia division of the Mounted Police said that on a forest road near a drilling site for the pipeline, officers had found “obstructions, blockades, two building-like structures as well as a wood pile that was on fire.”

After the people inside the buildings were told to come out or face arrest, “officers broke through the doors, entered the structures and arrests were made without incident,” the

police said.

Jennifer Wickham, the producer of Tolendano’s film and a spokesperson for the group at the checkpoint, said in a statement that the two journalists were in a “tiny house” with several of the Indigenous protesters “when police broke down the door with an ax and forced their way inside with guns drawn, attack dogs in tow, and assault rifles trained on the doors and windows.”

She said that the two journalists identified themselves as members of the media “and were clearly photographing the events, but were arrested nonetheless.”

The arrests were swiftly condemned by a variety of groups, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

“The Canadian public has a right to know what is happening on the site, and journalists have the weighty responsibility to tell these

stories,” Cara Zwibel, director of the fundamental freedoms program at the association, said in a statement. “Their arrest and ongoing detention have no place in a liberal democracy.”

While politicians in Canada cannot direct police investigations and activities, Marco Mendicino, who as federal minister of public safety oversees the mounted police, challenged the arrests in a series of Twitter posts.

“I am aware of and am concerned about the fact two journalists remain in custody under a civil enforcement proceeding,” he wrote, adding, “As the courts have held, it would be wrong for any journalist to be arrested and detained simply for doing their vital work on our behalf.”

This year, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has twice rebuked the Mounties for blocking journalists from covering protests against the logging of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island.

A photograph taken in 2019 by Amber Bracken while on assignment for The New York Times showed a confrontation between the police and Indigenous activists in British Columbia.

16

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Kenya will impose widespread restrictions on the unvaccinated

Waiting to receive a shot of a vaccine in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, in July.

By ABDI LATIF DAHIR

K

enya will require people to show proof of coronavirus vaccination to enter many businesses, restaurants and government offices starting next month, a major policy shift that has prompted outrage in a country where less than 5% of the total population is fully vaccinated.

Mutahi Kagwe, the Cabinet secretary for health, said Sunday that he was concerned about a slowdown in vaccinations and hoped the new rules would persuade more people to get their shots. With schools closing and the country heading into the festive season, he said there were concerns that people would become complacent about public health measures, including social distancing and wearing masks.

The new measure was swiftly criticized by lawyers, activists and the public, who cautioned against a stringent vaccine mandate just weeks after the lifting of a long-standing nationwide night curfew that dampened economic activity.

“It’s clearly unconstitutional,” Waikwa Wanyoike, a prominent constitutional lawyer, said of the mandate, adding that using “threats” to get more people to get inoculated will only create more apprehension about vaccines. “The requirement may be right in terms of asking as many people to be vaccinated but the approach is wrong,” he said in a phone interview.

Vaccination campaigns in Kenya have been hampered by a lack of funding. There have been few awareness campaigns. Nor are there widespread vaccination sites. Authorities at times have scrambled to

access or purchase cold storage facilities needed to store the shots.

The new rules will also extend to those planning to visit hospitals, prisons, eateries, bars, national parks and any business serving 50 or more people daily. Drivers of public transportation, along with pilots and air hosts, will be expected to always carry proof of vaccination. In addition, visitors from Europe will be required to be fully vaccinated to enter Kenya.

The new rules are the most expansive introduced in the continent yet, according to Dr. Githinji Gitahi, who serves on the governing board of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Zimbabwe has mandated that civil servants get shots and requires congregants at places of worship to produce proof of vaccination. Uganda requires all teachers and health care workers to be vaccinated while Namibia has flouted the idea.

Kenya has recorded more than 254,700 cases and 5,328 deaths from the coronavirus. While average case rates have dropped in recent weeks, the lag in vaccinations and the spread of the more contagious delta variant had overwhelmed the country’s health care system. Kenya hopes to vaccinate at least 30 million people before the end of 2022, but like many African countries, it has also struggled to gain access to vaccines.

The new restrictions were met with skepticism, with many lamenting its impracticality. Some pointed to the low vaccination rates among the adult population, with just 8.8% of them fully vaccinated. Others said the mandate could open the door to more corruption, bribery and the proliferation of fake vaccine certificates.

Critics said the government should not only make sure that vaccines are available to all but also should come up with better strategies to address misinformation and resistance to getting vaccinated.

Irungu Houghton, the executive director of Amnesty International Kenya, said the new mandate, in its current format, risked depriving people of their right to not only work but also access critical services like health and education.

“This proposal risks domesticating the global vaccine apartheid and creating those with rights and those without,” Houghton said in a statement.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

17

As virus cases rise in Europe, an economic toll returns

By PATRICIA COHEN and MELISSA EDDY

E

urope’s already fragile economic recovery is at risk of being undermined by a fourth wave of coronavirus infections now dousing the continent, as governments impose increasingly stringent health restrictions that could reduce foot traffic in shopping centers, discourage travel and thin crowds in restaurants, bars and ski resorts.

Austria has imposed the strictest measures, mandating vaccinations and imposing a nationwide lockdown that began on Monday.

But economic activity will also be dampened by other safety measures — from vaccine passports in France and Switzerland to a requirement to work from home four days a week in Belgium.

“We are expecting a bumpy winter season,” said Stefan Kooths, a research director of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany. “The pandemic now seems to be affecting the economy more negatively than we originally thought.”

The tough lockdowns that swept Europe during the early months of the pandemic last year ended up shrinking economic output by nearly 15%. Buoyed by a raft of government support to businesses and the unemployed, most of those countries managed to scramble back and recoup their losses after vaccines were introduced, infection rates tumbled and restrictions eased.

In September, economists optimistically declared that Europe had reached a turning point. In recent weeks, the main threats to the economy seemed to stem from a post-lockdown exuberance that was causing supply-chain bottlenecks, energy-price increases and inflation worries. And widespread vaccinations were expected to defang the pandemic’s bite so that people could continue to freely gather to shop, dine out and travel.

What was not expected was a series of tough government restrictions. A highly contagious strain — aided by some resistance to vaccines and flagging support for other antiinfection measures like masks — has enabled the coronavirus to make a comeback in some regions.

“The lower vaccination rates are, the gloomier the economic outlook is for this winter term,” Kooths said.

Roughly two-thirds of Europe’s population has been vaccinated, but rates vary widely from country to country. Only a quarter of the population in Bulgaria has received a shot, for example, compared with 81% in Portugal, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Before they were ordered shut, stores in Austria were already suffering a 25% loss in revenue for November compared with the same period in 2019, the country’s retail trade association said Monday. Although the last shopping Saturday before the lockdown — stores in Austria are closed Sunday — was stronger than that day two years ago, the group said, it would not be enough to make up for the losses expected in the coming weeks.

Hotels were not faring much better in the week before the start of the lockdown, with 1 of every 2 bookings canceled, Austria’s hotel association, ÖHV, said.

Still, the overall outlook is not nearly as dire as it was last year. Although several analysts have shaved their forecasts for October, November and December, growth is still expected to be positive, with the yearly increase hovering around the 5% mark. Jobless rates have dropped and, in some areas, businesses are complaining of labor shortages.

Austria’s response, to impose a three-week lockdown — which shuts all stores except those providing basic necessities, allows restaurants to serve only carryout and requires people to stay home except for essential activities — is not necessarily a bellwether of what other governments across Europe will do. Leaders in France and Britain signaled last week that they were not planning new shutdowns.

“We’re not at that point,” Sajid Javid, the British health secretary, said Sunday. While there cannot be complacency, he added that he hoped people could “look forward to Christmas together.”

Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Economics, said that while it was clear that restrictions and lockdowns had a significant and immediate impact on the economy, limited and intermittent closings — like those that already exist in some countries — were less likely to put a huge dent in overall growth.

Rising infection rates will also push concerns over inflation — at least in the near future — “a little bit into the background,” he said.

Much more difficult to assess, though, are the consequences of widespread restrictions on the unvaccinated or vaccine mandates.

For individual businesses and regions, however, even the current limits could prove devastating.

The weeks leading up to Christmas Day are among the most important shopping days in Austria and Germany, where people gather at outdoor markets to eat, drink and buy gifts.

People walking past the closed Christmas market next to Stephen’s Cathedral, normally packed with crowds, in Vienna on Monday.

The region’s traditional holiday markets, which normally open from late November until Dec. 24, are also an important tourist draw, and generate wider revenue through hotel bookings and other cultural events.

Last year, many markets were completely shut down, so sellers and buyers were looking forward to this year.

In Vienna, the market on Maria Theresien Platz opened Wednesday, its wooden stalls decorated with evergreen boughs and fairy lights. But the vendors were forced to shut down after only four days.

Maria Kissova stood amid piles of tablecloths, pillow covers and lace ornaments she had brought in from neighboring Slovakia, where she employs several women to sew the crafts. This year was her first time coming to Vienna, a trip that required months of planning and paperwork. With the lockdown, she faced the prospect of only several days’ worth of shopping, if the market is allowed to reopen

as planned in mid-December.

“It was a shock” when the lockdown was announced, she said, adding that it was too early to predict the scale of the losses she could incur. “We just have to accept it.”

The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also imposed new restrictions. In Germany, some states have introduced partial lockdowns, and starting Wednesday, the unvaccinated will be required to show a negative COVID test before going to work.

By the end of this winter, pretty much everyone in Germany “will be vaccinated, cured or dead,” Jens Spahn, the health minister, said Monday.

A nationwide closure in Germany, the continent’s largest economy, is unlikely at the moment, but Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, warned that one there would drag down all of Europe. “If Germany locks down, Europe is going to go back into recession,” he said.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Spending as if the future matters

By PAUL KRUGMAN

F

or centuries, America has invested taxpayer money in its future. Public funds built physical infrastructure, from the Erie Canal to the interstate highway system.

We invested in human capital, too: Universal education came to the United States early, and America basically invented modern public secondary education. This public spending laid the foundations for prosperity and helped make us an economic superpower.

With the rise of the modern right, however, America turned its back on that history. Tax breaks — essentially giving wealthy people money and hoping that it would trickle down — became the solution to every problem.

“Infrastructure week” became a punchline under Donald Trump partly because the Trump team’s proposals were more about crony capitalism than about investment, partly because Trump never showed the will to override conservatives who opposed any significant new spending.

Now Joe Biden is trying to revive the tradition of public spending oriented toward the future.

The Build Back Better legislation that passed the House last week isn’t a pure investment plan; in particular, it includes substantial health care spending that is more about helping Americans in the near term than about the future.

But about two-thirds of the proposed spending is indeed investment in the sense that it should have big payoffs in the future. And if you combine Build Back Better with the already-enacted infrastructure bill, you see an agenda that is about three-fourths investment spending.

Here’s how I read the Biden program as it now stands. Total new spending would be about $2.3 trillion over a decade. This total would include $500 billion to $600 billion of spending on each of three things: traditional infrastructure, restructuring the economy to address climate change, and children, with the last item mainly consisting of pre-K and child care but also involving tax credits that would greatly reduce child poverty.

There’s every reason to believe that all three types of spending would have a high social rate of return.

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Snarled supply chains have reminded everyone that old-fashioned physical infrastructure remains hugely important; we are still living in a material world, and getting stuff where it needs to go requires public as well as private investment.

As far as climate investments are concerned, the damage from a warming planet is becoming increasingly obvious — and droughts, fires and extreme weather are only the leading edge of the disasters to come. Build Back Better’s investments wouldn’t come close to ending the danger, but they would mitigate climate change, partly protect us against some its consequences and make it easier for the United States to lead the world toward a more comprehensive solution. So the money would be well spent.

Finally, there is overwhelming evidence that helping families with children is a high-return investment in the nation’s future, because children whose families have adequate resources become healthier, more productive adults.

So what’s not to like about this agenda? No, it wouldn’t be inflationary: Don’t take it from me, listen to credit rating agencies, which are saying the same thing. The approved and proposed spending would be fairly small as a share of gross domestic product — which the Congressional Budget Office projects at $288 trillion over the next decade — and largely paid for with new taxes, so it would have very little inflationary impact.

Oh, and while some of the “pay-fors” are questionable — as it happens, mainly on the traditional infrastructure bill; Build Back Better is more or less paid for — which means that the spending would probably add somewhat to federal debt over the next few years, that debt increase would be

small relative to GDP and, given low interest rates, would barely add to debt service costs. Over the longer term, the payoff to public investment might well be enough to reduce the deficit.

Still, Republicans are denouncing the Biden agenda as socialism, because, of course, they are. Hey, by their standards America has been run by socialists for most of its history — people like DeWitt Clinton, the New York governor who built the Erie Canal, and Horace Mann, who led the Common School movement for universal basic education a couple of decades later. And don’t even get me started on Dwight Eisenhower, who presided over huge government investment and a top tax rate of 91%.

Admittedly, the Biden plan would reduce economic disparities, both because expanded benefits would matter more to less-affluent families and because its tax changes would be strongly progressive. But public policy that reduces inequality, like public investment, is squarely in our national tradition. America basically invented progressive taxation, and as economist Claudia Goldin has noted, the high school movement was “rooted in egalitarianism.”

So don’t believe politicians who are trying to portray Biden’s investment agenda as somehow irresponsible and radical. It’s highly responsible, and it’s an attempt to restore the all-American idea that government should help create a better future.

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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

19

Advierten mantener precaución en playas por fuertes corrientes marinas este fin de semana

POR CYBERNEWS

S

AN JUAN – El comisionado interino del Negociado para el Manejo de Emergencias y Administración de Desastres (NMEAD), Nino Correa Filomeno,

exhortó este martes a la ciudadanía a tener precaución al visitar las playas este fin de semana largo porque el Servicio Nacional de Meteorología informó que un sistema de mal tiempo afectará las condiciones marítimas y costeras para

las playas del norte, este y oeste de la Isla, incluyendo Vieques y Culebra.

“Sabemos que este fin de semana largo de Acción de Gracias, muchos tienen planes de ir a compartir con la familia y amistades en las playas. Pero, a partir de este jueves hasta el lunes, se espera que se deterioren las condiciones del mar, por lo que hay peligro de corrientes, que pueden tomarle por sorpresa y poner en riesgo sus vidas, así como las de nuestros rescatistas. Lo menos que queremos es tener que el lunes, hacer un recuento de fatalidades por ahogamiento en nuestras playas. Debemos ser prudentes y juiciosos al visitarlas, especialmente si van con menores de edad”, manifestó Correa Filomeno en comunicación escrita.

Igualmente, exhortó a los paradores y hoteles a que avisen a los turistas a tomar las precauciones pertinentes.

“En estos últimos días, hemos visto que la mayoría de las personas que se ahogan en nuestras playas son turistas que muchas veces desconocen que las condiciones del mar están deterioradas”, indicó el comisionado.

Correa Filomeno recordó que las zonas operacionales del NMEAD están activadas para poder atender cualquier eventualidad. El Negociado mantiene comunicación constante con las Oficinas Municipales para el Manejo de Emergencias (OMME) de todos los municipios, la Guardia Costera, así como los negociados del Departamento de Seguridad Pública (DSP) y las policías municipales.

Para reportar cualquier emergencia, debe llamar o enviar un mensaje de texto al 9-1-1 para solicitar asistencia de las agencias correspondientes.

Celebran que CESCO Digital alcanza 2 millones de usuarios registrados POR CYBERNEWS

S

AN JUAN – El principal ejecutivo de Innovación e Informática del Gobierno de Puerto Rico, Enrique Völckers-Nin, informó el martes, junto a la secretaria del Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas (DTOP), Eileen Vélez Vega, que 2 millones de ciudadanos ya están registrados en la plataforma CESCO Digital (Centro del Servicios al Conductor), lo que representa un logro en materia de innovación y digitalización de servicios en la administración pública, permitiendo simplificar y agilizar los procesos que el DTOP requiere por ley.

Völckers-Nin detalló que este logro tecnológico evidencia el valor de la interoperabilidad entre las agencias de gobierno —que beneficia primordialmente al ciudadano— y redunda en ahorro de tiempo y dinero para todos los sectores. “El éxito alcanzado en tan corto tiempo de ejecución con

CESCO Digital es el mejor ejemplo de lo que el Gobierno de Puerto Rico puede lograr gracias a la tecnología e innovación digital. Desde PRITS continuamos enfocados en transformar los servicios que recibe el ciudadano, para que cada día sean más ágiles, directos y simples”, indicó en comunicación escrita el también director ejecutivo del Servicio de Innovación y Tecnología (PRITS, por sus siglas en inglés).

Al presente, gracias a CESCO Digital se han renovado más de 33,000 licencias, completado más de 7,500 traspasos de vehículos y pagado sobre 750,000 multas de tránsito. El estado ha recaudado más de 80 millones de dólares en línea y se estiman en más de 300,000 las horas que ha ahorrado DTOP en procesos presenciales.

En la actualidad, además de pagar multas de tránsito, hacer traspaso de vehículos, cambios de direcciones, sacar citas y tomar la licencia de apren-

dizaje de forma virtual, el ciudadano puede renovar su licencia de conducir, junto a otras funcionalidades disponibleS, sin tener que visitar el CESCO de forma presencial. Recientemente se integró a CESCO Digital el Credencial de Vacunación VACU ID, lo cual catapultó el uso de la plataforma.

Por su parte, Vélez Vega destacó la importancia que tiene esta herramienta para el consumidor, para su agencia y para la administración pública.

“CESCO Digital ha cambiado por completo la forma en que los ciudadanos pueden realizar las diferentes gestiones para sus vehículos, desde realizar exámenes de aprendizaje hasta completar traspasos de vehículos.

Ahora el ciudadano tiene toda una gama de servicios al alcance de su mano y con la rapidez que necesitan”, precisó la funcionaria.

Según los funcionarios, su meta a corto y largo plazo es eliminar las filas y las visitas a los CESCO de forma pre-

sencial, y habilitar la plataforma para ofrecer todos los servicios de forma virtual; esto incluye la renovación de marbetes.

La plataforma CESCO Digital ha sido fortalecida con la visión de que el 100 por ciento de los conductores en Puerto Rico puedan realizar todas sus gestiones por medio de la aplicación, e igualmente para que a largo plazo sea una herramienta de servicio integral del Gobierno de Puerto Rico.

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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

Macy’s Parade is back this Thanksgiving, without kids on floats 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: EL CHURRO BAR Mario A. Ortiz García Caso Núm.

2021-367517-PU-076020 Dueño de la Propiedad: Northeastern Developers Inc Calificación: Conservación Histórica (C-H)

Cualquier interesado en acceder y participar en la Vista Pública Virtual puede a través de: www.ddec.pr.gov/vistaspublicas Fecha: 13 de diciembre de 2021 Hora: 1:30 p.m.

Dirección de la acción propuesta: Calle Arzuaga #59, Local #1, Río Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico

En la vista del caso de referencia se interesa discutir, pero sin limitarse a: solicitud de permiso vía variación en uso para un restaurante, barra con venta bebidas alcohólicas al detal y música en vivo. La solicitud se evaluará a tenor, pero sin limitarse, a lo establecido en las Reglas 6.1.28 y 6.3.1 del Reglamento Conjunto y sus disposiciones sobre variación 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 del mismo mediante solicitud (SCE) a través del Single Business Portal en la página www.ogpe.pr.gov o en cualquier oficina de la OGPe durante los días y horas laborables. Podrá, además, haciendo referencia al número de solicitud, presentar por escrito sus comentarios a través de notificacion@ogpe.pr.gov o a PO Box 41179, San Juan, PR 00940-1179 en cualquier momento previo a 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. Debido a la emergencia causada por la pandemia del Covid-19 el Servicio al Cliente de la OGPe tanto en su Oficina Central en San Juan como en las Oficinas Regionales, será limitado y mediante coordinación previa al respecto Gobierno de Puerto Rico

DEPARTAMENTO DE DESARROLLO ECONÓMICO Y COMERCIO Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos

Children participate in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, Nov. 26, 2009.

By JULIA JACOBS

A

s the coronavirus surged in New York City last year, the typical fanfare of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was downsized: The route shrank to one block, the number of participants was cut by several thousand people, and the public was told to stay home.

It could hardly be called a parade at all. There wasn’t so much a procession as a series of struts down the runway for the television cameras. The broadcast was filmed over three days and edited to give the impression of a seamless three-hour program.

This year, with the city reporting that more than 80% of adults are fully vaccinated, the parade is expected to return with all its helium-filled pomp and corporatebranded holiday cheer — with an asterisk: Children under 12 will not be allowed to participate in the parade itself.

They will, however, be allowed as spectators along the 2 1/2-mile parade route, as well as at the ceremonial inflation of the balloons Wednesday afternoon around the American Museum of Natural History.

Their absence is slightly strange in an event whose stars include Pikachu, SpongeBob SquarePants and Papa Smurf. Typically, it would be children riding along on a float that looks like it is made of Legos or accompanying the Green Giant’s float, dressed as flowers and pumpkins.

But this year, the 95th Macy’s parade is not quite typical. Macy’s announced in September that everyone participating in the parade must be vaccinated. It wasn’t until about three weeks before Thanksgiving that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formally endorsed Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for children age 5 to 11. Attending the parade as a spectator has no vaccination requirement, and children under 12 years old can view the balloon inflation on the Upper West Side if they go with a fully vaccinated adult.

In order to plan for costumes and other logistics, parade organizers needed to know early on who would be riding on the floats, said Will Coss, the event’s executive

producer.

“We had to make some decisions well in advance of our parade day to ensure that the health and safety of all participants was delivered upon,” Coss said. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to have that specific contingent of young children.”

In years past, that contingent usually consisted of less than 200 children, some as young as 7, who are connected to Macy’s employees and parade volunteers, Coss said.

Two years ago, some of those children waved from the back of a bejeweled hot-pink carriage pulled by a Tyrannosaurus rex or danced energetically on a Sour Patch Kids-branded float, while others stared shyly at the crowd as Ciara performed alongside Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

This year, the young people waving from floats will be vaccinated tweens and teens — so viewers can perhaps expect less unadulterated joy and wide-eyed wonder — but the parade’s organizers maintain that the change is minor in a year when the live program and meticulously choreographed fanfare is back.

“That same youthful spirit is still very much a part of this year’s show,” said Wesley Whatley, the parade’s creative producer.

After last year, its ranks have been mostly restored.

About 6,500 people will be working on the parade, less than the normal 8,000 but far more than last year’s 960. The number of giant balloons is back up to 15 and the floats up to 28, roughly what it was two years ago, after a reduction last year. And 10 marching bands, many of which were restricted from traveling from their high schools and colleges located across the country last time, will fill the streets.

It has been a long wait for the musicians, who were told in spring 2019 that they would be performing in Manhattan.

“We jumped and screamed and hugged each other,” said Zoe Huntoon, a mellophonist from Frankfort, Illinois, who was a sophomore at the time. “Then in 2020, it slowly hit us that it wasn’t going to be possible.”

But this week, Huntoon, who is now a senior, and about 200 bandmates will board charter buses for the long drive to New York City.

Although the majority of the procession and performances will be live, part of the show will be pretaped, as it is every year, Whatley said.

Thanksgiving morning, Broadway performers will be back on 34th Street to entertain an audience with songs from “Six,” “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” and “Wicked.”

Last year, these performances were filmed without cheering, bundled-up fans.

The televised parade, starting at 9 a.m. on NBC, Telemundo and Peacock, will feature the Rockettes, Carrie Underwood, Mickey Guyton, Kristin Chenoweth, Jon Batiste and Nelly. (Unless they’re singing, performers must be masked.)

FASHION The San Juan Daily Star

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, March 4, 2020 24, 2021 Wednesday, November 20 22

By IRIS EDÉN SANTIAGO Special to The STAR

W

hat are spring and summer without flowers, vibrant colors, shorts and delicate transparencies?

That’s exactly what luxury fashion house Valentino proposed for resort, spring and summer 2022.

But wait. It’s just not that simple. Expect creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli to elevate these elements and turn them into memorable moments thought out to capture the mind of the younger generations and riskier, very cool and urban fashionistas.

In the latest colleziones for next year, Piccioli presents

Valentino

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

a palette of crayon colors and richly saturated hues. He -- and we -- love orange everywhere. His airy high-waisted gown in bright orange chiffon is inspiring. As is his chic monochromatic

colors our world

21

FASHION The SanThe JuanSan Daily JuanStar Daily Star

look of an orange tweed jacket with feathered cuffs over a hooded top worn with orange shorts, orange hosiery, orange platform heels and an orange signature Valentino handbag.

All this orange with a 1970s vibe. And it all works!

In fact, besides a series of heavenly white organza blouses and white embroidered tops matched with baggy jeans, both collections are a tribute to brights and jewel tones, especially purple, fuchsia, yellow and emerald green. The RTW proposals are full of tenacious color blocking, monochromatic looks, androgynous suits and relaxed garments with couture detailing.

Gladiator sandals, dense hosiery in gem tones, long floral dresses, bold prints and architectural mini dresses are fantastic and unique in every high fashion way, yet accessible and streetwise for contemporary women who look for lower-maintenance glamour.

22 LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE MANATÍ

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Parte Demandante Vs.

SUCESIÓN DE NORMA IRIS SEDA OLIVERAS T/C/C NORMA IRIS SEDA OLIVERA T/C/C NORMA I. SEDA OLIVERA COMPUESTA POR ÁNGEL LUIS JUSINO SEDA, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: MT2019CV00437.

Sala: 102. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente anuncia y hace constar que en cumplimiento de la Sentencia en Rebeldía dictada el 12 de noviembre de 2019, la Orden de Ejecución de Sentencia del 26 de febrero de 2020 y el Mandamiento de Ejecución del 27 de febrero de 2020 en el caso de epígrafe, procederé a vender el día 3 DE FEBRERO DE 2022, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina, localizada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Manatí, en la Carretera Número Dos (#2) en el Centro de Gobierno de Manatí, al lado del Cuartel de la Policía, Manatí Puerto Rico, al mejor postor en pago de contado y en moneda de los Estados Unidos de América, cheque de gerente o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal; todo título, derecho o interés de la parte demandada sobre la siguiente propiedad: URBANA: Solar marcado con el Número Diez (10) del bloque E (digo F) F-10 de la Urbanización “Valles de Manatí”, localizada en el Barrio Coto del término municipal de Manatí, Puerto Rico, con un área superficial de 597.47 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en distancia de 22.84 metros, con la Calle Número Tres (3); por el SUR, en distancia de 21.36 metros con terrenos reservado para la Autoridad de Carreteras de Puerto Rico; por el ESTE, en distancia de 15.85 metros y 11.19 metros con Miguel Ángel Cortés Colón

@

y Carmelo Robles Laureano; y por el OESTE, en distancia de 27.00 metros con el Solar Número Diez (10) del bloque F. Sobre dicho solar enclava una casa construida de concreto armado y bloques para fines residenciales. La propiedad consta inscrita al folio 265 del tomo 207 de Manatí, Finca Número 9152, Registro de la Propiedad de Manatí. La escritura de hipoteca consta inscrita al Tomo Karibe de Manatí, Finca Número 9152, inscripción quinta. DIRECCIÓN FÍSICA: VALLES DE MANATÍ, F10 CALLE 3, MANATÍ, PR 00674-4025.

SUBASTAS: FECHAS: PRIMERA: 3 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. TIPO MÍNIMO: $78,347.00. SEGUNDA: 10 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. TIPO MÍNIMO: $52,231.33.

TERCERA: 17 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. TIPO MÍNIMO: $39,173.50. El tipo mínimo para la primera subasta será de $78,347.00. De no haber adjudicación en la primera subasta se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA, día 10 DE FEBRERO DE 2022, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA en el mismo lugar, en la cual el tipo mínimo será de dos terceras partes del tipo mínimo fijado en la primera subasta, o sea, $52,231.33. De no haber adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 17 DE FEBRERO DE 2022, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la cual el tipo mínimo será la mitad del precio pactado, o sea, $39,173.50. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor. Dicho remate se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a la demandante el importe de la Sentencia en Rebeldía por la suma de $71,971.53 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 3.75% anual desde el 1 de noviembre de 2018 hasta su completo pago, más $289.81 de recargos acumulados, más la cantidad estipulada de $7,834.70 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo. Surge del Estudio de Título Registral que sobre esta propiedad pesa el siguiente gravamen posterior a la hipoteca que por la presente se pretende eje-

cutar: Aviso de Demanda: Pleito seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico Vs. La Sucesión de Norma Iris Seda Oliveras también conocida como Norma Iris Seda Olivera y como Norma I. Seda Olivera, compuesta por Ángel Luis Jusino Seda, Fulano y Mengano de tal, posibles herederos desconocidos, la Sucesión de Arístides Sánchez Piñeiro, compuesta por Marilyn y Evelyn de apellidos Sánchez Gines, Sutano y Perencejo de tal y posibles herederos desconocidos, ante el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Manatí, en el Caso Civil Número MT2019CV00437 sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca en la que se reclama el pago de hipoteca por la suma de $78,347.00 con un balance de $71,971.53 y otras cantidades, según Demanda de fecha 22 de mayo de 2019. Anotada al Tomo Karibe de Manatí.

Anotación A, el 23 de octubre de 2019. Se notifica al acreedor posterior o a su sucesor o cesionario en derecho para que comparezca a proteger su derecho si así lo desea. Se les advierte a los interesados que todos los documentos relacionados con la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como los de Subasta, estarán disponibles para ser examinados, durante horas laborables, en el expediente del caso que obra en los archivos de la Secretaría del Tribunal, bajo el número de epígrafe y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general en Puerto Rico por espacio de dos semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana; y para su fijación en los sitios públicos requeridos por ley. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante, continuarán subsistentes; entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate y que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores tal como lo expresa la Ley Núm. 2102015. Y para el conocimiento de los demandados, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, EXPIDO para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes, el presente Aviso de Pública Subasta en Manatí, Puerto Rico, hoy 22 de octubre de 2021. WILFREDO DÍAZ QUIÑONES, PLACA #914, ALGUA-

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

CIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA satisfacer al demandante hasta INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada a su favor el día 17 de DE MANATÍ. mayo de 2021, notificada el 18 LEGAL NOTICE de mayo de 2021, y publicaESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO da en periódico de circulación DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- general, “The San Juan Daily NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Star”, el 24 de mayo de 2021 SALA SUPERIOR DE VEGA en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $91,876.94 BAJA BANCO POPULAR DE por concepto de principal; generando intereses a razón de PUERTO RICO 3.75% desde el 1ro de marzo Demandante Vs. LOUIS MASON Y/O LA de 2019; cargos por demora los cuales al igual que los inteSUCESION DE LOUIS reses continúan acumulándose MASON COMPUESTA hasta el saldo total de la deuPOR HEREDEROS da reclamada en este pleito, y la suma de $9,400.30 para DESCONOCIDOS DENOMINADOS COMO costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos JOHN DOE Y JANE accesorios garantizados hipoDOE; SECRETARIO DE tecariamente. La adjudicación HACIENDA; CENTRO se hará al mejor postor, quien DE RECAUDACION deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo DE IMPUESTOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM) de la adjudicación, en efectivo (moneda del curso legal de los Demandados Civil Núm.: VB2019CV00778. Estados Unidos de América), Sala: 201. Sobre: COBRO DE giro postal o cheque certificado DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HI- a nombre del alguacil del TriPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS bunal. LA PRIMERA SUBASTA DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDEN- se llevará a efecto el día 18 DE TE DE LOS ESTADOS UNI- ENERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:00 DOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASO- DE LA MAÑANA, en la Oficina / CIADO DE PUERTO RICO, Sala de Alguaciles de Subastas SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El del Tribunal, Sala Superior de que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribu- Vega Baja, Vega Baja, Puerto nal de Primera Instancia, Sala Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijaSuperior de Vega Baja, Vega do para la PRIMERA SUBASTA Baja, Puerto Rico, hago saber, es de $94,003.00. Que de ser a la parte demandada y al PÚ- necesaria la celebración de una BLICO EN GENERAL: Que en SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma cumplimiento del Mandamiento se llevará a efecto el día 25 DE de Ejecución de Sentencia ex- ENERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:00 pedido el día 30 de septiembre DE LA MAÑANA, en la Oficina / de 2021, por la Secretaría del Sala de Alguaciles de Subastas Tribunal, procederé a vender del Tribunal, Sala Superior de y venderé en pública subasta Vega Baja, Vega Baja, Puerto y al mejor postor la propiedad Rico. El precio mínimo para que ubica y se describe a con- la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será tinuación: URBANA: Urbaniza- de $62,668.66, equivalentes ción La Esperanza, localizado a dos terceras (2/3) partes del en el barrio Espinosa de Vega tipo mínimo estipulado para Alta, Puerto Rico. Solar 2 de la PRIMERA subasta. Que de la manzana X. Área del Solar: ser necesaria la celebración 312.00 METROS CUADRA- de una TERCERA SUBASTA DOS. En lindes: por el NORTE, la misma se llevará a efecto el con el solar #1, en distancia día 1 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 de 24.00 metros; por el SUR, A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, con el solar #3, en distancia en la Oficina / Sala de Alguacide 24.00 metros; por el ESTE, les de Subastas del Tribunal, con la Calle #20, en distancia Sala Superior de Vega Baja, de 13.00 metros y por el OES- Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. El preTE, con el solar #4, distancia cio mínimo para la TERCERA de 13.00 metros. Contiene una SUBASTA será de $47,001.50, casa de hormigón para una fa- equivalentes a la mitad (1/2) milia. Inscrita al Sistema Karibe del tipo mínimo estipulado para de Vega Alta, con fecha 30 de la PRIMERA subasta. Si se abril de 2018; inscripción 7ma declarase desierta la tercera y última; finca número 7,480 subasta, se adjudicará la finca del Registro de la Propiedad de a favor del acreedor por la totaBayamón, Sección III. La pro- lidad de la cantidad adeudada piedad está ubicada en: Solar si ésta es igual o menor que #2 Manzana “X” Urb. La Espe- el monto del tipo de la tercera ranza Barrio Espinosa, Vega subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima Alta, Puerto Rico. El producto conveniente; se abonará dicho de la subasta se destinará a monto a la cantidad adeudada

(787) 743-3346

si esta es mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo dispone el Articulo 104 de la Ley Núm. 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015 conocida como “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmueble del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de toda carga y gravamen que afecte la mencionada finca según el Artículo 102, inciso 6. Una vez confirmada la venta judicial por el Honorable Tribunal, se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura de venta judicial y se pondrá al comprador en posesión física del inmueble de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda aquella persona o personas que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de todos los licitadores y el público en general, el presente Edicto se publicará por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas, con un intervalo de por lo menos siete días entre ambas publicaciones, en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y se fijará además en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse dicha venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía. Se les informa, por último, que: a. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. b. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate.

EXPIDO, el presente EDICTO, en Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, hoy día 27 de octubre de 2021.

ALG. FREDDY OMAR RODRÍGUEZ COLLAZO, ALGUACIL, DIVISIÓN DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE VEGA BAJA.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE AGUADILLA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN SEBASTIÁN

BANCO POPULAR DE

The San Juan Daily Star PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

JOSÉ LUIS MÉNDEZ ACEVEDO, SU ESPOSA ARACELIS VÉLEZ BERMONTIZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados Civil Núm.: SS2019CV00836.

Sala: 0001. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Sebastián, San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, hago saber, a la parte demandada y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL: Que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 5 de octubre de 2021, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor la propiedad que ubica y se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Radicada en el Barrio Marías del Municipio de Moca, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de cuatrocientos noventa y tres punto seis mil sesenta y tres metros cuadrados (493.6063 m.c.) y con los siguientes lindes: al NORTE, con remanente de la finca principal, o sea Petra Jiménez Sosa; por el SUR, con la Carretera ciento diez (110); por el ESTE, con Carretera municipal; y por el OESTE, con remanente de la finca principal, o sea, Petra Jiménez Sosa. Inscrita al folio 115 del tomo 333, finca 17,371 de Moca. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de San Sebastián. La propiedad está ubicada en: 110 SR KM 9.1 Barrio Marías, Moca, Puerto Rico. Además, el Alguacil que suscribe, hago saber a todos los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o de los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, siempre que surjan de la certificación registral, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfa-

cer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante: a) Hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré a favor de La Autoridad para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda de Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $13,000.00, sin intereses, vencedero el día 27 de octubre de 2013, constituida mediante la escritura número 459, otorgada en Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, el día 27 de octubre de 2005, ante el notario Rafael A. Ramos Sáenz, e inscrita al folio 115 del tomo 333 de Moca, finca número 17,371, inscripción 4ta. Sujeto a Condiciones (no expresa programa), por un periodo de 8 años. b) Aviso de Demanda de fecha 4 de noviembre de 2019, expedido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Centro Judicial, Sala Superior de San Sebastián, en el caso civil número SS2019CV00836, seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, contra José Luis Méndez Acevedo y su esposa Aracelis Vélez Bermonti y la Sociedad Legal de Bienes Gananciales, compuesta por ambos, por la suma de $47,827.95 más otras sumas, anotado el día 11 de marzo de 2020, al tomo Karibe de Moca, finca número 17,371, anotación A. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada a su favor el día 16 de agosto de 2021, notificada el 18 de agosto de 2021 en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $47,827.95 por concepto de principal; generando intereses a razón de 4.50% desde el 1ro de abril de 2019; cargos por demora los cuales al igual que los intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda reclamada en este pleito, y la suma de $5,156.37 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente. La adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo de la adjudicación, en efectivo (moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América), giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del alguacil del Tribunal. LA PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a efecto el día 8 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en la Oficina / Sala de Alguaciles de Subastas de la Sala Superior del Tribunal de San Sebastián, San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA

The San Juan Daily Star SUBASTA es de $51,563.78.

Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 15 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en la Oficina / Sala de Alguaciles de Subastas de la Sala Superior del Tribunal de San Sebastián, San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $34,375.85, equivalentes a dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una TERCERA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 22 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en la Oficina / Sala de Alguaciles de Subastas de la Sala Superior del Tribunal de San Sebastián, San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $25,781.89, equivalentes a la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente; se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo dispone el Articulo 104 de la Ley Núm. 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015 conocida como “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmueble del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de toda carga y gravamen que afecte la mencionada finca según el Artículo 102, inciso 6. Una vez confirmada la venta judicial por el Honorable Tribunal, se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura de venta judicial y se pondrá al comprador en posesión física del inmueble de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda aquella persona o personas que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de todos los licitadores y el público en general, el presente Edicto se publicará por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas, con un intervalo de por lo menos siete días entre ambas publicaciones, en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y se fijará además en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse dicha venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía. Se les informa, por último, que: a. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al proce-

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

dimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. b. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. EXPIDO, el presente EDICTO, en San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, hoy día 2 de noviembre de 2021. LUIS A. NIEVES RIVERA, ALGUACIL, DIVISIÓN DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN SEBASTIÁN.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE PATILLAS

FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

LESLIE RUÍZ MONTAÑEZ, T/C/C LESLIE JANET RUÍZ MONTAÑEZ

Demandada Civil Núm.: PA2019CV00120.

(202). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE GARANTÍAS. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. Yo MAYLEEN CINTRÓN RODRÍGUEZ, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Patillas, al público en general. CERTIFICO Y HAGO SABER: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia fechado el 18 de marzo de 2020 que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Patillas, en el caso arriba indicado, venderé en la fecha o fechas que más adelante se indican, en pública subasta al mejor postor, en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, en efectivo, cheque certificado o giro postal, en mi oficina sita en el local que ocupa en el Centro Judicial de Patillas, Puerto Rico, Carretera 3, Km.124.9, Patillas, Puerto Rico, Salida hacia Maunabo (al lado del Cuartel de la Policía), todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada, en el inmueble que se describe a continuación, propiedad de la parte demandada Leslie Ruíz Montañez t/c/c Leslie Janet Ruíz Montañez. Dirección Física: Barrio Cacao Bajo, Comm. Oben, 54 Calle 2, Patillas, Puerto Rico.

Finca 5,947, inscrita al folio 138

del tomo 132 de Patillas, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guayama.

RÚSTICA: Parcela marcada con el número 54 en el Plano de Parcelación de la Comunidad Rural Cacao Bajo, radicada en el Barrio Cacao Bajo del término municipal de Patillas, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de cero cuerdas con mil doscientos setenta y uno diez milésimas de otra, equivalente a cuatrocientos noventa y nueve punto treinta y seis (499.36 mc) metros cuadrados.

En lindes por el NORTE, con la Calle 2 de la Comunidad; por el SUR, con la parcela 55 de la Comunidad; por el ESTE, con la parcela 54 de la Comunidad; por el OESTE, con la parcela 75 de la Comunidad. Casa de una sola planta que mide 43 pies de frente por 53 pies de fondo construida en hormigón y bloques de cemento dividida en 3 cuartos dormitorios, sala comedor, cocina, 2 cuartos de baño, marquesina y balcón, con un valor de $20,000.00, según la escritura número 164, otorgada en Patillas, Puerto Rico, el día 1 de octubre de 1995, ante la notario Claudia Ortiz Lebrón, e inscrita al folio 140 dle tomo 132 de Patillas, finca número 5,947, inscripción 4ta. Finca 5,947: Por su procedencia está afecta a: Libre de Cargas. Por sí está afecta a: a. Hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Firstbank de Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $57,997.00, con intereses al 4% anual, vencedero el día 1 de diciembre de 2043, constituida mediante la escritura número 284, otorgada en Caguas, Puerto Rico, el día 30 de noviembre de 2013, ante el notario José E. Franco Gómez, e inscrita al folio 98 del tomo 236 de Patillas, finca número 5,947, inscripción 7ma. Sujeta a cláusulas de aceleración. b.

Aviso de Demanda de fecha 30 de mayo de 2019, expedido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Patillas, en el Caso Civil número PA2019CV00120, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca, seguido por Firstbank Puerto Rico versus Leslie Janet Ruiz Montañez, por la suma de $52,659.66, más intereses y otras sumas adicionales o en su defecto la venta en Pública Subasta, anotado el día 8 de febrero de 2021, al tomo Karibe de Patillas, finca número 5,947, Anotación “A”. El precio mínimo de este remate con relación a la Finca 5,947 antes descrita y la fecha de cada subasta serán la siguiente: FECHA DE SUBASTA: PRIMERA SUBASTA: 2 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $57,997.00. HIPOTECA: Escritura Número 284, otorgada en

Caguas, Puerto Rico, el día 30 de noviembre de 2013, ante el notario José E. Franco Gómez.

Segunda Subasta: 9 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $38,664.67. Tercera Subasta: 16 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $28,998.50. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante las horas laborables. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titulación que se transmite y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y las preferentes, si las hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante, continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante las acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de las mismas, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Conforme a la Sentencia dictada el día 30 de diciembre de 2019, y archivada en los autos el 16 de enero de 2020, la anterior venta se hará para satisfacer las sumas adeudadas por concepto del préstamo garantizado por la hipoteca antes mencionada y las sumas que se mencionan a continuación: Al 1 de noviembre de 2018, la suma principal de $52,659.66, más la suma de $2,196.00 que incluye intereses según pactados, cargos por demora y otros cargos, que se acumulan diariamente hasta su total y completo pago, más la suma de 10% del principal, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado.

Se notifica por la presente a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los inmuebles a ser subastados con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen del ejecutante descrito anteriormente, o acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubieren pospuesto al gravamen del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizado hipotecariamente con posterioridad al gravamen del actor para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si así lo interesan o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogado, quedando 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 de acuerdo con la ley en un periódico de circulación general de la isla de Puerto Rico y en tres sitios públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como

la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía y vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida de la parte demandada, expido el presente edicto bajo mi firma y el sello de este Tribunal en Patillas, Puerto Rico, hoy día 9 de noviembre de 2021. MAYLEEN CINTRÓN RODRÍGUEZ, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE PATILLAS.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE VEGA BAJA

FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

JUAN PABLO ROMÁN VALENTÍN

Demandado Civil Núm.: VB2019CV00103.

(201). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE GARANTÍAS. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. Yo ALG. FREDDY OMAR RODRÍGUEZ COLLAZO, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Vega Baja, al público en general. CERTIFICO Y HAGO SABER: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia fechado el 10 de diciembre de 2019 que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Vega Baja, en el caso arriba indicado, venderé en la fecha o fechas que más adelante se indican, en pública subasta al mejor postor, en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, en efectivo, cheque certificado o giro postal, en mi oficina sita en el local que ocupa en el Centro Judicial de Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada, en el inmueble que se describe a continuación, propiedad de la parte demandada Juan Pablo Román Valentín. Dirección Física: Lot 1, Km. 7, SR 670, Pugnado Afuera Ward, Vega Baja, PR 00693. Finca 24,238, inscrita al folio 218 del tomo 297 de Vega Baja, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Cuarta de Bayamón. RÚSTICA: Parcela número uno (1). Predio de terreno radicado en el Barrio Pugnado Afuera del término municipal de Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, con un área superficial de mil setecientos noventa y seis punto ocho mil novecientos noventa y cuatro (1,796.8994) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con el predio número tres (3) que será dedicado

23

para uso público y lo separa de la Carretera Estatal seiscientos setenta (670); por el SUR y OESTE, con la finca Francisco Vázquez, propiedad de la Autoridad de Tierras; por el ESTE, con el predio número dos (2) y la finca de Francisco Vázquez, ambas propiedad de la Autoridad de Tierras. Finca 24,238: Por su procedencia está afecta a: a) Arrendamiento a favor de la Autoridad de Carreteras. b) Servidumbre a favor del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico.

Por sí está afecta a: a) Hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Firstbank Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $111,680.00, con intereses al 5 7/8% anual, vencedero el día 1 de mayo del 2045, constituida mediante la escritura número 202, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 30 de abril del 2015, ante la notario Griselle Arbona Martínez, e inscrita al tomo Karibe de Vega Baja, finca número 24,238, inscripción 7ma. b) Aviso de Demanda de fecha 13 de febrero del 2019, expedido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Vega Baja, Caso Civil número VB2019CV00103, por concepto de Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca, por la Vía Ordinaria, seguido por Firstbank Puerto Rico, versus Juan Pablo Román Valentín, reclamando el pago de la hipoteca por la suma de $111,680.00, con un balance de $106,800.17, anotado el día 22 de abril del 2019, al tomo Karibe de Vega Baja, finca número 24,238, Anotación B. El precio mínimo de este remate con relación a la Finca 24,238 antes descrita y la fecha de cada subasta serán la siguiente: FECHA DE SUBASTA: PRIMERA SUBASTA: 27 DE ENERO DE 2022 A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $111,680.00.

HIPOTECA: Escritura Número 202, sobre Hipoteca, otorgada el 30 de abril de 2015, ante la Notario Griselle Arbona Martínez. SEGUNDA SUBASTA: 3 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $74,453.33. TERCERA SUBASTA: 10 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $55,840.00. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante las horas laborables. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titulación que se transmite y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y las preferentes, si las hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante, continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante las acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de las

mismas, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate.

Conforme a la Sentencia dictada el día 4 de septiembre de 2019 y archivada en los autos el 10 de septiembre de 2019, la anterior venta se hará para satisfacer las sumas adeudadas por concepto del préstamo garantizado por la hipoteca antes mencionada y las sumas que se mencionan a continuación: Al 1 de septiembre de 2018, las siguientes cantidades: la suma principal de $106,800.17, más la suma de $4,176.34, que incluye intereses según pactados, cargos por demora y otros cargos, que se acumulan diariamente hasta su total y completo pago, más la suma de 10% del principal, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado hipotecariamente asegurados. Se notifica por la presente a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los inmuebles a ser subastados con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen del ejecutante descrito anteriormente, o acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubieren pospuesto al gravamen del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizado hipotecariamente con posterioridad al gravamen del actor para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si así lo interesan o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogado, quedando 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 de acuerdo con la ley en un periódico de circulación general de la isla de Puerto Rico y en tres sitios públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía y vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida de la parte demandada, expido el presente edicto bajo mi firma y el sello de este Tribunal en Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, hoy día 10 de noviembre de 2021.

ALG. FREDDY OMAR RODRÍGUEZ COLLAZO, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE VEGA BAJA.

LEGAL NOTICE M&T 207457 ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR.

BANCO POPULAR DE

PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

Ricardo J. Avilés Rodríguez t/c/c Ricardo Joel Avilés Rodríguez

Demandado CIVIL NÚM: SJ2018CV05617.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente CERTIFICA, ANUNCIA y hace CONSTAR: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que le ha sido dirigido al Alguacil que suscribe por la Secretaría del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR, en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor quién pagará de contado y en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, giro postal o por cheque de gerente a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia el día 14 de DICIEMBRE de 2021, a las 9:00 de la MAÑANA en su oficina sita en el local que ocupa en el edificio del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble de su propiedad que ubica en Cond.

Parque San Agustín, Apt. 302A, San Juan, PR 00926 y que se describe a continuación: URBANA: PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL: Apartamento No. A-302. Apartamento residencial de forma irregular localizado en la tercera planta del Edificio ‘A’ del CONDOMINIO PARQUE SAN AGUSTÍN, situado en el Barrio Sabana Llana del término municipal de San Juan, Puerto Rico. El área aproximada es de 1,083.53 pies cuadrados, equivalentes a 100.70 metros cuadrados. Son sus lindes: por el Norte, en una distancia máxima de 33’0’, con el apartamento No. B-301; por el Sur, en una distancia máxima de 29’8’, con el apartamento No. A-301 y con área de escalera común; por el Este, en una distancia máxima de 37’3’, con área exterior común; y por el Oeste, en una distancia máxima de 37’3’, con área exterior común. La puerta de entrada del apartamento está situada en su lindero Sur. Consta de sala-comedor, cocina-’laundry’, balcón, tres dormitorios, pasillo y dos baños. Le corresponde un espacio de estacionamiento, identificado con el mismo número del apartamento A-302.

Este apartamento tiene una participación de 1.47% de los elementos comuens del Condominio. La propiedad antes relacionada consta inscrita en

24 el Folio 140 del Tomo 1052 de Sabana Llana, finca número 34,265, en el Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección Quinta. El tipo mínimo para la primera subasta del inmueble antes relacionado, será el dispuesto en la Escritura de Hipoteca, es decir la suma de $114,750.00. Si no hubiere remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta del inmueble mencionado, se celebrará una segunda subasta en las oficinas del Alguacil que suscribe el 11 de ENERO de 2022, a las 9:00 de la MAÑANA. En la segunda subasta que se celebre servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes (2/3) del precio pactado en la primera subasta, o sea la suma de $76,500.00.

Si tampoco hubiere remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta se celebrará una tercera subasta en las oficinas del Alguacil que suscribe el día 19 de ENERO de 2022, a las 9:00 de la MAÑANA. Para la tercera subasta servirá de tipo mínimo la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado para el caso de ejecución, o sea, la suma de $57,375.00.

La hipoteca a ejecutarse en el caso de epígrafe fue constituida mediante la escritura número 151, otorgada el día 18 de mayo de 2007, ante el Notario Ulises Santiago Tejada Nieves y consta inscrita en el Folio 140 del Tomo 1052 de Sabana Llana, finca número 34,265, en el Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección Quinta, inscripción sexta. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer al Demandante total o parcialmente según sea el caso el importe de la Sentencia que ha obtenido ascendente a la suma de $105,214.76 por concepto de principal, más intereses al tipo pactado de 9.000% anual desde el día 1 de enero de 2018.

Dichos intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la obligación. Se pagarán también los cargos por demora equivalentes a 5.000% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha vencimiento, la suma de $11,475.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, la suma de $11,475.00para cubrir los intereses en adición a los garantizados por ley y la suma de $11,475.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca, más intereses según provisto por la Regla 44.3 de las de Procedimiento Civil.

Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al Procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la SECRETARIA DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA

SUPERIOR durante las horas laborables. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad del inmueble y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes.

Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio de remate.

La propiedad no está sujeta a gravámenes anteriores y/o preferentes según surge de las constancias del Registro de la Propiedad en un estudio de título efectuado a la finca antes descrita. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor que se celebrarán las subastas en las fechas, horas y sitios señalados para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviniere o se les invita a satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, otros cargos y las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Y para conocimiento de licitadores del público en general se publicará este Edicto de acuerdo con la ley por espacio de dos semanas en tres sitios públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como la alcaldía, el Tribunal y la colecturía. Este Edicto será publicado mediante edictos dos veces en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores sujeto a lo dispuesto en los Artículos 113 al 116 de la Ley 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015, según aplique.

Expido el presente Edicto de subasta bajo mi firma, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 10 de noviembre de 2021. FDO. EDWIN E. LÓPEZ MULERO, ALGUACIL. ***

LEGAL NOTICE

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

NEOMED CENTER, INC.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021 Demandante V.

BANCO SANTANDER DE PUERTO RICO; FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DE TAL

Demandado(a) Civil: CG2021CV02366. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DE TAL.

(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 NOVIEMBRE de 2021, 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 NOVIEMBRE de 2021. En CAGUAS, Puerto Rico, el 18 de noviembre de 2021. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MARTA E. DONATE RESTO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 8 de NOVIEMBRE de 2021 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 NOVIEMBRE de 2021. En CAGUAS, Puerto Rico, el 18 de NOVIEMBRE de 2021. LISILDA MARTINEZ AGOSTO, Secretaria. F/YARITZA ROSARIO PLACERES, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Parte Demandante Vs.

JOSÉ LUIS CORREDOR MIRANDA, ROSANED RODRÍGUEZ BÁEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Estado Libre Asociado de PuerParte Demandada to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Pri- Civil Núm.: CA2019CV01136. mera Instancia Sala Superior Sala: 409. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE de CAGUAS. HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDIFIRSTBANK NARIA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE PUERTO RICO AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE Demandante v.

DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, CARLOS GILBERTO EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIAVIANA SALDAÑA, WILKA DO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. ENID CRUZ ROLON y la AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASSociedad Legal de Bienes TA. El Alguacil que suscribe Gananciales por ambos por la presente anuncia y hace constar que en cumplimiento Demandado(a) Civil Núm. CG2019CV04607 de la Sentencia en Rebeldía (701). Sobre: COBRO DE DI- dictada el 17 de octubre de NERO Y EJECUCION DE HI- 2019, enmendada NUNC PRO POTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE TUNC el 12 de agosto de 2021, la Orden de Ejecución de SenSENTENCIA POR EDICTO. A: CARLOS GILBERTO tencia del 4 de octubre de 2021 y el Mandamiento de Ejecución VIANA SALDAÑA, WILKA del 6 de octubre de 2021 en el ENID CRUZ ROLON y la caso de epígrafe, procederé a Sociedad Legal de Bienes vender el día 19 DE ENERO Gananciales por ambos DE 2022, A LAS 10:30 DE LA

MAÑANA, en mi oficina, localizada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Centro Judicial de Carolina, Sala Superior, en la Carretera Número Tres (3) Km. 11.7, Avenida 65 de Infantería, Intersección Carr. Núm. 853, Entrada Urb. Lomas de Carolina, Carolina, Puerto Rico, al mejor postor en pago de contado y en moneda de los Estados Unidos de América, cheque de gerente o giro postal, todo título, derecho o interés de la parte demandada sobre la siguiente propiedad: RÚSTICA: Predio de terreno identificado con el número 139 en el plano de inscripción de la Comunidad Reparto Miñi Miñi radicada en el Barrio Medianía Alta del término municipal de Loíza, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 341.46 metros cuadrados, equivalentes a 0.0869 cuerdas. En lindes por el NORTE, en 26.36 metros lineales con el solar número 138; por el SUR, en 26.17 metros lineales con el solar número 140; por el ESTE, en 13.00 metros lineales con servidumbre de uso público número tres (3); y por el OESTE, en 13.00 metros lineales con la Calle Número 7-A. Edificación: Enclava una casa de concreto armado y bloques para una familia, que consta de tres (3) cuartos dormitorios, un (1) baño, sala, comedor y marquesina abierta, consiste de 927.00 pies cuadrados de construcción interior más 200.00 pies cuadrados de marquesina abierta, con un valor de $52,000.00, según escritura número 284, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 30 de noviembre de 1999, ante el Notario Rolando A. Silva. Inscrita al folio 191 vuelto del tomo 194 de Loíza, Finca Número 9374, Inscripción tercera. La propiedad consta inscrita al folio 191 del tomo 194 de Loíza, Finca Número 9374, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección III. La escritura de hipoteca consta inscrita al folio 191 vuelto del tomo 194 de Loíza, Finca Número 9374, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección III, Inscripción tercera. La primera escritura de modificación consta inscrita al folio 25 del tomo 227 de Loíza, Finca Número 9374, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección III, Inscripción cuarta. La segunda escritura de modificación consta inscrita al folio 13 vuelto del tomo 239 de Loíza, Finca Número 9374, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección III, Inscripción quinta. DIRECCIÓN FÍSICA: 139 VILLAS DE MIÑI MIÑI, LOÍZA, PR 00772. SUBASTAS: FECHAS: PRIMERA: 19 DE ENERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA. TIPO MÍNIMO: $57,600.00. SEGUNDA: 26 DE ENERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA.

TIPO MÍNIMO: $38,400.00.

TERCERA: 2 DE FEBRERO DE 2022 A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA. TIPO MÍNIMO: $28,800.00. El tipo mínimo para la primera subasta será de $57,600.00. De no haber adjudicación en la primera subasta se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA, el día 26 DE ENERO DE 2022, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la cual el tipo mínimo será de dos terceras partes del tipo mínimo fijado en la primera subasta, o sea, $38,400.00.

De no haber adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 2 DE FEBRERO DE 2022, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la cual el tipo mínimo será la mitad del precio pactado, o sea, $28,800.00. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el tribunal lo estima conveniente.

Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor. Dicho remate se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a la demandante el importe de la Sentencia por la suma de $54,986.15 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 4% anual desde el 1 de julio de 2017 hasta su completo pago, más $189.47 de recargos acumulados, más la cantidad estipulada de $6,395.70 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo. Surge del Estudio de Título Registral que sobre esta propiedad pesa el siguiente gravamen posterior a la hipoteca que por la presente se pretende ejecutar: Aviso de Demanda: Pleito seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico Vs. José Luis Corredor Miranda y su esposa Rosaned Rodríguez Báez, ante el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Carolina, en el Caso Civil Número CA2019CV01136, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca, en la que se reclama el pago de hipoteca de la inscripción tercera, por la suma de $63,967.00, con un balance de $54,986.15 y otras cantidades, según Demanda de fecha 4 de abril de 2019.

Anotada al Tomo Karibe de Loíza. Anotación A. Se notifica al acreedor posterior o a su sucesor o cesionario en derecho para que comparezca a proteger su derecho si así lo desea.

Se les advierte a los interesados que todos los documentos relacionados con la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como los de Subasta, estarán disponibles para ser examinados, durante horas la-

borables, en el expediente del caso que obra en los archivos de la Secretaría del Tribunal, bajo el número de epígrafe y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general en Puerto Rico por espacio de dos semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana; y para su fijación en los sitios públicos requeridos por ley. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante, continuarán subsistentes; entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate y que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores tal como lo expresa la Ley Núm.

210-2015. Y para el conocimiento de los demandados, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, EXPIDO para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes, el presente Aviso de Pública Subasta en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy 10 de noviembre de 2021. SAMUEL GONZÁLEZ ISAAC, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA, SALA SUPERIOR.

LEGAL NOT ICE IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

A&B INVESTMENTS, LLC; AVIV ARAB; BENNY SARUSSI; KFIR ABOTOBOL Plaintiffs V.

DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIAL SERVICES, INC.; AGUSTIN GARCIA ACEVEDO, HIS WIFE MARIBEL NEGRON SANCHEZ AND THE CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THEM; CORPORATION “ABC”; INSURANCE COMPANY “XYZ”

Defendants Civil Action No.: 21-1441 PAD. BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORTS. PLAINTIFFS DEMAND JURY TRIAL. SUMMONS BY PUBLICATION.

To: DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIAL SERVICES, INC.,

WHEREAS, plaintiffs Plaintiffs A&B Investments, LLC, Aviv Arad, Benny Sarussi, and Kfir Abotobol, have instituted proceedings for breach of contract and torts against DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIAL SERVICES, INC., AGUSTIN GARCIA ACEVEDO, his wife MARIBEL NE-

GRON SANCHEZ, and the conjugal partnership existing between them. WHEREAS, upon motion by plaintiffs, the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico has entered an Order in this case, which reads as follows: “ORDER FOR SERVICE OF SUMMONS BY PUBLICATION”. Upon motion of Plaintiffs A&B Investments, LLC, Aviv Arad, Benny Sarussi, and Kfir Abotobol (“Plaintiffs”) and it appearing to the Court from the motion and from its accompanying documentation that regarding defendants DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIAL SERVICES, INC, AGUSTIN GARCIA ACEVEDO, his wife MARIBEL NEGRON SANCHEZ, and the conjugal partnership between them, Plaintiffs have taken all pertinent necessary steps to ascertain their whereabouts, and/or that defendants are hiding to avoid service of process, and in order to serve notice of these proceedings to them pursuant to Rule 4.6 of the Rules of Civil Procedure of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; IT IS ORDERED that this Order be published once in a newspaper of general circulation in Puerto Rico, and that defendants appear, plead, or answer the complaint in this action not later than thirty (30) days after publication of this Order; by serving the original of the plea or answer in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and serving a copy to counsel for plaintiff. In defendants’ default, the Court will proceed to the hearing and adjudication of this action. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within ten (10) days following publication of the summons, a copy of the summons and of the complaint shall be mailed, addressed to the defendants, by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the place of their last known address. IT IS SO ORDERED. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, on this 15th day of November 2021. PEDRO A. DELGADO-HERNANDEZ, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE. THEREFORE, notice is given to defendant DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIAL SERVICES, INC., whose present address as stated in the Puerto Rico Corporation Registry is “Carr. 110 K.M. 29.0, Bo. Maleza Alta, Aguadilla, PR 00603”, so that they may appear, answer, or otherwise plead to the complaint filed in this action, not later than thirty (30) days after the publication of this Notice.

In case of their failure to do so, judgment by default will be entered for the relief demanded in the complaint, and the Court shall proceed to an adjudication

The San Juan Daily Star without further notice. CARLOS R. BARALT-SUÁREZ and EDUARDO L. HERNÁNDEZFREIRE, Esquires of the firm of Delgado & Fernández, LLC are the attorneys for the plaintiffs, with offices at Professional Office Park San Roberto Street, Suite 201 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico 00926; P.O. Box 11750, San Juan, Puerto Rico 009101750, Telephone Number 787274-1414. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I set my hand and seal in San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 15th day of November, 2021.

MARIA ANTONGIORGI-JORDAN, ESQ., CLERK OF THE COURT. ANA E. DURAN-CAPELLA, DEPUTY CLERK.

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

A&B INVESTMENTS, LLC; AVIV ARAB; BENNY SARUSSI; KFIR ABOTOBOL Plaintiffs V.

DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIAL SERVICES, INC.; AGUSTÍ GARCÍA ACEVEDO, HIS WIFE MARIBEL NEGRÓN SÁNCHEZ AND THE CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THEM; CORPORATION “ABC”; INSURANCE COMPANY “XYZ”

Defendants Civil Action No.: 21-1441 PAD. BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORTS. PLAINTIFFS DEMAND JURY TRIAL. SUMMONS BY PUBLICATION.

To: AGUSTÍN GARCÍA ACEVEDO, HIS WIFE MARIBEL NEGRÓN SÁNCHEZ, AND THE CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THEM.

WHEREAS, plaintiffs Plaintiffs A&B Investments, LLC, Aviv Arad, Benny Sarussi, and Kfir Abotobol, have instituted proceedings for breach of contract and torts against DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIAL SERVICES, INC., AGUSTÍN GARCÍA ACEVEDO, his wife MARIBEL NEGRÓN SÁNCHEZ, and the conjugal partnership between them. WHEREAS, upon motion by plaintiffs, the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico has entered an Order in this case, which reads as follows: “ORDER FOR SERVICE OF SUMMONS BY PUBLICATION”. Upon motion of Plaintiffs A&B Investments, LLC, Aviv Arad, Benny Sarussi, and Kfir Abotobol (“Plaintiffs”) and it appearing to the Court from the motion and from its accompanying documentation that

regarding defendants DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIAL SERVICES, INC., AGUSTÍN GARCÍA ACEVEDO, his wife MARIBEL NEGRÓN SÁNCHEZ, and the conjugal partnership existing between them. Plaintiffs have taken all pertinent necessary steps to ascertain their whereabouts, and/or that defendants are hiding to avoid service of process, and in order to serve notice of these proceedings to them pursuant to Rule 4.6 of the Rules of Civil Procedure of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; IT IS ORDERED that this Order be published once in a newspaper of general circulation in Puerto Rico, and that defendants appear, plead or answer the complaint in this action not later than thirty (30) days after publication of this Order; by serving the original of the plea or answer in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and serving a copy to counsel for plaintiff. In defendants’ default, the Court will proceed to the hearing and adjudication of this action. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within ten (10) days following publication of the summons, a copy of the summons and of the complaint shall be mailed, addressed to the defendants, by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the place of their last known address. IT IS SO ORDERED. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, on this 15th day of November, 2021. PEDRO A. DELGADO-HERNANDEZ, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE. THEREFORE, notice is given to defendants AGUSTÍN GARCÍA ACEVEDO, his wife MARIBEL NEGRÓN SÁNCHEZ, and the conjugal partnership existing between them, whose present addresses are thought to be “Carr. 110 K.M. 15.3, Moca, PR 00676” and/or “Cond. Plaza del Prado Apt. 1002-A, Guaynabo, PR 00969”, so that they may appear, answer, or otherwise plead to the complaint filed in this action, not later than thirty (30) days after the publication of this Notice. In case of their failure to do so, judgment by default will be entered for the relief demanded in the complaint, and the Court shall proceed to an adjudication without further notice. CARLOS R. BARALTSUÁREZ and EDUARDO L. HERNÁNDEZ-FREIRE, Esquires of the firm of Delgado & Fernandez, LLC are the attorneys for the plaintiffs, with offices at Professional Office Park San Roberto Street, Suite 201 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico 00926; P.O. Box 11750, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750, Telephone Number 787-274-1414.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I set my hand and seal in San Juan,

Wednesday, November 24, 2021 Puerto Rico, this 15th day of GONZÁLEZ RIVERA November 2021. MARIA AN- (Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) TONGIORGI-JORDAN, ESQ., CLERK OF THE COURT. ANA EL SECRETARIO(A) que susE. DURAN-CAPELLA, DEPU- cribe le notifica a usted que el 15 de noviembre de 2021, este TY CLERK. Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución LEGAL NOTICE en este caso, que ha sido debiGOBIERNO DE PUERTO damente registrada y archivada RICO. DEPARTAMENTO DE en autos donde podrá usted enESTADO. NOMBRE COMERterarse detalladamente de los CIAL PARA REGISTRAR. términos de la misma. Esta noAVISO. A QUIEN PUEDA INtificación se publicará una sola TERESAR: De acuerdo con vez en un periódico de circulalas disposiciones de la Ley ción general en la Isla de PuerNúm. 75 del 23 de septiembre to Rico, dentro de los 10 días de 1992, según enmendada, siguientes a su notificación. Y, mejor conocida como la Ley siendo o representando usted de Nombres Comerciales del una parte en el procedimiento Estado Libre Asociado de sujeta a los términos de la SenPuerto Rico y la Sección 24 del tencia, Sentencia Parcial o ReReglamento promulgado bajo solución, de la cual puede estala ley citada anteriormente, el blecerse recurso de revisión o siguiente nombre comercial ha apelación dentro del término de sido presentado en el Depar30 días contados a partir de la tamento de Estado de Puerto publicación por edicto de esta Rico para su archivo y registro notificación, dirijo a usted esta BICIBARPR notificación que se considerará Número de Expediente: hecha en la fecha de la publi239192-99-0. Propietario: AL cación de este edicto. Copia de NATURAL, LLC. Dirección: esta notificación ha sido archiUrb.Sabanera del Rio 376 Ca- vada en los autos de este caso, mino de las Rosas, Gurabo, PR con fecha de 17 de noviembre 00778. Actividad Empresarial: de 2021. En HUMACAO, PuerHacer todo tipo de negocio lici- to Rico, el 17 de noviembre de to en Puerto Rico, incluyendo y 2021. DOMINGA GOMEZ FUSsin limitarse a la venta de pro- TER, Secretario(a). f/ ILEAductos naturales. Renuncia a NETTE RIVAS SERRANO, elementos no registrables: Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

NOTIFICACIÓN: Cualquier oposición a este reLEGAL NOTICE gistro deberá presentarse en Estado Libre Asociado de Puerel Departamento de Estado de Puerto Rico dentro de los trein- to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL ta (30) días siguientes a la pu- DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior blicación de este aviso. de HUMACAO.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

PALMAS DEL MAR HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC Demandante v.

PALMAS DEL MAR HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC Demandante v.

LIMARIE REYES MOLINARIES

Demandado(a) Civil Núm. HU2020CV00866.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (VÍA ORDINARIA). NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

LA SUCESIÓN DE IVETTE PÉREZ VEGA, TAMBIEN A: LIMARIE REYES CONOCIDA POR IVETTE MOLINARIES: A SU SOLER COMPUESTA POR FULANO DE TAL Y DIRECCIÓN CONOCIDA: 125 HARBOUR DRIVE, SUTANO DE TAL BUZÓN 26 PALMARINA Demandado(a) CLUB, HUMACAO PR Civil Núm. HU2020CV00417.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO 00791 P/C LCDA. JOSÉ R. (VÍA ORDINARIA). NOTIFICAGONZÁLEZ RIVERA. CIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: LA SUCESIÓN DE IVETTE PÉREZ VEGA, TAMBIEN CONOCIDA POR IVETTE SOLER COMPUESTA POR FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL: DIRECCIÓN DESCONOCIDA; P/C LCDO. JOSÉ R.

(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 21 de noviembre de 2021, 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 22 de noviembre de 2021. En HUMACAO, Puerto Rico, el 22 de noviembre de 2021. DOMINGA GOMEZ FUSTER, Secretaria. f/ILEANETTE RIVAS SERRANO, Secretaria Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE HUMACAO

PALMAS DEL MAR HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC. Parte Demandante V.

RUBEN A. MAGALLANES DÍAZ

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: HU2020CV01104.

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

A: RUBEN A. MAGALLANES DÍAZ.

POR LA PRESENTE, se le emplaza y requiere para que notifique a: GONZÁLEZ & MORALES LAW OFFICES, LLC PO BOX 10242 HUMACAO, PR 00792 TELÉFONO: (787) 852-4422 FACSÍMIL: (787) 285-4425 Email: jrg@gonzalezmorales.com abogados de la parte demandante, cuya dirección es la que deja indicada, con copia de su Contestación a la Demanda, copia de la cual le es servida en este caso, dentro de los TREINTA (30) días de haber sido diligenciado este Emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Debe saber que en caso de no hacerlo así podrá dictarse Sentencia en Rebeldía en contra suya, concediendo el reme-

25

dio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el Sello del Tribunal, hoy día 18 de noviembre de 2021. DOMINGA GÓMEZ FUSTER, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ILEANETTE RIVAS SERRANO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

JOHN DOE

Demandadas Civil Núm.: CA2021CV02667.

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: ROSA MARIA

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO RAMOS PEGUERO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUPor la presente se le emplaza NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA y notifica que debe contestar la SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN demanda incoada en su contra JUAN dentro del término de treinta YADIRA M. (30) días a partir de la publicaRIVERA RIVERA ción del presente edicto. Usted Demandante Vs. deberá presentar su alegación CÉSAR J. PÉREZ NIEVES responsiva a través del Sistema Demandado Unificado de Manejo y AdminisCivil Núm.: SJ2021RF01624. tración de Casos (SUMAC), al Sala: 702. Sobre: DIVORCIO cual puede acceder utilizando (RUPTURA IRREPARABLE la siguiente dirección electróniDE LOS NEXOS DE CONVI- ca: https://unired.ramajudicial.

VENCIA). EDICTO. ESTADOS pr/sumac/, salvo que se repreUNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL sente por derecho propio. Si PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. usted deja de presentar y noUU., ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIA- tificar su alegación responsiva DO DE P.R., SS. dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar sentencia A: CÉSAR JULIO en rebeldía en su contra y conPÉREZ NIEVES Se le notifica a usted que se ha ceder el remedio solicitado en radicado en esta Secretaría la la Demanda, o cualquier otro, demanda del epígrafe. Se le si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de emplaza y requiere que radique su sana discreción, lo entiende en esta Secretaría el original de procedente. Los abogados de la contestación a la Demanda la parte demandante son: ABOGADOS DE LA PARTE y que notifique con copia de DEMANDANTE: dicha contestación a la Lcda.

Lcdo. Reggie Díaz Hernández María Pagán Hernández, PO RUA Núm.: 16,393 BOX 21411, San Juan, Puerto BERMÚDEZ DÍAZ & SÁNCHEZ, LLP 500 Calle De La Tanca Rico 00928-1411, teléfono 787Suite 209 282-6734, marilupahe@yahoo.

San Juan, Puerto Rico 00901 com, abogada de la parte deTel.: (787) 523-2670 / mandante, dentro de los treinta Fax: (787) 523-2664 rdíaz@bdslawpr.com días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Si dejare de Expido este edicto bajo mi firhacerlo, podrá dictarse contra ma y el sello de este Tribunal, usted sentencia en rebeldía hoy 17 de noviembre de 2021. concediéndose el remedio Lcda. Marilyn Aponte Rodrísolicitado en la demanda. EX- guez, Secretaria Regional.

PEDIDO bajo mi firma y sello Ruth M. Colón Luciano, Secrede este Tribunal Superior de taria Auxiliar Del Tribunal.

Puerto Rico, Sala de San Juan, a 16 de noviembre de 2021.

SRA. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. JESSICA COLÓN TORRES, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

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

SUCS. MARIANA DE JESUS LÓPEZ Y ULBANO ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO RAMOS SUAREZ DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUcompuesta por: Sucn NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Ulbano Ramos De Jesús SALA DE CAROLINA (Jorge Luis, Ángel Urbano BANCO POPULAR DE y José Aníbal de apellidos PUERTO RICO, INC. Ramos Nazario), y Sucn.

Demandante V. Irma Ramos De Jesús EDWIN ORTIZ COLON, ( Irma, Carlos Manuel, ROSA MARIA RAMOS José Antonio, Ada Irma, PEGUERO Y LA Jenaro, Sonia Noemí, SOCIEDAD LEGAL Elizabeth y Gladys, DE GANANCIALES todos de apellidos COMPUESTA POR Aponte Ramos) Sucn .

AMBOS, THE CHASE MANHATTAN BANK N.A., Norberto Ramos De Jesús compuesta por las dos LEGAL NOTICE

sucs. mencionadas

EX - PARTE PETICIONARIOS CIVIL NUM: CG2021CV02576.

SOBRE: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO PRESCRIPCION ADQUISITIVA. EDICTOS. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. S.S.

A: JOSÉ LÓPEZ, WILLIAM J. COLON APONTE, SUCN. WILUAM COLON CARDONA, JOHN DOE, AUTORIDAD DE ENERGÍA ELÉCTRICA, AUTORIDAD DE ACUEDUCTOS Y ALCANTARILLADOS, DEPTO. DE RECURSOS NATURALES, MUNICIPIO DE CAYEY, DEPTO. OBRAS PUBLICAS MUNICIPAL, MUNICIPIO DE CAYEY Y DEPTO. DE OBRAS PUBLICAS ESTATAL, los colindantes JOSÉ LÓPEZ, WILLIAM J. COLON APONTE Y SUCN. WILLIAM COLON CARDONA y cualquier otra persona ignorada o desconocida a quien pueda perjudicar la inscripción solicitada y/o que entienda tener algún derecho legal sobre el inmueble descrito en ésta petición de DOMINIO y en general a toda persona que desee oponerse.

Por la presente se le notifica que comparezcan, si creyeren que les conviene, ante éste Honorable Tribunal dentro de Treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de éste EDICTO y exponer lo que a sus derechos convenga en el expediente promovido por los peticionarios para adquirir su domino sobre la siguiente finca: Solar en Barrio Montellano de Cayey, compuesto de Ciento Veintinueve punto Cero Cero Treinta y Cuatro metros cuadrados (129.0034 me) equivalente a Cero punto Cero Trescientos Cincuenta y Siete cuerda (0.0357 c.) Colindando por el Norte con terreno de José Lóoez en 11.328 m., antes Juan Ortíz; por el Sur con terreno de William J. Colon Aponte, en distancia de 10.843 metros, antes Nemensio Rivera, por el Este en distancia de 11. 743 metros pies con terreno de William Colon Cardona, antes Francisco Fuentes; y por el Oeste con la Calle Gregorio Ortíz en 11.555 metros, antes Fernando Bauermeister. Dirección física: Calle Gregorio Ortiz, 563 Bo. Montellano, Cayey, P.R. 00736. Este caso fue presentado a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC). Deberá presentar

26 su alegación responsiva a la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar cualquier to relacionado al caso en la secretaria del tribunal; con constancia de haber servido copia de la misma a la abogada de la parte demandante o a esta si hubiere comparecido por derecho propio. abogada de la peticionaria es la Lcda. María Jiménez Vargas, dirección Box 10231, San Juan, P.R. 00922, Tels 787 781 3585 y 787 783 3784. En.Caguas, Puerto Rico, a 4 de noviembre de 2021. Lisilda Martinez Agosto, Secretario.

Glorissette Rivera Reyes, SubSecretaria.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Parte Demandante vs.

JOHN DOE

Parte Demandada CIVILN ÚM: BY2021CV02957.

SOBRE: SUSTITUCION DE PAGARE. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE COMO TENEDOR DESCONOCIDO DEL PAGARE

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 11 de noviembre de 2021, 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 17 de noviembre de 2021. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 17 de noviembre de 2021. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Sec Regional. F/ VIVIAN J SANABRIA, Sec Confidencial del Tribunal I.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

JOHN DOE

Demandado(a) Civil: BY201CV03919. 4036.

Sobre: SUSTITUCIÓN DE PAGARÉ. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 16 de noviembre de 2021, 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 17 de noviembre de 2021. En BAYAMÓN, Puerto Rico, el 17 de noviembre de 2021. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. MIRCIENID GONZÁLEZ TORRES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE UTUADO

MTGLQ INVESTORS, L.P. Demandante V.

ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS CORPORATION; JOHN DOE Y RICHARD DOE, COMO POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS

Civil Número: UT2021CV00032.

Sobre: CANCELACIÓN O RESTITUCTÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD DOE DEMANDADOS, SE DESCONOCE CUYA DIRECCIÓN SE DESCONOCE.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 16 de noviembre de 2021, 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 noviembre de 2021. En Utuado, Puerto Rico, el 17 de noviembre de 2021. DIANA ÁLVAREZ VILLANUEVA, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. KAREN ENID ROMÁN CAMACHO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

T/C/C ELSIE MIRABAL.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 16 de noviembre de 2021, 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 noviembre de 2021. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 16 de noviembre de 2021. Lcda. Marilyn Aponte Rodríguez, Secretaria. Damaris Torres Ruiz, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

ANGELES MARIA ROBLES ACEVEDO

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DEMANDANTE VS. DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUCITIBANK N.A.; JOHN NAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSDOE Y RICHARD ROE TANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE DEMANDADOS CAROLINA CIVIL NUM.: SJ2021CV07257.

REVERSE MORTGAGE SALA: 903. SOBRE: CANCELACION DE PAGARÉ EXTRAFUNDING LLC. VIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO Demandante V. POR EDICTO. ESTADOS SUCESION ELSIE UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL MIRABAL ALVARADO PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. T/C/C ELSIE MIRABAL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO. COMPUESTA POR JOHN SS. Quedan emplazados y notiDOE Y JANE DOE COMO ficados de que en este Tribunal POSIBLES HEREDEROS se ha radicado una demanda en su contra. Se les notifica DESCONOCIDOS; para que comparezca ante el ESTADOS UNIDOS DE Tribunal dentro del término de AMERICA; CENTRO treinta (30) días a partir de la DE RECAUDACION DE publicación de este edicto y INGRESOS MUNICIPALES exponer lo que a su derecho convenga, en el presente caso.

Demandado(a) Civil: CA2021CV01460. Sala: En la Demanda se alega que 408. Sobre: COBRO DE DINE- sobre la propiedad que más RO, EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTE- adelante se describe se constiCA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SEN- tuyó una hipoteca para garantizar un pagaré suscrito a favor TENCIA POR EDICTO. de CITIBANK, NA, INC., o a su A: JOHN DOE Y orden, por la suma principal de JANE DOE COMO con intereses soPOSIBLES MIEMBROS $60,000.00, bre el balance insoluto a una DESCONOCIDOS DE tasa anual que será equivalenLA SUCESION ELSIE te de la suma de la tasa prefeMIRABAL ALVARADO rencial que de tiempo en tiem-

po se publique en la sección Money Rates del periódico The Wall Street Journal, más hasta un margen del 1.25%, hasta su pago total y completo, disponiéndose que la tasa máxima de interés sobre el balance insoluto no podrá exceder del 20% anual, bajo el testimonio 1062, según consta de la escritura #340, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 31 de agosto de 2005, ante la Notaria Martha J. Rivera Rivera. Esta hipoteca quedó inscrita en el Folio Karibe de Sabana Llana, Finca 8,948, Registro de la Propiedad, Sección Quinta de San Juan, inscripción 8va. Que la propiedad hipotecada se describe de la siguiente manera: URBANA: Solar marcado con el #15 de la manzana “G” del plano preparado por la Corporación de Renovación Urbana y Vivienda de Puerto Rico, para su proyecto de solares denominado COOPERATIVA ASOCIACION DE MAESTROS, radicado en el barrio Sabana Llana del término municipal de San Juan, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 444.83 metros cuadrados. En lindes, por el NORTE, con el solar número “G-14” en 25.91 metros; por el SUR, con el solar número “G-16” en 25.89 metros; por el ESTE, con terrenos de la Corporación de Renovación Urbana y Vivienda de Puerto Rico en 17.15 metros; por el OESTE, con la servidumbre de paso de la calle #1 en 17.20 metros.

Según la inscripción tercera, se está construyendo una casa de dos plantas. Consta inscrita al Folio 121 vuelto del Tomo 199 de Sabana Llana, Finca #8,948, Registro de la Propiedad, Sección Quinta de San Juan, inscripción 2da. Que a su mejor conocimiento dicho pagaré no ha sido cedido, negociado, ni dado en garantía a persona natural o jurídica alguna. Que la Parte Demandada, Citibank, NA, es el último tenedor conocido de las obligaciones representadas por el pagaré que se pretende cancelar y el acreedor que consta en el Registro de la Propiedad. Que la Demandante es cotitular en común proindiviso de la propiedad gravada con la hipoteca que se pretende cancelar y aunque no suscribió el pagaré extraviado es una persona con derecho a exigir y solicitar la cancelación de dicha obligación. Se alega, además, que dicho pagaré se encuentra extraviado. Se les apercibe y notifica que, si no contestan la demanda radicada en su contra, radicando e! original de la misma y enviando copia de su contestación al abogado de la parte demandante: LCDO. ORLANDO MALDONADO RIVERA; COND. TORRREUNDA APT. 504, 85 CALLE MAYAGUEZ, SAN JUAN, PUERTO

RICO 00917; TELÉFONO: 787450-0077; CORREO ELECTRONICO: lic.omaldonado@ qmail.com dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, se les anotará la rebeldía en su contra y se dictará sentencia en su contra, conforme se solicita en la Demanda, sin más citar, ni oír. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, a15 d noviembre e 2021. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Sec Regional. Maria I Rios Lopez, Sec Serv a Sala.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA

MARIA MAGDALENA DIAZ HERNANDEZ, MARISOL DIAZ HERNANDEZ, MIGDALIA DIAZ HERNANDEZ, ROSALIE DIAZ HERNANDEZ Parte Demandante(s) Vs.

RICARDO DIAZ HERNANDEZ Y ELIZABETH DIAZ HERNANDEZ

Teléfono 787-864-4090, amergiegarcia@gmail.com; abogada de la parte demandante.

Se le apercibe y notifica que, si no contesta la demanda radicada en su contra dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, se le anotará rebeldía en su contra y se dictará sentencia en su contra, conforme se solicita en la Demanda, sin más citarle, ni oírle. Expido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy día 4 de noviembre de 2021. LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL, SECRETARIA DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA. LYSHA M. CORDERO DANOIS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

kenmuel.riuz@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy día 29 de septiembre de 2021. En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 29 de septiembre de 2021.

Lisilda Martínez Agosto, Secretaria. Marta E. Donate Resto, Secretaria Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

Demandante Vs.

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC COMO AGENTE DE ACE ONE FUNDING, LLC

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO JUAN MATEO ANDUJAR Demandado DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Civil Núm.: GM2021CV00598.

SALA SUPERIOR DE GURA- Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICBO EN CAGUAS TO.

ISLAND PORTFOLIO A: JUAN MATEO SERVICES, LLC., COMO AGENTE DE ACE ONE ANDUJAR - PARC NUEVA OLIMPO 551 CALLE C FUNDING, LLC. GUAYAMA, PUERTO RICO Demandante Vs. 00784-4146.

ELIZABETH POR LA PRESENTE se le ROSA SANCHEZ

Parte Demandada(s) Caso Núm.: CA2021CV01783.

Sobre: PARTICIÓN DE HERENCIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

Demandada Caso Núm.: GR2021CV00169.

Salón Núm.: 703. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.

Queda emplazado y notificado de que en este Tribunal MARIA MAGDALENA DIAZ HERNANDEZ, MARISOL DIAZ HERNANDEZ, MIGDALIA DIAZ HERNANDEZ, ROSALIE DIAZ HERNANDEZ han radicado una demanda en su contra sobre: Partición de Herencia. Se le notifica que comparezca ante el Tribunal dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de este edicto y exponer lo que a sus derechos convenga, en el presente caso.

Se le notifica que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), a la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Carolina y enviando copia a la parte demandante: Lcda. Amergie Enid García Santiago, Calle Francisco G. Bruno #22 Oeste Guayama, Puerto Rico 00784,

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto.

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

A: ELIZABETH DIAZ HERNANDEZ.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE GUAYAMA

A: ELIZABETH ROSA SANCHEZ. HC 2 BOX 18621, GURABO P.R. 00778; URB. JARD DE GURABO 183 CALLE 1, GURABO P.R. 00778.

emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto.

Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, el Lcdo. José F. Aguilar Vélez cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección jose. aguilar@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law. com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Guayama, Puerto Rico, hoy día 4 de noviembre de 2021.

En Guayama, Puerto Rico, el 5 de noviembre de 2021. MARISOL ROSADO RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. VIRGEN DE JESÚS LÓPEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

27

How Peng Shuai went from ‘Chinese Princess’ to silenced #MeToo accuser

By ALEXANDRA STEVENSON and STEVEN LEE MYERS

W

hen Peng Shuai was a young tennis player in China’s national sports system, she battled officials for control over her own professional career — and she won.

When she took on one of China’s most powerful men three weeks ago, accusing him of sexual assault, she found her voice silenced, erased from China’s heavily controlled cyberspace and smiling in awkward public appearances most likely intended to defuse what has become an international scandal.

At 35, Peng is one of her country’s most recognized athletes, a doubles champion at Wimbledon and the French Open whom state media once hailed as “our Chinese princess.” If anyone were able to break through the country’s icy resistance to #MeToo allegations, it would seem to be someone like her.

Instead, she has become another example of China’s iron grip over politics, society and sports, and an object lesson in the struggle facing women who dare to challenge Beijing — even those who have had a history of winning praise from the state.

Her allegation was the first to penetrate the highest pinnacles of power in China, the Politburo Standing Committee. It was an act of courage and perhaps desperation that has resulted in an aggressive response, smothering her inside China.

“Peng has always been a strong-minded person,” said Terry Rhoads, managing director of Zou Sports, the talent management agency in Shanghai that represented her for a decade until 2014. “I witnessed up close her struggles and battles with people bossing her or having authority over her tennis.”

Over the weekend, the state’s propaganda apparatus produced a series of photographs and videos purporting to show Peng carrying on as if nothing had happened.

The only thing missing from the recent flurry of coverage was her own voice, one once strong enough to force the authorities to bend to her steely determination to control her own destiny.

The images were in striking contrast to

Peng Shuai during her qualifying match against Nicole Gibbs at U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York in 2019. her own description three weeks ago of being like “a moth darting into the flames” in order to “tell the truth” about her relationship with — and mistreatment by — Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier, who she said assaulted her around three years ago.

“The authorities have never liked feminists or #MeToo,” said Lijia Zhang, author of “Lotus,” a novel depicting prostitution in China. Those who “dared to speak out,” she said, “have been silenced.”

A #WhereisPengShuai campaign has taken root less than three months before Beijing is to host the Winter Olympics, an event that the country’s leadership has indicated would validate Communist Party rule. The handling of Peng’s accusation has only inflamed criticism, giving ammunition to those who have called for a boycott.

“These photos and videos can only prove that Peng Shuai is alive, but nothing else. They cannot prove that Peng Shuai is free,” Teng Biao, one of China’s most prominent civil rights lawyers, said in a telephone call from his home in New Jersey.

Peng spoke Sunday with officials at the International Olympic Committee, which passed on a message from her saying “that she is safe and well” but that she “would like to have her privacy respected at this time.”

That did not satisfy Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA Tour, which has been pressing for answers about Peng’s ability to move and speak freely.

“It was good to see Peng Shuai in recent videos, but they don’t alleviate or address the WTA’s concern about her wellbeing and ability to communicate without censorship or coercion,” the group said in a statement.

Women in China have long struggled to have agency in the country, a situation many activists say has worsened since Xi Jinping came to power nearly a decade ago.

Peng carved out a professional tennis career that meant taking on officials who tried to dictate whom she could train with, what tournaments she could play in and how much money she could keep for herself.

When it comes to an accusation of sexual misconduct, however, the state has proved to be more resistant to change. The moment Peng posted her #MeToo allegations, Teng said, “she was barely protected by the law, and it was all politics that determined her fate.”

A number of women in media, at universities and in the private sector in China have come forward with accusations of

sexual assault and harassment — only to face legal action themselves and harassment online.

According to the message Peng posted Nov. 2 on her verified account on Weibo, the ubiquitous social media platform in China, she first met Zhang when she was a rising star and he was a party secretary in Tianjin, the provincial-level port city near Beijing. That would have been some time before 2012. She moved to Tianjin to start professional training in 1999 when she was 13.

Peng’s post described a conflicted relationship that alternated between playing chess and tennis with Zhang, or feeling ignored by him and ridiculed by his wife. She did not explicitly acknowledge the disparity in age and power between the two.

“Romantic attraction is such a complicated thing,” she wrote.

Zhang was elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee in 2012, becoming a vice premier under Xi. He stepped down after one five-year term on the committee.

Peng said it was around that time that Zhang coerced her into having sex.

“I was crying the entire time,” she wrote.

Her post was censored within 34 minutes, but three weeks later, it continues to reverberate. Those who knew her from her professional tennis career continue to wonder if she is safe. Some human rights activists contend that she is being forced to take part in staged situations intended to deflect questions about what happened.

In the flurry of coverage over the weekend, most of which did not appear in Chinese state media, Peng was shown posing with stuffed animals, dining in a Beijing restaurant, appearing at a youth tournament and dialing in to a video call with the head of the International Olympic Committee.

“Can any girl fake such a sunny smile under pressure?” Hu Xijin, the editor of The Global Times, a state media tabloid, wrote on Twitter, which is banned in China.

Peng no longer appears in control of her own messaging.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more interviews with Peng Shuai,” Maria Repnikova, an assistant professor of political communication at Georgia State University and author of a new book, “Chinese Soft Power, “but I doubt that she will raise any sensitive matters.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Terence Crawford has his belt, and choices to make

By MORGAN CAMPBELL

A

crisp counter left uppercut from Terence Crawford dropped Shawn Porter early in the 10th round of their World Boxing Organization title fight in Las Vegas on Saturday night. Moments later, a concussive right hook to Porter’s temple started a sequence that ended with Porter on the canvas and his trainer and father, Kenny Porter, signaling to the referee to stop the fight.

The technical knockout brought a definitive end to a tense, rugged, dramatic bout between top-tier welterweights.

Crawford, now 38-0, is widely acknowledged as one of the division’s top two fighters, alongside Errol Spence Jr. By defeating Porter, Crawford defended his belt and earned a signature win over an elite performer. Entering the final phase of the fight, Porter, now 31-4-1, still had a chance to win a decision, but Crawford erased it with a stunning display of power.

But then came a plot twist.

Crawford, 34, has long wanted to fight Spence, but boxing business has prevented it from happening. Premier Boxing Champions manages Spence, while Crawford is signed to Top Rank. The two outfits rarely cooperate, but Crawford’s title defense against Porter, a PBC client, seemed to signal hope that the two sides would collaborate on future fights.

Yet after the fight, Crawford, who is now a free agent, according to a person who wasn’t authorized to discuss his contract publicly, spoke of his relationship with Top Rank and its president, Bob Arum, in the past tense, hinting at a shift in the balance of promotional power.

“Bob couldn’t secure the Spence fight when I was with him,” Crawford said at the post-fight news conference with a silent Arum beside him. “How can he secure it when I’m not with him?”

Porter, a 34-year-old former champion, won the first round on all three scorecards by pressuring Crawford. The fight began in earnest in round two, when Porter landed an overhand right to Crawford’s face, drawing Crawford into the first of several exchanges.

By round seven, Porter’s braids, tightly bound in cornrows, were fraying. He landed another overhand right. Crawford answered with a left hand to the face, and

Porter, left, a former champion, announced his retirement after the match. finished the round by landing a jab and a left.

In the eighth round, Crawford’s breathing grew heavier. He unleashed long punches to keep Porter at a distance. Porter landed a series of rights anyway.

Crawford closed the ninth round with a thudding left uppercut, and in the 10th he landed a similar punch to score the first knockdown. When Porter went down a second time, his father stopped the fight.

The elder Porter, who oversaw Shawn Porter’s training, hinted that his son hadn’t prepared properly for Crawford but still gave him credit.

“All things combined, he can do it,” Kenny Porter said of Crawford. “Offense, defense, switching sides. Speed, quickness and power.”

According to CompuBox, Crawford landed 98 of 328 punches, while Porter connected on 79 of 347. While Porter connected on two more power punches, Crawford’s statistical edge came mainly from his jab — he landed 33, compared

with Porter’s 12. Entering round 10, Crawford led 86-85 on two official scorecards and 87-84 on the third.

Porter, whose four career losses have come in competitive bouts against welterweight champions, announced his retirement after the loss to Crawford.

“I’ve given this sport a great deal,” Porter said. “After you’ve fought everybody at the top, what else do you do? I don’t want to be a gatekeeper.”

And Crawford, who has won nine straight bouts by knockout, said it was too soon to choose from among his options.

“We’re going to go to the drawing board and see what’s best for Terence Crawford,” he said.

He didn’t sound inclined to re-sign with Top Rank, but it’s possible.

Crawford could continue as a free agent, leveraging his status and undefeated record to score one-off fights across boxing’s promotional landscape. Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez has used that formula to become the undisputed super-middleweight

champion, winning belts in fights with England-based promoter Matchroom Boxing, then jumping to PBC to defeat Caleb Plant and unify the title.

Or Crawford could join PBC, which manages Spence, who holds the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation titles, and Yordenis Ugas, the World Boxing Association champion.

“You already know who I want,” Crawford said after the fight.

He meant Spence, the undefeated fighter from Dallas, who recovered from a fiery car crash in 2019 to defeat Danny García last year, and who underwent surgery in August to repair a torn retina.

Spence watched the fight from ringside, and, moments after the referee declared Crawford the winner, was pictured shaking his head and leaving the arena.

The PBC on Fox Instagram account posted a photo illustration of Spence and Crawford squaring off in the ring. Spence later shared the post to his Instagram Stories feed.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Sudoku

29

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

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

(Mar 21-April 20)

You’ll be deeply aware of the subtleties of situations Aries, which is to your advantage. The Cancer Moon suggests you may be in protective mode and keen to defend your own. But if you are observant, there could be an opportunity on the cards for you, that can enhance your income and provide a greater measure of security. It might not last for long, so grab it while you can.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Feeling at a loss, Taurus? The Moon’s links to Venus and Mars can be a call to be adventurous. While you could be very attached to comforting daily routines, the cosmos is trying to shake you out of them, and encouraging you to try doing things differently. Mix with new people, try eating foods from different countries and cultures, or wear something that emphasizes your uniqueness.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Money may be burning a hole in your pocket, but with care, you can override this and choose to save and invest it instead. Is there a skill you could learn to help you make progress with your business or job?

Putting any extra cash to good use might change your future for the better. Plus, you may feel moved to sell unwanted items, as some can be worth more than you think, Gemini.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

You seem well disposed towards others, making this a good day for reaching agreements or planning. It’s also excellent for exploring your creative potential, and finding ways to boost your cash flow by making use of your skills. Have an entrepreneurial idea? If so, a push from feisty Mars could assist you in getting started. Need advice? Someone may have a brilliant suggestion.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

Dreaming of living a different lifestyle that might even be in another place? Perhaps the time of fantasizing is over, and now action is required. Mars in Scorpio encourages you to dig-deep and consider what you want, and what you don’t want. As you build a picture of your future, the actions you need to take will become obvious. Then it’s down to you to make it happen, Leo.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

An intense conversation might find you admiring someone more and more, and determined to connect with them again in the future. Whether this is a budding romance or a developing friendship, it might take some time to get going. Don’t let this worry you though, just be patient, as when it does happen, you’ll know that this bond could last, and be exceptionally supportive.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

The more effort you make to get your point across, the more you’ll attract the attention of those who can offer opportunities or open doors. It may be because of one uplifting conversation in which you assist another with an issue, that your biggest gain of the week takes place. Just as you have helped them, they’ll be ready to assist you with something that you can’t manage alone.

Scorpio

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Where is your heart leading you, Scorpio? It may be somewhere new and fresh that you feel drawn to, and that seems to promise a deep sense of satisfaction. It could be a place you want to visit, or the chance to learn something with like-minded people. This is a good time to follow those yearnings and see where they lead, as something promising might be calling out to you.

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

With Mars stirring up your psychological zone, you may have become more aware of your limitations recently. With the Sun moving through your sign, the time to dwell on them has passed. Now is the opportunity to move beyond them and discover what you can do. If you have your mind set on a new challenge, the intention to accomplish it could move mountains.

Your social life has a lively edge, which can be made all the richer by meetings with kindred spirits who appreciate where you’re coming from. They may see a side of you that others rarely notice, which will boost your confidence. It might be time to share interests, attend events or collaborate. On another note, quiet reflection could help you get a perspective on a key issue.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

You may find yourself eager to socialize, and paradoxically, needing seclusion and quiet to think things through. Venus in a private zone offers a chance to resolve issues that might be hanging over you, as doing so could pave the way for exciting developments. Ready to tackle household expenses?

A burst of inspiration can find you keen to save money on key goods and services.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

It might seem easier to placate another rather than confront them with the truth. Even so, an intense influence suggests that if you are honest, a key relationship may change for the better. Ready for some teamwork? Someone you connect with could make the perfect pairing for a project that you both have passion and enthusiasm for. What are you waiting for Pisces?

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

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Ziggy

32

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

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