The Financial Oversight and Management Board recently questioned LUMA Energy for not conduct ing a competitive bid for a $26.5 million contract to obtain 5,000 galvanized street poles to replace those damaged by Hurricane Fiona.
The oversight approved with observations the contract between LUMA Energy Servco, as agent to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, and Texas-based Transamerican Power Products Inc. for the galvanized poles. LUMA Energy Servco is part of LUMA Energy.
“Our review is solely limited to compliance of the Proposed Contract with Section 204(b)(2) of PROMESA [the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act], which seeks to ensure that proposed contracts promote market competition and are not inconsistent with approved Fiscal Plans,” the federally appointed board said. “For the avoidance of doubt, the review performed by the [oversight board] does not cover a legal review of the contractual documentation or the contracting process.”
In addition, the oversight board did not engage in any due diligence or background check with respect to the contracting parties or whether the contracting parties comply with the requirements under the applicable con tract, according to a letter sent to LUMA Energy Servco Vice President of Procurement and Contracts Mariano Mier Romeu on Nov. 18.
According to the proposed contract, LUMA will execute individual purchase orders for the required ma terials. The proposed contract has a one-year term from its date of execution.
They will be paid for with public funds but LUMA said it will seek federal reimbursement of the contract amount.
“It appears that LUMA is conducting a noncom petitive procurement, relying on the emergency/exigency exception for competitive procurement,” the oversight board noted. “LUMA provided a justification memo randum indicating that Hurricanes Fiona and Ian have caused strain to the supply chain and logistics networks.”
The board said further that LUMA should prepare and maintain a comprehensive justification memorandum in the procurement file, which must, at a minimum: identify the circumstances that justify a noncompetitive procure ment; provide a brief description of the product or service being procured, including the expected amount; and explain why the noncompetitive procurement is necessary.
The memo should explain the nature of the public exigency/emergency, including specific conditions and circumstances that clearly illustrate why a procurement other than through noncompetitive proposals would cause unacceptable delay in addressing the public exi gency/emergency; state how long the noncompetitively procured proposed contract will be in place and identify the impact of the unavailability of a noncompetitively procured contract for that amount of time; describe the steps taken to determine that full and open competition could not have been used; discuss cost rea sonableness and the methods used to justify cost reasonableness; and describe any known conflicts of interest and any efforts that were made to identify possible conflicts of interest.
LUMA must also describe why no other contract type was suitable other than time and ma terials, or T&M, at this point, and describe how LUMA will maintain oversight over the contractor to ensure the contractor is using ef ficient methods and effective cost controls, among other require ments, the oversight board said.
Some $50 million in federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds have been set aside to renew the El Conquistador Resort Hotel project in Fajardo.
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia and island Housing Sec retary William Rodríguez Rodríguez said earlier this week that the funds come from the Economic Development and Commerce Department’s (DDEC by its Spanish acronym) Investment Portfolio for Growth (IPG) program to create jobs and improve the economy.
“Without a doubt, the economic development of Puerto Rico is an essential part of the recovery, which is why we continue to promote a favorable environment for this,” the governor said.
Pierluisi said that through the IPG program, the Puerto Rico government is providing a significant loan to a large private investment project for large-scale commercial and industrial development.
The project, with a total estimated cost of $263 mil lion, consists of renovating rooms, restaurants, and other areas of the lodging structure located in the northeastern coastal municipality.
Under IPG, the Housing Department (PRDOH) pro
vides partially forgivable loans of between $10 and $50 million for large-scale projects, with the purpose of spur ring economic growth and job creation.
The Housing chief stated that “the creation and reten
tion of employees is a fundamental aspect of the strategy that the government of Puerto Rico seeks to implement through IPG.”
“As the agency managing the program, PRDOH has sought to identify high-impact projects that create goodpaying jobs,” Rodríguez said. “It is the first of several projects likely to receive a financial injection of CDBG-DR funds for that purpose.”
After the PRDOH opened a request for proposals in August 2021, the governor created an evaluation com mittee to determine projects based on eligibility criteria, among which the creation or retention of over 300 jobs stands out, along with the design of economic activi ties that generate more than 50 percent of their income through exports.
The committee includes the Housing secretary, the executive director of the Budget Management Office, the DDEC secretary, the assistant chief of staff for state affairs at La Fortaleza, and the executive director of the Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority.
IPG has a budget of $800 million following Puerto Rico’s CDBG-DR Action Plan. Over the next few months, the PRDOH intends to announce more projects with sig nificant economic impact supported with the financing provided by the program.
By THE STAR STAFFAt least four major companies have submitted state ments of qualifications in response to Puerto Rico’s solicitation seeking a concessionaire to operate highways PR-52, PR-53, PR-66 and PR-20, sources told the STAR.
Plenary Group, Sacyr and Abertis are among the com
panies that answered a request for proposals published by the Puerto Rico Public-Private Partnership Authority (P3A) during the summer.
There are, however, more companies participating. While the deadline for the request for qualifications was September, the agency pushed it to October.
The P3A, in conjunction with the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority (HTA), is seeking conces sionaires to finance, operate, maintain and improve four toll roads, which are slated to produce $150 million in revenues, with PR-52 generating the most revenue.
The HTA recently completed a deal to restructure some $6.4 billion in debts. It is unclear how the proposed P3A will fit into the debt adjustment plan.
Under the restructuring plan, the HTA must establish a toll management office that is exclusively responsible for toll roads, separate responsibility for construction and maintenance between toll roads and non-toll roads, and transfer the Urban Train/Tren Urbano to the Puerto Rico Integrated Transit Authority.
The reforms were designed to create operational stability and improve the transportation sector overall.
Following the restructuring, HTA Executive Director Edwin González Montalvo said increases in tolls will begin in January 2023. The hike is expected to be about 8% and there will be annual increases.
“Tolls are the only income that the Highway and Transportation Authority has fixed,” González Mon talvo said. “The tolls will be for debt service to pay the debt, which is now more reasonable. It will be a more comfortable payment in that sense because the debt is smaller.”
The Financial Oversight and Man agement Board for Puerto Rico is allowing the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) and the island Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) to borrow $24.9 million from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund Program administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The agreement’s structure breaks down the funding into a $22.5 million interest-bearing (1%) senior loan with a 30-year repayment period and a $2.4 million non-interest bearing and principal forgiveness loan.
In 2021, PRASA borrowed some $32 million from the EPA for investments as part of a financial assistance agreement to invest in new water infrastructure.
The current deal arises from an op erating agreement between the EPA and the DNER signed on July 25, 2018, which enables PRASA to apply for additional loans and grants under the program.
The loan provides for cost-effective capital investments in PRASA’s wastewater treatment facilities, which are critical for PRASA to continue providing safe and clean wastewater services.
“Therefore, the agreement is consis tent with the 2022 Certified Fiscal Plan for PRASA, as it mitigates PRASA’s need to use its own operating revenues to comply with capital investment projections,” the oversight board said in a letter written by its general counsel, Jaime A. El Koury, to
Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Au thority Executive Director Omar Marrero Díaz.
However, the board said, PRASA must continue to deploy capital investments while aiming to maximize the multiple
sources of assigned and obligated federal funding.
“Particularly, PRASA should priori tize the capital deployment efforts of the federal funds awarded for recovery and reconstruction projects stemming from
the 2017 hurricanes,” the letter said. “As such, the Oversight Board reiterates the importance of using the multiple sources of federal funding available to PRASA for the deployment of capital investments.”
In August 2019, PRASA and the central government reached an agreement with the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture on a consensual modification of about $1 billion in outstanding loans under Section 20 of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, commonly known as PROMESA. The deal lowered PRASA’s debt service payments on the U.S. government program loans by about $380 million over the next 10 years. It also eliminated some $1 billion in claims against the Puerto Rico government and provided PRASA with access to $400 million in new federal funding.
Inside this brick-walled town hall just feet away from a freight train line, a crowd of Black, white and Indigenous small-town leaders sat eager to hear how President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan would help their North Carolina communities.
The mayor of the town of Bear Grass asked how the administration would ensure that the money trickled down to her roughly 100 residents. Another wondered if the fund ing meant schoolchildren would no longer rely on a bookstore for access to broadband internet. The mayor of Lewiston Woodville asked if her community would finally have a grocery store.
Sitting in front of the crowd was Mitch Landrieu, the former New Orleans mayor now tasked with making sure the huge injection of federal funds reaches those who need the money most.
“It’s our job on the implementation side to stay on it like a dog on a bone and make sure the execution is as close to what the president’s vision is,” Landrieu said in an interview during a recent trip. “If we’re going to have a fight, we have a fight and we can get it resolved sooner rather than later.”
Over the past year, Landrieu has been on a national tour of sorts for Biden’s infrastruc ture package, hopping commercial flights around the country to pitch the funds for roads, bridges, broadband and clean energy. And while the decisions about how to spend the money largely fall to state leaders, Landrieu is out promoting the plan, sometimes even negotiating with local officials who disagree
with the president’s ideas about how best to repair the nation’s crumbling infrastructure in an equitable way.
Biden has said he wants the money to help repair the damage from the United States’ history of racial disparities in how the government builds roads, highways and other physical infrastructure. State and local officials have often steered roads through Black com munities, isolating them from parks or eco nomic gain and destroying neighborhoods.
Before the midterm elections, Landrieu had traveled to 37 cities and spoken to every governor except Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, both of whom have openly clashed with the Biden administration.
Landrieu discussed the package with the governors’ chiefs of staff instead.
“And they all want the money,” Landrieu said, adding that both states have followed the administration’s recommendation of ap pointing a local infrastructure coordinator.
Traveling the country with the keys to a $1 trillion infrastructure package is also an effective way to build alliances for a future presidential run. Landrieu is often mentioned as a possible candidate — a path he dismisses when pressed.
“I’m focused on getting this money to the ground,” he said.
A native of the Broadmoor neighbor hood of New Orleans, Landrieu helped the
city rebound after Hurricane Katrina in part by securing millions of dollars in federal funding. He followed in the footsteps of his father, Moon Landrieu, who helped defend federal civil rights mandates and advocated integration as New Orleans’ mayor. The younger Landrieu confronted the nation’s his tory of racism himself when he spearheaded the removal of four confederate monuments in New Orleans in 2017.
Landrieu is now responsible for ensur ing that equity is at the center of Biden’s infrastructure investments. He said one way to make sure that happens is by pushing states to repair existing roads and bridges — or connect them to underserved communities — rather than just extending them through neighborhoods that had been splintered by the highway expansion of the 1950s.
The bulk of the package is distributed directly to the states, although local lead ers must submit to the federal government plans on how they will spend the funds. Any additional funding from discretionary grants is dependent in part on whether the states design projects with a focus on under served communities and the environment, Landrieu said.
At least 6,000 projects funded by the infrastructure package were underway at the start of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, according to the White House, and roughly
$185 billion from the package had been distributed to states.
Some Republicans have said states should be given even more leeway over the funding.
“Excessive consideration of equity, union memberships or climate as lenses to view suitable projects would be counterpro ductive,” 16 Republican governors wrote in a letter to Biden and Landrieu this year. “Your administration should not attempt to push a social agenda through hard infrastructure investments.”
After receiving the letter, Landrieu’s team set up meetings with some of those governors to hear out their frustrations, his aides said. Some pushed back on the admin istration’s call for installing electric vehicle charging stations every 50 miles on interstate highways.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina were particularly frustrated over guidance that said states should prioritize repairing highways rather than extending them. McMaster even brought it up with Biden directly, according to a senior White House official.
Spokespeople for the governors did not respond to requests for comment.
Landrieu and his team assured the gov ernors that they had the discretion to spend the federal funds on projects they deemed beneficial to their states. But if the states fol lowed the administration’s priorities, includ ing its guidance on reducing environmental harm, it may increase the chances of receiving additional federal grants.
“We don’t have to OK their plans unless we think those plans meet with our criteria. Now there will necessarily be a conflict because not every state wants to do the same thing and then we have to work with them,” Landrieu said. “And then there’s a negotiation that goes on in every one of the programs.”
While speaking to residents and public officials across the nation, Landrieu often goes out of his way to say that Biden’s focus on equity is not just a matter of race but also ensuring small rural towns receive as much federal support as big cities.
“When we talk about equity, we’re talking about everyone that was left out, and it involves rural,” he said. “It involves white folk and Black folk and brown folk who live in rural communities and have been left out.”
In the end, the numbers were 903, 28, 8 and 282.
It’s not a football play. There were 903 applicants for licenses for the first retail recreational marijuana sto res in New York state. Earlier this week, 28 licenses went to entrepreneurs and eight to nonprofits. And regulators relea sed 282 pages of proposed fees and timelines that, among other things, would let the state’s existing medical cannabis providers get into the recreational market.
The licenses were awarded by the state Cannabis Control Board. The action closed a seed-to-sale supply chain and is expected to lead to legal retail marijuana sales by the end of the year, even though a Michigan company is challenging some of the New York license requirements — including one that says applicants must have been convicted of a cannabis offense in New York state. That provision was intended to help provide opportunities in the legal cannabis business to people in communities that were targeted during the war on drugs.
Tremaine Wright, the chairwoman of the board, called the vote on Monday “a monumental moment.”
“Not long ago, the idea of New York legalizing cannabis seemed unbelievable,” she said. “Now, not only have we legalized, but we’re also building a legal adult-use market with an equity-driven approach.”
The Office of Cannabis Management, which develops regulations under the control board’s supervision, said most of the licenses went to people in New York City and on Long Island. Freeman Klopott, the agency’s spokesman, said 20 of the recipients were from areas with some of the lowest median household incomes in the country.
Among them were Naiomy Guerrero, 31, and her father and an older brother, Hector. She said Hector had been arrested several times for possession of marijuana during the era of stop and frisk, a program that led to unjustified pedestrian stops and searches in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods like Morris Heights in the Bronx, where the Guerrero siblings grew up. A federal judge ruled in 2013 that such tactics were racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.
“To do this for my family, to move this forward, is my life’s work,” she said. “If the true goal of cannabis in New York is to be equitable, then who better than us? Because we’ve suffered at the hands of the war on drugs. We come from the most policed neighborhoods in the Bronx.”
Licenses went to at least three New York City-based nonprofits: Housing Works, the Doe Fund and LIFE Camp, a 20-year-old nonprofit whose original purpose was to help reduce violence and arrests in southeast Queens. It is thought
to be the first nonprofit led by a Black woman to receive a license.
The 36 licensees must now submit additional infor mation about their finances and business partners. Once regulators have reviewed that information, they can begin deliveries from locations of their choice, a shift announced on Monday that regulators said would allow operators to “generate capital and scale their operations.”
But that change suggests that the state may be struggling to provide the license holders with storefronts and loans as planned. The state Dormitory Authority, the agency leading the leasing and design process for the storefronts, said in a statement that with licensees being selected and “a delivery model in place,” it could now “continue finalizing leases and financing without delaying sales.”
find the means to motivate employees at a social media company as he did with wor kers whose quests were to move people away from gas-powered cars or send hu mans into space.
“At Tesla and SpaceX, the approach has always been high risk, high reward,” Madsen said. “Twitter has been high risk, but the question is: What is the reward that comes out of it?”
Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
On Sunday, Musk held a meeting with Twitter’s sales employees, according to two people with knowledge of the mat ter. Then on Monday, he laid off emplo yees in the sales department, they said. Late last week, Musk fired Robin Wheeler, a top sales executive, they added. Bloom berg earlier reported that more layoffs might be coming.
Twitter is also reaching out to some engineers who quit to ask them to return, the people said. In a meeting with emplo yees Monday, Musk said the company was not planning any further layoffs, according to one person who attended.
“Only the paranoid survive,” he wro te, quoting Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel.
A crisis atmosphere and self-impo sed austerity gives Musk the cover to make drastic changes and fire top managers or eliminate large swathes of staff, two for mer Tesla executives said. It also prepares those who remain to work under extreme conditions to bring about Musk’s desires, they said.
The approach at Twitter, where Musk has laid off thousands of employees, “is typical Elon,” Deak said.
Some of Musk’s former employees question whether his management tactics will ultimately work at Twitter. Tesla and SpaceX were in earlier stages of growth when their boss whipped out his tough language and told everyone they had to go full tilt. But Twitter is a more mature com pany that has performed inconsistently for years.
Musk’s management techniques are “good startup and growth strategy, but it is not good for building a stable company,” Deak said.
By RYAN MAC and JACK EWINGElon Musk was sleeping at the office. He dismissed employees and exe cutives at will. And he lamented his company was on the verge of bankruptcy.
That was back in 2018 and the com pany was Tesla, as Musk’s electric auto maker struggled to build its mass-market vehicle, the Model 3.
“It was excruciating,” he told The New York Times at the time. “There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for three or four days — days when I didn’t go outside.”
The billionaire’s experience with what he called Tesla’s “production hell” has become a blueprint for the crisis he has created at Twitter, which he bought for $44 billion last month. Over the years, Musk has developed a playbook for ma naging his companies — including Tes la and rocket manufacturer SpaceX — through periods of pain, employing shock treatment and alarmism and pushing his workers and himself to put aside their fa milies and friends to spend all their energy on his mission.
At Twitter, Musk has used many of those same tactics to upend the social me dia company in just a few weeks.
Since late last month, the 51-yearold has laid off 50% of Twitter’s 7,500 employees and accepted the resignations of 1,200 or more. On Monday, he be gan another round of layoffs, two people said. He tweeted that he was sleeping at Twitter’s offices in San Francisco. And he has applied mission-driven language, te lling Twitter’s workers that the company could go bankrupt if he wasn’t able to turn it around. Those who want to work on “Twitter 2.0” must commit to his “hard core” vision in writing, he has said.
David Deak, who worked at Tesla from 2014 to 2016 as a senior enginee ring manager overseeing a supply chain for battery materials, said Musk “clearly thrives in existential circumstances.” He added, “He quasi creates them to light the fire under everybody.”
The similarities between Musk’s ap proach to Twitter and what he did at Tesla and SpaceX are evident, added Tammy Madsen, a management professor at Santa Clara University. But it’s unclear if he will
At companies led by Musk, the pat tern of claiming that the firms are on the brink of a potential bankruptcy has come up often. At Tesla in December 2008, du ring the depths of the financial crisis, Musk closed a $50 million investment round from Daimler, he said, on the “last hour of last day possible or payroll would’ve bou nced 2 days later.”
He has said the same about SpaceX, once noting that both SpaceX and Tesla had a more than 90% chance that they “would be worth $0” in their early days.
For 2017, Musk said, SpaceX had to perform rocket launches once every two weeks or face bankruptcy, recalled one former SpaceX executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of re tribution. At a company that was driven by a goal to make life “multiplanetary,” the threat of bankruptcy was a motivating fac tor, the former executive said.
SpaceX has since successfully sent many rockets into space and safely landed them again on Earth. But Musk has retur ned to his favorite stick, tweeting last year that if a “severe global recession” were to dry up capital, bankruptcy at the rocket maker was “not impossible.”
Musk’s all-in commitment to a com pany is often inspirational, but can also turn toxic and engender a culture of fear and scapegoating, three former Tesla and SpaceX managers said.
And for Musk, remaking Twitter is only a part-time job. He remains CEO of Tesla, which he said in court he continued to lead, and SpaceX, where, he said, he focuses on designing rockets rather than management.
Musk also leads Boring Co., a tunne ling startup, and Neuralink, a brain-com puter interface technology firm. He has said his long-term goal is to save humanity by developing technology for space travel, or, in his words, by “making life multipla netary in order to ensure the long-term survival of consciousness.”
The multitasking has become an issue in a lawsuit filed by Tesla sharehol ders who objected to the pay package that made Musk the world’s richest person. Last week in Delaware, under questioning by a lawyer representing shareholders who have accused Musk of neglecting his duties at Tesla, the billionaire said his in tense involvement in Twitter was tempo rary.
In forests, in fields and in fierce urban combat, the Ukrainian military has defied the odds, and all expectations, and forced Russia into multiple retreats over nine brutal, bloody months of war.
And yet despite its success, and even with tens of thousands of soldiers killed on each side, Ukraine by one measure is only halfway done: Its army has now reclaimed about 55% of the territory Russia occupied after invading in February.
Ukraine is on the offensive along most of the 600-mile front line. Russia is in a defensive crouch in the south and northeast while still attacking toward one eastern city, Bakhmut.
Ukraine’s success has brought the war to a pivotal juncture. Because it is on the offensive, it can shape the next phase of the fighting, determining whether to push its ad vantage farther into Russian-occupied territory, or settle in for the winter, as military analysts say Russia would like to do.
Should it press on, Ukraine faces sig nificant hurdles: While it has pushed more Russian fighters into a tighter space, this means the battles ahead will be against more densely defended territory, on challenging terrain.
Ukraine is now fighting in boats in the reedy marshes and deltaic islands of the lower Dnieper River; it is pushing against multiple trench lines on snowy plains in the Zapori zhzhia region in the south; and is engaging in a bloody, seesaw fight along the so-called Svatove-Kreminna line, in pine forests in nor theastern Ukraine.
After the Russian withdrawal from Kherson this month, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine made a dramatic visit to the city, the only provincial capital captu red by Russian forces. Raising the Ukrainian flag over a government building, he echoed a famous speech by Winston Churchill after the British victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942.
Churchill had declared “the end of the beginning” to the conflict, which would drag on for three more years. Zelenskyy tried to flip the narrative.
“This is the beginning of the end of the war,” he said.
Still, about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory remains occupied by Russia.
A reshaped front
The winter war, after Ukraine liberated
the city of Kherson and surrounding areas earlier this month, is beginning now with a radically altered front line and a Russian army that is demoralized and degraded.
“Russian ground units have suffered from low morale, poor execution of combined arms, subpar training, deficient logistics, corruption, and even drunkenness,” wrote Seth G. Jones, the director of the International Security Pro gram at the Center for Strategic and Interna tional Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
The Russians continue to send newly mobilized soldiers to Ukraine to make up for steep losses. The tens of thousands of Russian soldiers withdrawn from the Kherson region west of the river are freed up for redeployment, to reinforce defensive lines in the northeast, mount new attacks in the Donetsk region and fortify Moscow’s hold on the land bridge from Russia to Crimea that is so important to the Kremlin.
While military analysts frequently note that the winter weather — the first snowstorm blew over the trenches this weekend — will likely slow the pace of Ukrainian offensives, it will also certainly take a toll on poorly equipped Russian soldiers. And yet the war began in the winter last February, and both armies have extensive experience fighting in wintertime on the Eurasian steppe.
A separate war, on infrastructure
While Russian soldiers are on the defensi ve on battlefields in the south and east, Moscow has opened what amounts to a separate war: missile and drone strikes aimed at destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure, degrading the quality of life for millions of civilians in an effort to demoralize them.
Last week, Russia launched its largest bombardment of the war aimed at power plants, substations, natural gas facilities and waterworks — a sustained campaign of de vastation rarely attempted before.
Col. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, said Monday that the military has “autonomous power sources,” so that problems with the national grid do not directly impact soldiers on the front. And he said the attacks provide motivation for soldiers who have families enduring the hardships, strengthening their resolve to fight.
But the strikes are a drain on Ukraine’s air defense system, Ihnat acknowledged. He said Ukraine shoots, on average, two missiles at each Russian rocket in hopes of increasing its chance of success, and now it needs more ammunition and air defense systems to keep up.
Additionally, he said, Russia is using relatively cheap drones to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses.
Ihnat said this weekend that the missile bombardments are meant to force Kyiv to the negotiating table.
“It is clear they want to impose certain conditions, they want to make us negotiate,” he said.
The Kremlin has acknowledged as much. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, told reporters last week that the infrastructure strikes are “the consequences” of Ukraine’s unwillingness to “enter into negotiation.”
Ukraine strikes deep in the south
Despite Russian threats, officials in Kyiv say they are in no mood to negotiate, hoping instead to use the momentum of the fall offen sives to keep Russian forces on the back foot.
The Russians are also adding new layers of defenses outside the southern city of Me litopol, which was occupied by Russia in the first days of the war. It sits at the crossroads of the main highways in the south, making it perhaps the most strategically important city under Russian control.
Military analysts have speculated that Ukraine may try to divide Russian forces in the east and south by driving through Melitopol.
Bloodshed in the donbas
The rolling plains, coal mining and far ming towns of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine remain contested ground — and an
area where Russia is seeking to turn the tide of its failures.
According to Gen. Oleksiy Hromov, a member of the Ukrainian general staff, the eastern front remains the most challenging in the country. Between Nov. 12 and 17, he said, the Ukrainian military reported more than 500 military clashes in the region.
The Donbas has divided into two battles: One is a trench line through pine forests along a critical supply route known as the SvatoveKreminna line, for the two largest towns in the area. The other is a battle for Bakhmut, a city in a bowl-like river valley, with each side holding heights. The city and nearby villages have become a shooting gallery for artillery.
Bakhmut has limited strategic value, but the fighting is fierce for several reasons. For Russia, capturing it could open a pathway to other more important cities in the Donbas. Beyond that, Bakhmut is viewed as a trophy by the Russian private military contracting company, Wagner, which has sought to seize it as a way to compensate for losses elsewhere and to buoy the political fortunes back in Russia of the company’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Ukraine, for its part, has been reluctant to yield any city without a fight — witness its monthslong battle over Sievierodonetsk, a city nearby Bakhmut and ultimately taken by the Russians, and Mykolaiv in the south, still held by Ukraine.
A Ukrainian soldier and civilians take cover as Russian forces fire on Kherson, Ukraine, on Monday, Nov. 21, 2022. The San Juan DailyThe principal artist designing the exhibitions at Kherson’s regional history museum, Anatoliy Gryaz nov, was near tears. The collection to which he had dedicated a lifetime was mostly gone, he said, another cul tural institution ransacked and looted by Russian forces be fore they withdrew from the city in defeat.
Glass display cases were smashed. Deep gouges in the floor marked the paths along which Russian soldiers had dragged tombstones and other heavy objects.
“I spent my whole life working in this museum,” Gryaznov said. “And now it is all gone. Twenty years of my life — gone.”
According to the head of the culture department at its City Council, Svitlana Dumynska, Kherson had “one of the most impressive collections of regional museums in Ukrai ne.”
They are now in ruins. At the regional history mu seum, the section on guns and weapons was decimated, the Russians taking everything they could carry. A few he avier objects remained, alongside the whole of the nature exhibit.
At the nearby Kherson Art Museum, local officials said, religious paintings from the 17th and 20th centuries were torn from the walls. The Kherson police have opened a criminal investigation, classifying looting as a war crime. Ukraine’s minister of culture, Oleksandr Tkachenko,
said about 80% of the museums’ collections were gone: “Mostly the most valuable things were stolen.”
The deputy governor of the Kherson region, Serhii Khlan, told journalists on Monday that there were reports that a second branch of the regional history museum — in Kakhova, east of the Dnieper River, near an important hy droelectric plant — had also been robbed.
The Russians also cleared out the entire section of Kherson’s history museum that was dedicated to World War II, including the identification documents and medals of a Nazi soldier bearing Hitler’s signature.
They seem to have done little to conceal what they were taking.
Days after their soldiers fled the city, images circu lated on Ukrainian social media that appeared to show objects from the Kherson Art Museum being unloaded at a museum in Crimea, the peninsula that Russia unlawfully annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Museum experts identified several works of art in the pictures, including paintings by Ukrainian modernists Ivan Pokhitonov and Mykhailo Andrienko-Nechitaylo.
In an interview this month with the news outlet The Moscow Times, the Crimean museum’s director, Andrei Malgin, confirmed that the artworks had come to his insti tution, the Central Museum of Taurida in Simferopol.
“I have been instructed to take the exhibits of the Kher son Art Museum for temporary storage and ensure their sa fety until they are returned to their rightful owner,” he said.
The massacre this past weekend at Club Q, an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was at once shocking and entirely predictable, like terrorist attacks on synagogues and abortion clinics.
Police are still investigating the motive behind the shooting, in which five people were killed and at least 18 others wounded. But we know that the suspect is facing hate crime charges and that the attack took place in a climate of escalating anti-gay and anti-trans violence and threats of violence.
We also know that, in recent years, the right has become increasingly fixated on all-ages drag shows, part of a growing moral panic about children being “groomed” into gender nonconformity. Club Q hosted a drag show Saturday night and had an all-ages drag brunch scheduled for Sunday. Perhaps we’ll learn something in the coming days that will put these murders, which took place on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, into a new light, but right now, it seems hard to separate them from a nationwide campaign of anti-LGBTQ incitement.
During the early years of Donald Trump’s administration, conservatives downplayed the contempt for homosexuality and gender nonconformity that had once been central to
their movement, foregrounding racial resentment instead. Opposition to gay marriage had become a political loser, and it was hard to pose as champions of wholesome family values while enthusiastically supporting a thrice-married libertine who’d made a cameo in soft-core porn. But in recent years, as growing numbers of kids started identifying as trans, the puritanical tendency on the right has come roaring back, part of an increasingly apocalyptic worldview that sees the erosion of traditional gender roles as a harbinger of national collapse.
Chris Rufo, the entrepreneurial activist who made critical race theory into a major political issue, shifted his focus to “gender ideology” in public schools. Lawmakers began to target pro-LGBTQ teachers and to accuse anyone who opposed them of being “groomers.” When Florida was debating legislation restricting classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary wrote on Twitter, “If you’re against the AntiGrooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.”
The language of “grooming” recapitulated old homophobic tropes about gay people recruiting children, while also playing into the newer delusions of QAnon, which holds that elite liberals are part of a sprawling satanic child abuse ring. Conservatives hoped to turn this conspiracy theory into political power; according to the Human Rights Campaign, Republicans and Republicanaligned groups spent at least $50 million on anti-LGBTQ ads in the midterms.
Drag queens have been a particular obsession of those who believe that children are being lured into changing their gender or sexual orientation. “The drag queen might appear as a comic figure, but he carries an utterly serious message: the deconstruction of sex, the reconstruction of child sexuality, and the subversion of middle-class family life,” wrote Rufo in an essay about Drag Queen Story Hour, a public event series in which drag queens read to children and lead singalongs.
All over the country, Drag Queen Story Hours have been targeted by Proud Boys and other demonstrators, some heavily armed. In August, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert tweeted a photo of a flyer for a Drag Queen Story Hour at a Colorado public library with the words, “Sending a message to all the drag queens out there: stay away from the children in Colorado’s Third District!” The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh described drag events involving kids as a “cancer” and wrote that “just like cancer, stopping it is not a gentle or a painless process.”
It’s been clear for some time that there are people willing to act on such ideas. Just last month, a man in a red baseball cap firebombed a Tulsa, Oklahoma, doughnut
shop that had hosted a drag event. According to The Tulsa World, the vandal “left a note on a neighboring business that contained Bible verses and hateful rhetoric.”
Now that a mass shooting has drawn attention to the danger of the right’s dehumanizing language, many of those who have demagogued about trans kids and drag queens are painting themselves as victims. “The quest by the Democratic leadership and media to link a horrifically evil shooting at a Colorado gay club to anyone who doesn’t support a progressive social agenda is ongoing and terrible for the country,” tweeted writer and podcaster Ben Shapiro. It was an attempt to frame any call for tolerance and responsibility as intellectual bullying.
There are, I believe, legitimate debates over questions like when puberty blockers should be prescribed or genderconfirming surgeries performed on minors. But people who hurl baseless accusations of child abuse are not engaged in a debate. Their project is one of demonization in the service of domination, akin to the anti-abortion extremists who put doctors’ faces on “Wanted” posters. They’ve been screaming that drag events — like the brunch that should have happened at Club Q on Sunday — are part of a monstrous plot to prey on children. They don’t get to duck responsibility if a sick man with a gun took them seriously.
SAN JUAN – El secretario de Salud, Carlos Mellado Ló pez informó a principios de esta semana que se man tendrá el modelo actual de compras y provisión de me dicamentos para los pacientes VIH del plan de salud de Puerto Rico, tras concluir una reunión entre el componente salubrista del Departamento de Salud.
En la misma estuvieron presentes la directora ejecuti va de la Administración de Seguros de Salud (ASES), Edna Marín, la directora del Programa de Medicaid, Dinorah Collazo, la Secretaría Auxiliar de Salud Familiar y Servicios Integrados, Marilú Cintrón, la directora del Programa Ryan White Parte B/ADAP, Norma Delgado, y el Coordinador de ADAP, el Héctor López de Victoria entre otros integrantes del Departamento.
“Los pacientes pueden estar seguros, vamos a continuar con el modelo actual de provisión de medicamentos de VIH a pacientes del plan de salud de Puerto Rico. Además, incluiremos en el modelo y acuerdo entre el Departamen to de Salud (Ryan White/ADAP) y la ASES los inhibidores
de proteasa para que ADAP manten ga el ofrecimiento del medicamento como lo ha hecho durante los pasa dos 15 años a los pacientes del plan de salud de Puerto Rico co-elegibles a ADAP y ASES le reembolse el costo a Ryan White”, adelantó el galeno en declaraciones escritas.
La enmienda al acuerdo vigen te entre Salud (Ryan White/ADAP) y ASES, que permite el modelo de pro visión actual de medicamentos de VIH a través de ADAP, incluirá los in hibidores de proteasa. Actualmente, los pacientes VIH del plan de salud de Puerto Rico obtienen sus medica mentos VIH en una red cerrada de 45 farmacias a las cuales los medicamentos son distribuidos a través del Programa Ryan White y comprados a bajo costo por ADAP.
“Mantenemos firme nuestro compromiso con la salud
de todos nuestros pacientes”, concluyó el secretario.
El Programa Ryan White Parte B/ ADAP, adscrito a la Oficina Central para Asuntos del SIDA y Enfermedades Transmisibles (OCASET) del Departa mento de Salud de Puerto Rico, admi nistra los fondos bajo la Parte B de la Ley Ryan White HIV/AIDS (P.L 111-87, octubre 2009) dirigidos a asegurar el acceso a servicios clínicos y de apoyo para las personas con diagnóstico del Virus de Inmunodeficiencia Humana (VIH) y el Síndrome de Inmunodefi ciencia Adquirida (Sida).
A través de la asignación de recur sos, se ofrecen servicios para el trata miento del VIH en las clínicas del Departamento de Salud, entidades privadas sin fines de lucro y otros proveedores alrededor de la Isla, conforme la particularidad de cada área geográfica.
LA FORTALEZA – El gobernador, Pedro Rafael Pierluisi Urrutia, firmó a principios de esta semana, la Resolu ción Conjunta de la Cámara de Representantes 57 (RCC 57) que ordena a la Autoridad de Carreteras y Transpor tación (ACT), al Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas (DTOP) y a los municipios a que utilicen la ma yor proporción posible de neumático pulverizado para ser mezclado con asfalto al pavimentar las vías públi cas.
La resolución también le requiere a la Autoridad de Carreteras desarrollar estudios y proyectos pilotos para determinar las proporciones máximas de neumático pul verizado que se puede utilizar para estos fines, así como crear cualquier reglamento necesario para hacer cumplir la ley. Con el proyecto, no solo se busca reducir la can
tidad de neumáticos a disponerse, sino que promueve el reciclaje y beneficia el que las vías tengan un pavimen to menos ruidoso, al rodar los vehículos sobre las mis mas.
“Estamos enfocados en continuar identificando recur sos para construir carreteras seguras y más resistentes. Esta alternativa, además, responde a nuestra política pú blica de promover el reciclaje de materiales reusables, con el fin de, no solo de preservar el ambiente, sino de promover la economía. El problema de la disposición de neumáticos ha sido uno constante en nuestra Isla, por lo que confío en que este proyecto servirá para minimizar el impacto que esto provoca en la salud y seguridad de nuestra ciudadanía”, dijo el gobernador en declaraciones escritas.
Según se desprende de la resolución, en Puerto Rico, la Autoridad de Carreteras y la Federal Highways Admi
nistration llevaron a cabo un proyecto y se pavimentó un segmento de la carretera PR-10, cerca de Ponce, con una mezcla de neumático pulverizado y asfalto entre 2009 y 2010. El resultado preliminar de este proyecto fue que esta mezcla se comporta de manera similar y compara favorablemente al “superpave”, que es el nombre genéri co del asfalto que utiliza la Autoridad de Carreteras para pavimentar las carreteras donde existe un tráfico inten so.
Por otro lado, el primer ejecutivo firmó la Resolución Conjunta de la Cámara de Representantes 234 (RCC 234) que ordena al Comité de Evaluación y Disposición de Pro piedades Inmuebles creado por la Ley 26-2017, según en mendada, a evaluar, conforme a ley y los reglamentos vigen tes, la transferencia de las instalaciones del Parque Carlos Juan Hernández al municipio de Mayagüez, en un término de 30 días laborables.
POR CYBERNEWS– La vista preliminar contra el suspendi do alcalde de Mayagüez, José Guillermo Rodríguez y la directora de finanzas, Yahaira Valentín Andrade, por los delitos de malversación de fondos públicos y negligencia en el cumplimiento del deber fue pospuesta por el juez Héctor López Sánchez para los días 28 y 29 de febrero y 1 de marzo de 2023.
Antes la defensa encabezada por el licenciado Harry Pa dilla y el Fiscal Especial Independiente (FEI), Miguel Colón se reunirán con el juez López Sánchez el 10 de febrero de 2023, en una conferencia con antelación a la vista preli minar, de seguimiento de las distintas mociones, que pue dan estar sin resolver por el tribunal y pasar revista sobre la lista de los testigos de cargo.
El licenciado Padilla adelantó que ha radicado ante el Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico, una moción de desesti
mación de los cargos contra Rodríguez en la que alega que la vista de regla 6, donde se determino causa para arresto no se realizó conforme a derecho.
El FEI Colón dijo por su parte, que el Tribunal Supre mo no ha expresado al momento si habrá de acoger los planteamientos del licenciado Padilla, sobre la moción de desestimación de los cargos contra su cliente, por lo que el caso continuara con los señalamientos que hizo en sala el juez López Sánchez.
Para febrero y marzo de 2023 la vista preliminar contra suspendido alcalde de Mayagüez, José Guillermo Rodríguez
Early in the documentary “Good Night Oppy,” foo tage from late 2002 shows Steve Squyres, clad in scrubs, staring down in quiet awe, his eyes welling up as he shakes his head in disbelief. Squyres, principal in vestigator for NASA’s first Mars rover mission, is watching his babies take their first steps.
That, at least, is the sense one gets from the impro bably sentimental journey at the core of this movie (which began streaming Wednesday on Amazon Prime Video) about the Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity (aka Oppy). Squyres vividly remembers experiencing this exact moment from the film.
“The first time it sort of came to life, it was a very, very moving experience,” he said recently over Zoom.
Squyres had long awaited the moment. A former geologist, he had worked on Mars exploration proposals for 10 years, including three failed submissions to NASA, before spending another six years, including three can cellations and revivals of the mission, building the ma chines.
As much as “Good Night Oppy” chronicles the
depth of the human achievement behind the Mars rover mission — which was initially planned for a roughly 90day stretch but instead lasted 15 years — the film is an
chored most of all by a kind of pure devotion and connec tion to the rovers.
“We projected all of our hopes and our aspirations and our dreams into these machines,” Squyres said. “We built them so lovingly. You use a word like lovingly advi sedly when you’re talking about a hunk of metal, but we put everything we had into those things.”
This is particularly evident in the film’s tense stretches in the control room after the rovers begin to encounter the trials of life on Mars. Director Ryan White and his team had free rein to sift through nearly 1,000 hours of footage, a good portion of which docu mented the mission’s tumultuous first 90 days, when cameras were constantly rolling. As the years went on, cameras were brought in primarily for emergency situations.
“NASA is smart enough and story-dri ven enough to know that they need to co ver those beats, even if it’s not going to be immediately used,” White said over Zoom. “But the public was also along for this jour ney, so whenever Spirit or Opportunity was in a crisis, the public also felt like they were in a crisis. So NASA, from a PR perspective, needed to be covering that.”
Although the movie rifles through this archival footage, the backbone of “Good Night Oppy” was built around a screenplay White wrote, a new concept for the longti me documentary filmmaker. He drafted a script based on dozens of preliminary inter views with the rover teams. Those early con versations, which occurred only a year or so after Oppy was officially declared dead in 2019, gave White the affecting sweep that would guide his film.
The interviews “were very therapeutic for people to get to return to that mission and get to talk about it,” White said. He used those talks as a guide to help imbue the film with the kinds of emotions expressed by the teams, aiming to make “far more than just a science film or an educational film,” he said.
The final component, though, that triggers the audience’s own visceral con nection to Spirit and Oppy came from a collaboration with the visual effects com pany Industrial Light & Magic. The viewer’s glimpse of the rovers’ mission comes mostly through simulated sequences that were ba sed on the rovers’ own photographs, sate llite imagery of Mars and various data from NASA, which consulted on the process.
“From the very beginning the idea was, if we’re gonna do this, we want to put the audience on Mars in a way that’s never been done before in a film,” White said. The animated scenes were rendered to be cine matic and immersive, while also adhering precisely to the realities of the Martian terra in and geography.
The simulated rovers themselves, from their exact look to their movements and ca pabilities, were carefully designed to mirror Spirit and Oppy, while also lending them a humanlike air.
“‘WALL-E’ came up because it was such an endearing film about this little rover that’s trying to do stuff, so we kept that in our peri phery,” Abishek Nair, one of the visual effects supervisors who guided the animation, said in a Zoom interview. “But at the same time, we did not want to make it cartoony.”
The rovers’ real ability to toggle bet ween filtered lenses, for instance, was ani mated to resemble blinking eyes. The result creates a strange bond that mirrored the ex perience for those at NASA.
Rover team members experienced the early days as “more of a mission,” White said. “The longer the robot survived,” he
said, “the more that emotional attachment grew to them, where they were seeing a child or a living, breathing thing.”
Parents cried in screenings, Whi te noted, seeing the rovers as a version of their children. For older viewers, it can be a moving story about aging and the gradual breakdown of a body.
Squyres remembered those final mo ments vividly. After Spirit died in 2011, the crew gathered for an Irish wake of sorts, drinking beer and reminiscing. “We were actually in pretty good spirits because we finished the party and then the next day we went back to work operating Opportunity,” he recalled.
Oppy’s death years later was different, though, bringing a true finality to the fa mily that had formed around it. As the final wake-up song — a start-of-the-day tradition for the team chronicled in the film — Squ yres chose Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You,” which looks back fondly on the end of a relationship, before one last failed attempt to make contact with Oppy.
“That was it,” Squyres said, still ap pearing emotional years later. “There was no party afterward.”
Late last month, Raymond Johnson, 83, began feeling short of breath. “It was difficult just getting around,” he recently recalled by phone from his apartment in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood in Boston. “I could barely walk up and down the stairs without tiring.”
Like many older adults, Johnson contends with a variety of chronic health problems: arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, heart failure and the heart arrhythmia known as atrial fibrillation.
His doctor ordered a chest X-ray and, when it showed fluid accumulating in Johnson’s lungs, told him to head for the emergency room at Faulkner Hospital, which is part of the Mass General Brigham health system.
Johnson spent four days as an inpatient being treated for heart failure and an asthma exacerbation: one day in a hospital room and three in his own apartment, receiving hospital-level care through an increasingly popular — but possibly endangered — alternative that Medicare calls Acute Hospital Care at Home.
The 8-year-old Home Hospital program run by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, to which Faulkner Hospital belongs, is one of the country’s largest and provided care to 600 people last year; it will add more patients this year and is expanding to include several hospitals in and around Boston.
“Americans have been trained for 100 years to think that the hospital is the best place to be, the safest place,” said the program’s medical director, Dr. David M. Levine. “But we have strong evidence that the outcomes are actually better at home.”
A few such programs began 30 years ago, and the Veterans Health Administration adopted them more than a decade ago. But the hospital-at-home approach stalled, largely because Medicare would not reimburse hospitals for it. Then, in 2020, COVID-19 spurred significant changes.
With hospitals suddenly overwhelmed, “they needed beds,” said Ab Brody, a professor of geriatric nursing at New York University and an author of a recent editorial on hospital-at-home care in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. “And they needed a safe place for older adults, who were particularly at risk.”
In November 2020, Medicare officials announced that, while the federally declared public health emergency continued,
hospitals could apply for a waiver of certain reimbursement requirements — notably, for 24/7 on-site nursing care. Hospitals whose applications were approved would receive the same payment for hospital-at-home care as for in-hospital care.
Since then, Medicare has granted waivers to 256 hospitals in 37 states, including to Mount Sinai in New York City and to Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in Temple, Texas. Initially, hospital-at-home programs treated mostly common acute illnesses like pneumonia, urinary tract infections and heart failure; more recently they have also started dealing with liver disease treatments, postsurgical care and aspects of cancer care.
Uncertainty over Medicare’s future involvement hinders the approach from being adopted more widely. “If this were made permanent, you’d see at least a thousand hospitals in the next few years” adopt hospital-at-home care, said Dr. Bruce Leff, a geriatrician at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who started one of these programs.
But Medicare’s waivers are not permanent. The public health emergency remains in effect until January; although the Biden administration will likely extend it, state health officials are anticipating its end at some point next year, perhaps by spring.
What will happen to hospital-at-home care then? Twenty-seven percent of programs that participated in a poll by the Hospital at Home Users Group said that they were unlikely to keep offering the option without a waiver, and 40% were unsure; 33% said that their programs were likely to continue.
Older adults and advocates for their well-being have reason to hope that these programs stay. Studies have repeatedly documented the risks of hospital stays to seniors, even when the conditions that made the stay necessary are adequately treated.
Older adults are vulnerable to cognitive problems and infections; they lose physical strength from inadequate nutrition and days of inactivity, and they may not regain it. Many patients require another hospitalization within a month. One prominent cardiologist has called this debilitating pattern “posthospital syndrome.”
Had Johnson remained in the hospital, “he would have been lying in bed for four or five days,” Levine said, adding: “He would have become very deconditioned. He could have caught C. diff or MRSA” — two common hospital-acquired infections. “He could have caught COVID,” Levine continued. “He could have fallen. Twenty percent of people over
65 become delirious during a hospital stay.”
At home, a doctor saw Johnson three times, twice in person and once by video. A registered nurse or a specifically trained paramedic visited twice daily. They brought the drugs and equipment Johnson needed: prednisone and a nebulizer for his asthma, and diuretics (including one administered intravenously) to reduce the excess fluid caused by heart failure. All the while, a small sensor attached to his chest transmitted his heart and respiratory rates, his temperature and his activity levels to the hospital.
Had Johnson needed additional monitoring (to ensure that he was taking medications as scheduled, for instance), food deliveries or home health aides, the program could have provided those. If he needed scans or experienced an emergency, an ambulance could have returned him to the hospital.
But he recovered well without any of those interventions. About a week after he was discharged, Johnson said he was “much better, much better,” and that he would recommend hospital-at-home care to anyone.
Studies have found that patients in hospital-at-home programs spend less time as
inpatients and, afterward, in nursing homes. They are less sedentary, less likely to report disrupted sleep and more apt to rate their hospital care highly.
But the future of hospital-at-home care depends on federal action. A bill introduced in the House of Representatives this spring would have extended the Medicare waiver program for two years after the public-health emergency ends. The legislation did not advance, despite bipartisan support from 29 co-sponsors, but supporters believe that a similar bill could still pass.
Medicare could also authorize a multisite demonstration project, which would keep some hospital-at-home programs functioning.
“Are there people who need to be in a hospital?” Leff said. “Absolutely.” Surgeries, complex testing and intensive care still require a building and its staff. Nonetheless, he added, hospital-at-home initiatives demonstrate that more care could be provided outside bricks-and-mortar facilities.
“Hospitals in the future will be big emergency rooms, operating rooms and intensive care units,” Leff said. “Almost everything else will move to the community — or should.”
Peticionaria
EX-PARTE
Civil Núm.: AR2022CV01937.
402. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTA
DOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTA DOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LI BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
A: Todos los que tengan cualquier derecho real en la finca que más adelante se describe, las personas ignoradas, natura les o jurídicas, a quienes pueda perjudicar la inscripción de la finca a favor de la Peticionaria y a las personas desconoci das, naturales o jurídicas, que tuvieren derecho a oponerse o se creyeron con derecho a oponerse a la inscripción del inmueble que se describe más adelante. RÚSTICA: Solar sito en el barrio Hato Arriba Sector
Higuillales de Arecibo, Puerto Rico, con cabida superficial aproximada de 2,570.46 me en lindes al Norte: en 26.80 metros con solar número 3, por el Sur en 31 metros con solar 1; al Este con 87.50 metros con calle dedicada a uso público; Oeste en 87.56 metros con Cristóbal Benítez. Realizada mensura a la propiedad antes descrita, resultó la siguiente descrip ción: RÚSTICA: Solar sito en el barrio Hato Arriba Sector Higuillales de Arecibo, Puerto Rico, con cabida superficial de 3,025.1816 mc. En lindes por el Norte: Isabelino Torres en distancia de 35.1030 metros lineales, por el Sur: con la ca rretera estatal número 652 en distancia de 34.4545 metros li neales, por el Este: en la Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal Movimien to Internacional en distancia de 80.1084 metros lineales y por el Oeste: con Luis Ramos Na varro en distancia de 108.2661 metros lineales. Número de catastro 030-074-993-05-000. El 25 de enero de 1990 José Miguel Zamot Rosa vendió a la Peticionaria mediante Com praventa número 20 suscrita ante el Notario José G. Terra sa Delucca la propiedad antes descrita. Y SE LE NOTIFICA A USTED que este Tribunal ha ordenado que se le cite como persona que está en posesión de parte o todos los predios colindantes de la finca descrita,
o tenga interés para que haga oposición a este expediente, si se viere perjudicado con la inscripción solicitada; advirtién dole que de no hacer oposición dentro del término de veinte (20) días a contar desde que fuera notificada esta citación, los Peticionarios podrán obte ner que se apruebe este expe diente y se mande a inscribir a su nombre la finca antes descri ta en el Registro de la Propie dad, sección de Arecibo. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Adminis tración de Casos (SUMAC) al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electró nica: https://tribunalelectronico. ramajudicial.pr/sumac2018, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal, notificando a la repre sentación legal en la dirección de récord.
LCDA. LIZANNETTE MORALES CRESPO PO BOX 5272 CAROLINA, PR 00984-5272 TEL. 787-945-5233
EMAIL: moralescrespolaw@gmail.com
POR ORDEN DEL HONORA BLE JUAN E. DÁVILA RIVERA, Juez de este Tribunal, expido la presente en Arecibo, Puer to Rico, hoy a 4 de noviembre de 2022, bajo mi firma y sello oficial. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE
GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ALEXANDRA ÁL VAREZ NATAL, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CARO LINA
REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC. Demandante Vs. SUCESION NANCY AWILDA PAGAN ALVAREZ COMPUESTA POR NANCY BATISTA PAGAN; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES
Demandados Civil Núm.: TJ2021CV00288.
Sobre: EJECUCIÓ DE HIPO TECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA.
ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉ RICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.
Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Manda miento de Ejecución de Senten cia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Su perior de Carolina, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por mo neda de curso legal de los Esta dos Unidos de América y/o Giro Postal y Cheque Certificado, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribu nal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Carolina, el 13 DE ENERO DE 2023, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte deman dada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar radicado en la Urbanización Ciudad Universitaria, situada en el Barrio Cuevas de Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, que se des cribe en el plano de inscripción de la Urbanización con el nú mero, área y colindancias que se relacionan a continuación: Solar doce (12) de la manzana “O”, con un área de trescientos treinta y ocho punto cero cero (338.00) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con el solar número cinco (5), en una distancia de trece punto cero cero (13.00) metros; por el SUR, con la calle “C”, distancia de trece punto cero cero (13.00) metros; por el ESTE, con el solar número uno (11), en un distancia de veintiséis punto cero cero (26.00) metros por el OESTE, con el solar trece (13), en una distancia de veintiséis punto cero cero (23.00) metros. Enclava una casa de concreto, diseñada para una familia. Ins crita al folio 99 del tomo 131 de Trujillo Alto, finca 6553, Re gistro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección IV. La Hipoteca Revertida consta inscrita al folio 2 del tomo 907 de Trujillo Alto, finca 6553, Registro de la Pro piedad de San Juan, Sección IV, inscripción 3ª. Propiedad localizada en: CIUDAD UNI VERSITARIA, O-12 C OESTE STREET, TRUJILLO ALTO, PUERTO RICO 00976. Según figuran en la certificación re gistral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas anteriores o preferentes: Nombre del Ti tular: N/A. Suma de la Carga: N/A. Fecha de Vencimiento: N/A. Según figuran en la certi ficación registral, la propiedad
objeto de ejecución está gra vada por las siguientes cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante: Nombre del Titular: Secretario de la Vivien da y Desarrollo Urbano. Suma de la Carga: $228,000.00. Fecha de Vencimiento: 31 de julio de 2097. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la pro piedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutan te antes descritos, si los hubie re, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anterio res, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo de mínima subasta la suma de $228,000.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesa ria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la pri mera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Carolina, el 20 DE ENERO DE 2023, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, y se estable ce como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $152,000.00, 2/3 partes del tipo mínima establecido original mente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se estable ce como mínima para la TER CERA SUBASTA, la suma de $114,000.00, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubi cada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Carolina, el 27 DE ENERO DE 2023, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $79,953.03 por concepto de principal, más la suma de $25,328.16 en intereses acu mulados al 19 de abril de 2022 y los cuales continúan acumulán dose a razón de 2.657% anual hasta su total y completo pago; más la sumas de $9,983.89 en seguro hipotecario; $8,242.74 en seguro; $1,000.00 de tasa ciones; $360.00 de inspeccio nes; $11,468.44 en preserva ción; $2,223.80 en honorarios de abogado; más la cantidad de 10% del pagare original en la suma de $22,800.00, para gastos, costas y honorarios de abogado, esta última habrá de devengar intereses al máximo del tipo legal fijado por la ofici na del Comisionado de Institu ciones Financieras aplicable a esta fecha, desde este mismo día hasta su total y completo
saldo. La venta en pública su basta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afec te la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace sa ber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TER CERA SUBASTA, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o perso nas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas la borables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el perió dico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos se manas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publica ciones, así como para su pu blicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy 28 de octubre de 2022. JOSÉ R. CRISTOBAL, ALGUACIL RE GIONAL. MANUEL VLLAFAÑE BLANCO, ALGUACIL PLACA #830.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CARO LINA
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante Vs. SUCESION DE RAMONITA SOLIS RODRIGUEZ, COMPUESTA POR SUS HIJOS IVELISSE DONES SOLIS, ANGELICA DONES SOLIS, JOHANNY COLON SOLIS, ROSERCILIA COLON SOLIS, ANGEL LUIS MATOS SOLIS, ALBERTO RAMOS SOLIS Y JOSE RAMON NIEVES SOLIS; Y SUS NIETOS ROBERTO ETIENE RODRIGUEZ ORTIZ Y ROBERTO AIRAM RODRIGUEZ ORTIZ; FULANO DE TAL Y ZUTANO DE TAL, COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON POSIBLE INTERÉS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM) Demandados Civil Núm.: CA2022CV00468.
(409). Sobre: COBRO DE DI NERO (EJECUCIÓN DE HIPO TECA POR LA VÍA ORDINA RIA). EDICTO DE SUBASTA.
Al: PÚBLICO EN GENERAL.
A: SUCESION DE RAMONITA SOLIS RODRIGUEZ, COMPUESTA POR SUS HIJOS IVELISSE DONES SOLIS, ANGELICA DONES SOLIS, JOHANNY COLON SOLIS, ROSERCILIA COLON SOLIS, ANGEL LUIS MATOS SOLIS, ALBERTO RAMOS SOLIS Y JOSE RAMON NIEVES SOLIS; Y SUS NIETOS ROBERTO ETIENE RODRIGUEZ ORTIZ Y ROBERTO AIRAM RODRIGUEZ ORTIZ; FULANO DE TAL Y ZUTANO DE TAL, COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON POSIBLE INTERÉS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM); DORAL BANK Y/O SUCESOR EN DERECHO POR TENER HIPOTECA EN GARANTÍA DE PAGARÉ A SU FAVOR POR LA SUMA DE $22,000.00; BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO, POR TENER AVISO DE DEMANDA ANOTADO A SU FAVOR POR LA SUMA DE $14,658.64. Yo, MANUEL VILLAFAÑE BLANCO, Alguacil de este Tri bunal, a la parte demandada y a los acreedores y personas con interés sobre la propiedad que más adelante se describe, y al público en general, HAGO SABER: Que el día 13 DE ENE RO DE 2023 A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Ca rolina, Carolina, Puerto Rico, venderé en Pública Subasta la propiedad inmueble que más adelante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se or denó por la vía ordinaria al me jor postor quien hará el pago en dinero en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del o la Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Los autos y todos los documentos corres pondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal de Carolina durante horas labora bles. Que en caso de no produ cir remate ni adjudicación en la
primera subasta a celebrarse, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA para la venta de la susodicha propiedad, el día 20 DE ENERO DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 27 DE ENERO DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes in dicado. La propiedad a vender se en pública subasta se des cribe como sigue: URBANA: Solar número Veintidós (22) en el Bloque “WK” en el plano de la URBANIZACIÓN DEL REPARTO LOS ÁNGELES, Ex tensión número Dos (2), sito en el Barrio Cangrejos Arriba, Ca rolina, Puerto Rico, en una ca bida de TRESCIENTOS DOCE PUNTO CERO CERO (312.00) METROS CUADRADOS; colin dando por el NORTE, en veinti cuatro punto cero cero (24.00) metros, con el solar número Veintitrés(23) de dicho bloque; por el SUR, en veinticuatro punto cero cero (24.00) metros, con el solar número Veintiuno (21) de dicho bloque; por el ESTE, en trece punto cero cero (13.00) metros, con el solar número Nueve (9) de dicho blo que; y por el OESTE, en trece punto cero cero (13.00) metros, con la Calle “B”. En este solar enclava una casa construida de hormigón armado de una sola planta que consiste principal mente de tres dormitorios, sala, comedor, cocina, cuarto de baño y balcón; y que en la casa descrita se halla instalado el cual es de fácil remoción un ca lentador de agua “permaglas”, “Pes-Quince”. La escritura de hipoteca se encuentra inscri ta al folio 87 del tomo 968 de Carolina Norte, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Primera, finca número 1,035, inscripción décimo quinta-Bis. Modificada la hipoteca relacio nada en la inscripción 15ta., en cuanto a que se cancela parcialmente por la suma de $40,005.42, el principal será ahora de $77,994.58, con inte reses, comenzando el día 1ro. de septiembre de 2016, por 60 meses al 2% anual, comenzan do el día 1ro. de septiembre de 2021 por 12 meses al 3% anual, comenzando el día 1ro. de septiembre de 2022 por 171 meses al 3.625% anual, según la escritura número 34, otorga da en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 10 de agosto de 2016, ante la Notario Público Nicole Marie Cobb Vélez, inscrita al tomo Karibe de Carolina Nor te, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Primera, finca número 1,035, inscripción 19na. La dirección física de la propiedad antes descrita es:
La su basta se llevará a efecto para satisfacer a la parte deman dante la suma de $63,835.80 de principal, intereses variables desde el día 1ro de febrero de 2020, cuya tasa de interés a esta fecha es de 3% anual hasta el día 31 de agosto de 2022 y al 3.625% anual desde el 1ro. de septiembre de 2022, hasta su completo pago, más la cantidad de $11,800.00 es tipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más recargos acumulados, todas cuyas sumas están liquidas y exigibles. Que la cantidad mí nima de licitación en la primera subasta para el inmueble será de $77,994.58 y de ser nece saria una segunda subasta, la cantidad mínima será una equi valente a 2/3 parte de aquella, o sea la suma de $51,996.39 y de necesitarse una tercera su basta la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado, es decir la suma de $38,997.29. Si se declara desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la tota lidad de la cantidad adeudada si esta 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. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el im porte de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Esta dos Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, continuarán subsistentes, en tendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad a ser vendida en pública subasta se encuentra afecta a los siguientes gravá menes posteriores: Hipoteca en Garantía de Pagaré a favor de Doral Bank, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $22,000.00, con intereses al 8.95% anual, vencedero el día 1ro. de marzo de 2021, según consta de la Escritura Número 35, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 28 de febrero de 2006, ante la Notario Público Alexandra M. Serracante Cadilla; inscrita al folio 87 vuelto del tomo 968 de Carolina Norte, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Primera, finca número 1,035, inscripción 18va. Modificada la hipoteca de la inscripción 18va., en cuanto a que se can cela por la suma de $6,650.00, para un nuevo principal que será ahora de $15,350.00,
Urbanización Reparto Los An geles, WK22, Calle Camelia, Carolina, Puerto Rico.REGIONAL. WILNELIA RIVERA DELGADO, ALGUACIL PLACA #249.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYA MÓN
REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC.
Demandante Vs. SUCESIÓN JULIO DIAZ
VEGA COMPUESTA POR RAFAEL DIAZ
RODRIGUEZ, NELLY WALESKA DIAZ
RODRIGUEZ; JOHN ROE Y JANE ROE COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; SUCESIÓN NELLY RODRIGUEZ NEGRON
T/C/C NELLY RODRIGUEZ COMPUESTA POR RAFAEL DIAZ
RODRIGUEZ, NELLY WALESKA DIAZ
RODRIGUEZ; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES
Demandados
Civil Núm.: BY2021CV01347.
Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPO TECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA.
ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉ RICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.
LA PARTE DEMANDADA,
Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Manda miento de Ejecución de Senten cia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Su perior de Bayamón, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América y/o Giro Postal y Cheque Certifi cado, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instan cia, Sala de Bayamón, Cuarto Piso, Oficina de Alguaciles de Subastas, el 19 DE ENERO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte deman dada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar
radicado en la Urbanización Royal Gardens, localizado en el Barrio Pájaros del término municipal de Bayamón, Puer to Rico, que se describe en el plano de inscripción de la urbanización como el numero diecinueve (19) del bloque I, con una cabida superficial de trescientos cincuenta punto cero cero (350.00) metros cua drados. En lindes por el Norte, en una distancia de veinticinco punto cero cero (25.00) metros, con el solar número dieciocho (18); por el Sur, en una distan cia de veinticinco punto cero cero (25.00) metros , con el solar numero veinte (20); por el Este, en una distancia de catorce punto cero cero (14.00) metros, con los solares núme ro siete (7) y ocho (8); y por el Oeste, en una distancia de catorce punto cero cero (14.00) metros, con la calle Carmen. Enclava una casa. Finca nú mero 23,579 inscrita al folio 26 del tomo 519 de Bayamón Sur, Registro de la Propiedad de Ba yamón, Sección I. La Hipoteca Revertida consta inscrita al folio 119 del tomo 1857 de Bayamón Sur, Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección I, inscrip ción 8ª. Propiedad localizada en: URB. ROYAL GARDENS, I-19 CALLE CARMEN, BAYA MON, PR 00957. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas anteriores o preferen tes: Nombre del Titular: N/A. Suma de la Carga: N/A. Fecha de Vencimiento: N/A. Según figuran en la certificación re gistral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas posterio res a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante: Nombre del Titular: Secretario de la Vivienda y De sarrollo Urbano. Suma de la Carga: $202,500.00. Fecha de Vencimiento: 18 de noviembre de 2078. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la pro piedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutan te antes descritos, si los hubie re, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anterio res, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo de mínima subasta la suma de $135,000.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, Cuarto Piso, Ofici na de Alguaciles de Subastas, el 26 DE ENERO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la
suma de $90,000.00, 2/3 par tes del tipo mínima establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se es tablece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $67,500.00, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, Cuarto Piso, Ofici na de Alguaciles de Subastas, el 2 DE FEBRERO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑA NA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandan te, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $129,737.08 por concepto de principal, más la suma de $15,063.73 en inte reses acumulados al 31 de julio de 2021 y los cuales con tinúan acumulándose a razón de 3.49% anual hasta su total y completo pago; más la su mas de $4,873.12 en seguro hipotecario; $5,355.00 en tari fas de servicios; $1,680.00 en seguro; $440.00 de tasacio nes; $380.00 de inspecciones; $8,777.00 en preservación; $2,188.32 de adelantos pen dientes; $1,645.00 en otros adelantos más la cantidad de 10% del pagare original en la suma de $13,500.00, para gas tos, costas y honorarios de abo gado, esta última habrá de de vengar intereses al máximo del tipo legal fijado por la oficina del Comisionado de Instituciones Financieras aplicable a esta fe cha, desde este mismo día has ta su total y completo saldo. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte la mencio nada finca, a cuyo efecto se no tifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SU BASTA, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los intere sados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) in teresados (as). Y para su publi cación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un dia rio de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo me nos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios pú blicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy 25 de octubre de 2022. MARI BEL LANZAR VELÁZQUEZ, ALGUACIL PLACA #735.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO
DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRI BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTAN CIA SALA DE AGUADILLA SAN CARLOS MORTGAGE, LLC Demandante V. DEB NAWOROL, AMNADA NAWOROL, AARON NAWOROL MIEMBROS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE EDWARD
NAWOROL; JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE EDWARD
NAWOROL Demandado Civil Núm.: AG2022CV00599.
Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉ RICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LI BRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. EDICTO.
A: JOHN
NAWOROL. CON. VILLAS DEL MONTE Y MAR, APT A-6, ISABELA, PR 00662; 1610 ROLLING ROAD, BEL AIR, MD 21014.
POR LA PRESENTE se le em plaza para que presente al tri bunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este empla zamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Adminis tración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electróni ca: 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 pre sentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y con ceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entien de procedente. Representa a la parte demandante el Lcdo. Javier Montalvo Cintrón, Del gado & Fernández, LLC, PO Box 11750, Fernández Jun cos Station, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750. Tel. [787] 274-1414. DADA en Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, a 16 de noviem bre de 2022. SARAHÍ REYES PÉREZ, SECRETARIA REGIO NAL. NATHALIE I. ACEVEDO QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL
GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRI BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTAN CIA SALA DE AGUADILLA SAN CARLOS MORTGAGE, LLC
Demandante V. DEB NAWOROL, AMNADA NAWOROL, AARON NAWOROL MIEMBROS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE EDWARD NAWOROL; JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE EDWARD NAWOROL Demandado Civil Núm.: AG2022CV00599. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉ RICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LI BRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. EDICTO.
A: DEB NAWOROL, AMNADA NAWOROL, AARON NAWOROL MIEMBROS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE EDWARD NAWOROL. COND. VILLAS DEL MONTE Y MAR, APT A-6, ISABELA, PR 00662; 1610 ROLLING ROAD, BEL AIR, MD 21014.
POR LA PRESENTE se le em plaza para que presente al tri bunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este empla zamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Adminis tración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electróni ca: 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 pre sentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y con ceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entien de procedente. Representa a la parte demandante el Lcdo. Javier Montalvo Cintrón, Del gado & Fernández, LLC, PO Box 11750, Fernández Jun cos Station, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750. Tel. [787] 274-1414. DADA en Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, a 16 de noviem bre de 2022. SARAHÍ REYES PÉREZ, SECRETARIA REGIO NAL. NATHALIE I. ACEVEDO QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I. LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO
DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYA MÓN
CHARLES G. YOUAKIM, JENNIFER YOUAKIM Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANACIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS Demandante V. TIMOTHY M. DORAN T/C/C TIM DORAN Demandado Civil Núm.: BY2022CV04823. (502). Sobre: SENTENCIA DECLARATORIA E INCUM PLIMIENTO DE CONTRATO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDIC TO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., ESTADO LI BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.
A: TIMOTHY M. DORAN T/C/C TIM DORAN. DIRECCIÓN CONOCIDA: 624 PILOT ROAD NORTH PALM BEACH, FLORIDA 33408.
Por la presente se le notifica que se ha radicado en su con tra una Demanda de Sentencia Declaratoria e Incumplimiento de Contrato. Se le emplaza y requiere para que notifique a: Lcda. Elizabeth Villagrasa-Flores RUA Núm.16,877
evillagrasa@ferraiuoli.com FERRAIUOLI, LLC P.O. Box 195168 San Juan, PR 00919-5168 Tel: 787-766-7000
Abogados de la parte deman dante, con copia de respuesta a la Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto Us ted deberá presentar alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Adminis tración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual sumac/, salvo que se re presente por derecho propio. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discre ción, lo entiende procedente. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y con el sello del Tribunal. DADO hoy en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, 16 de noviembre de 2022. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. SANDRA BÁEZ HERNÁNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN
FUNDING LLC. Demandante Vs. BANCO POPULAR DE
Demandados Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV09331. Sala: 903. Sobre: CANCELA CIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIA DO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDEN TE DE LOS EE.UU., ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.
Queda emplazado y notifica do de que en este Tribunal se ha radicado una demanda de cancelación de pagaré ex traviado, a favor del Master Mortgage Corp., por la suma de $301,500.00, con intereses al 3.535% anual, vencedero el 24 de marzo de 2088, consti tuido por la escritura de hipo teca número 454, otorgada en Ponce, Puerto Rico, el 31 de julio de 2009, ante la notario Jennifer Córdova Córdova; sobre la siguiente propiedad: URBANA: Urbanización Para dise Hills de Monacillos Este, Solar: 77. Cabida: 364 metros cuadrados. Linderos: Norte, en una distancia de 26.00 metros, con el solar 76 de la urbaniza ción; Sur, en una distancia de 26.00 metros, con solar 78 de la urbanización; Este, en una distancia de 14.00 metros, con la calle 4 de la Urbanización; Oeste, en una distancia de 14.00 metros, con solares 72 y 73 de la urbanización. Casa modelo Biarritz de dos plantas, compuesta principalmente de tres dormitorios, dos baños en la planta alta, sala-comedor, cocina, laundry, terraza cubier ta y marquesina construida con columnas de acero y paredes de bloque de hormigón y lajas de techo y piso en hormigón post-tensado. Consta inscrita en la finca número 3298 de Monacillos Este del Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección Quinta. Se le notifica que deberá presentar su ale gación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SU MAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente direc ción electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presen tar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de San Juan y enviando copia a la parte demandante: Lcda. Frances L. Asencio-Guido, Tra de Centre South, Suite 700 100 West Cypress Creek Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309, teléfono (954) 343-6273, correo electró nico: Frances.Asencio@gmail.
com / gmforeclosure@gmail. com. 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 edic to, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la de manda, sin más citárseles, ni oírsele. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, a 08 de noviembre de 2022. GRISEL
DA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. ORTIZ SILVA, MELBA, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN.
PARTE DEMANDANTE Vs.
PARTE DEMANDADA CIVIL NUM.: SJ2022CV06993 (604). SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIEN TO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIA DO DE P.R. SS.
A:
Queda emplazado y notificado de que en este Tribunal se ha presentado una demanda de COBRO DE DINERO; EJE CUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA en su contra. Se le notifica que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Adminis tración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electróni ca: 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 San Juan y en viando copia a la parte deman dante: BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO FAS, C.S.P., LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS, PO BOX 3908, GUAYNABO, PR 00970, TEL: 787- 751-5290, FAX: 787-751-6155, E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com. Se le apercibe y notifica que si no contesta la demanda ra dicada en su contra dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concedien do el remedio solicitado en la demanda, sin más citárseles, ni oírseles. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 5 de octubre de 2022 GRlSEL DA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional. Luz E Fernandez del Valle, Sec Serv a Sala.
DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE EDWARD
The Los Angeles Rams built their 2021 roster to win the Super Bowl at all costs. They won the Super Bowl. Now they are paying all the costs.
The reigning champions have a 3-7 record. They have lost four straight games, the last two to the Arizona Cardi nals, an NFC West rival, and the New Orleans Saints, teams with a combined 8-14 record. They are essentially eliminated from playoff contention; The New York Times’ NFL playoff calculator gives the Rams just a 3% chance of reaching the postseason.
Los Angeles faces Kansas City on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium in what once looked like a potential Super Bowl pre view. Those expectations have been tempered by midseason reality: Early in the week, the Rams were 14.5-point under dogs.
The Rams’ front office made sure that the ring-winning nucleus of quarterback Matthew Stafford, receiver Cooper Kupp, defensive tackle Aaron Donald and cornerback Jalen Ramsey remained intact to start the season. But that nucleus is no longer surrounded by championship-caliber cytoplasm. The overspending and under-drafting that got the franchise its second Super Bowl title is now rotting the Rams’ roster from the roots up.
The trade that brought Stafford to Los Angeles from the Detroit Lions before the 2021 season cost the Rams their 2022 and 2023 first-round picks, plus a 2021 third-round selection. Stafford signed a four-year, $160 million extension in March.
Ramsey, a three-time All-Pro, arrived from the Jackson ville Jaguars midway through the 2019 season in exchange for the Rams’ 2020 and 2021 first-round picks, plus a 2021 fourth-round pick. Ramsey received a five-year, $105 million extension in 2020.
Donald, a three-time defensive player of the year, signed a three-year, $95 million extension in June, silencing spec ulation that he was mulling retirement. Kupp, the offensive player of the year in 2021, received a three-year, $80 million extension a few days later.
The Rams also traded a 2022 second-round pick to
The Rams, led by Aaron Donald (left front) and Matthew Stafford (right), have managed a 3-7 record and are nearly out of playoff contention a year removed from winning the Super Bowl.
rent the services of All-Pro pass rusher Von Miller for a few months last year. The team dealt its 2018 first-round pick for receiver Brandin Cooks, now long gone, and traded out of the first round in 2019 as part of a complicated tangle of deals to acquire more late-round picks.
The Rams have not selected within the first 50 picks in an NFL draft since 2017, leaving their roster nearly devoid of rising talent.
Meanwhile, the team’s middle class drifted away in the offseason. Stalwart left tackle Andrew Whitworth retired. Re ceiver Robert Woods was traded to the Tennessee Titans in a cost-cutting move. Miller left to pursue another champion ship with the Buffalo Bills.
Odell Beckham Jr. retreated to his Fortress of Solitude to rehab a torn anterior cruciate ligament and ponder his next move. Lesser-known starters, including defensive tackle Se bastian Joseph-Day and guard Austin Corbett, signed with teams that had more money to spend on rank-and-file con tributors.
The Rams did find salary cap space to sign receiver Al len Robinson and six-time All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner. Still, the team entered the 2022 season with a handful of big
names — a few of them past their primes — supported by dozens of late-round picks, undrafted rookies and castoffs from other teams’ practice squads.
The flaws in the Rams’ model have been obvious all sea son. Kupp averaged nine catches for 101.6 yards per game before Week 10, when he injured an ankle, but Robinson proved an inadequate replacement for Woods and Beckham.
Donald has five sacks, but the Rams are tied for 17th in the NFL in that category with just 22. Ramsey has run hot and cold — Saints rookie receiver Chris Olave glided past him for a long touchdown Sunday — leaving the Rams with ordinaryat-best pass coverage. Two blocked punts and a sputtering kick return game underscore the talent void at the bottom of the roster.
Stafford has been in and out of concussion protocol after taking 29 sacks behind an ever-changing cast of obscure of fensive linemen. With Kupp on injured reserve and Stafford ailing, backup quarterback Bryce Perkins finished the Rams’ Week 11 loss to the Saints running a makeshift Wildcat of fense. It was about as far from Super Bowl glory as a team can fall after just nine months.
Post Super Bowl-letdowns are not unusual, as teams in evitably face tougher schedules and tighter budgets after win ning a championship. No team in history, however, has ever mortgaged its future as extravagantly as the Rams.
The Rams aren’t just enduring a Super Bowl hangover. They have woken up next to a total stranger in a Nevada honeymoon suite with an empty wallet and no sign of their car keys. They’ll be paying the price for their 2021 binge for years.
Banners hang from stadium rafters forever, and the Rams may have no regrets, but their current situation offers a cau tionary tale for the copycat franchises tempted to risk their futures on a few splashy trades. Spending lavishly on a few stars and tossing first-round picks around like confetti will not guarantee a championship, but it will guarantee an eventual, prolonged period of dreary austerity.
The Rams’ lesson arrived too late to stop the Denver Broncos from trading for Russell Wilson, but perhaps it will help other teams in the future.
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
You’ve decided to let yourself go. You’re tired of being a perfectly controlled person. You don’t want to restrain your urges anymore! Something in the air is different. You can express your needs freely. Talk to your partner about your desires. Your relationship can only benefit from your current frame of mind.
The present planetary aspects could change your approach to life. Almost compulsively, you’ll need to deepen your relationships with the people you’ve recently met. You’ll probably be attracted to one of them, but be careful, as this person might not feel the same way about you. Look on the bright side. Why would you want to waste your energy on someone who doesn’t care about you?
There might be one aspect of your nature that you ignore. You always need to be the one in charge in a relationship. It would be wise to change this. The planetary configuration can help you do that now. People will be much more receptive to your natural charms if you can change your controlling attitude!
Don’t let your emotions get the better of you today. If you can harness them, you’ll have the vital force of ten people. You can be invincible. You can do whatever you feel like doing and no one can stop you. If you share this energy with others, they might end up feeling like you do - the best in your whole life.
Finally, today, you’ll know what it feels like to be in charge of things. You’ll even feel that you were born to do it. In any case, you’ll beautifully coordinate the day. You’re the maestro conducting a full orchestra. You’ll tell those around you what to do all day long. Isn’t it fun to feel such personal power?
Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)
Unlike other occasions, today you’ll display your true feelings. Even when you hide them they’re still there, deep inside you. You may think that showing your feelings is a sign of weakness, but today you’ll show the world that your heart isn’t made of stone, and you’ll let yourself go.
Your behavior is about to improve your love life. You’re no longer hung up about your body. You’re no longer distracted by it during passionate moments. You’ll focus on and enjoy the here and now, and you won’t be lost in your thoughts like usual. You’re a new person about to experience the pleasures of life.
You’ll have a lot of stamina in the weeks to come. Your energy will increase, thanks to the prevailing planetary transits. You thrive on your romantic desires and your creativity. You should try to stay in control of situations. Don’t let your or anyone else’s emotions take over your life.
You’re a sensual person. You have a strong emotional force. Today that energy will increase and express itself vigorously. The people you encounter will be astonished by your power. You could easily seduce the entire world. Try to keep this energy under control. You could be thrown off balance and into a situation you might regret.
You love to meet new people and talk to them, but you rarely get personally involved. You keep a certain distance between you and the person you’re talking to. Today you’ll wonder if you’re missing out on interesting experiences by controlling your emotions so tightly, or if your defenses are high for a good reason.
You’ll probably feel a little lost today. You’ll have to come to a decision in the near future, and your life will be greatly affected by it. Should you listen to your desires? Should they be in charge of your life? Or should you try to rein in your feelings and take the more practical route? It’s something to think about.
Today you’ll change your approach to relationships. In the past, they were based on feelings, but now you’ll decide that they should be more rational. You might feel that this sudden change of attitude could detract from your happiness, but it could also lead to stronger, more stable relationships.
