Friday to Sunday Sep 1-3, 2023

The San Juan Daily Star, the only paper with News Service in English in Puerto Rico, publishes 7 days a week, with a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday edition, along with a Weekend Edition to cover Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Governor: Closure is not the preferred outcome, but there are other options if HIMA Group stops operating

By THE STAR STAFF

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Thursday that although the government prefers that Grupo HIMA remain in operation, they are prepared to assume the patients and human resources in other available facilities.

“Ideally, HIMA would be able to continue operating, perhaps not with the same capacity, perhaps not with the same number of beds and hospitals, but ideally it would continue to operate,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “The other alternative is a closure. Let’s assume the bankruptcy fails and the judge basically dismisses the bankruptcy. The reorganization petition then falls into liquidation. That is the closure. We are also prepared for a closure if that happens.”

“We prefer that it continue to operate, either with the same capacity or a similar capacity,” Pierluisi added. “That will not happen, because if the bankruptcy process fails, we are prepared. Why do I say it? Right now the hospitals in Puerto Rico have plenty of capacity. There are hospitals in the Caguas region, there are hospitals in the Bayamón region, in the two main regions where HIMA has hospitals, that can replace the service offered by HIMA. At URRA [Regional Hospital] in Bayamón, which is a public hospital, we have there in excess of 100 additional beds available that can be activated. The employees in Puerto Rico lack nurses, doctors, so those who are working there are not going to have any difficulty working in the public hospitals of the Puerto Rico government or in other private hospitals that want to fill the space of HIMA.”

In other words, what I am saying is that if we are very attentive, we prefer that it not close,” the governor said. “But closing, which has nothing to do with the government, has to do with everything they did for 10 and 11 years, all those debts they accumulated.”

On Aug. 15, the HIMA Group filed for Chapter 11 under the Bankruptcy Law. The conglomerate owes more than $400 million to its creditors, which include the island government and the municipalities where they have real estate.

Mayors tell the HIMA Group that they will not forgive the debt

Municipal Revenue Collections Center (CRIM by its Spanish acronym) governing board chairman Jesús Edgardo Colón Berlingeri said meanwhile on Thursday that the island’s mayors refused to forgive Grupo

HIMA’s debt.

The representatives of the hospital consortium met with the directors of the CRIM.

“They did not present a new and viable scenario for the municipalities; they came back and stressed their position that they be exempted from practically all the taxes that they owe to each of the municipalities and none of the mayors agrees with that,” Colón Berlingeri said at the end of the board meeting in San Juan.

“We stand on the position that they need to pay their debt and that our debt is a debt that has to be in the first order of priority in court,” he added.

The mayor of Orocovis also maintained that, if the bankruptcy assets are sold, Grupo HIMA will have to pay the $12 million that it owes the CRIM.

The executive director of CRIM, Reinaldo Paniagua Látimer, maintained that the proposal that Grupo HIMA presented to him was to reduce interest charges and penalties, but they had to present a guarantee that the debt has priority and hospital operations will continue.

“That is not negotiable, and they have to guarantee us that they will continue to operate as a hospital and that these jobs will not be lost, because otherwise we are not willing to take a single step,” Paniagua Látimer said. “Nor is it on the table to erase the debt from the CRIM books.”

At the meeting, the debt status of the municipalities of Caguas, Bayamón, Humacao and Fajardo was presented.

“And since they couldn’t guarantee anything, we told them we were staying where we were,” the CRIM executive director said.

Representatives of the Grupo HIMA hospital consortium met with the directors of the Municipal Revenue Collections Center on Thursday.

By THE STAR STAFF

Amember of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) governing board defended on Thursday the board’s decision to confirm Ilka Ríos Reyes as chancellor of the Medical Sciences Campus (RCM by its Spanish initials) as requested by UPR President Luis Ferrao Delgado, arguing that the allegations levied against her are false.

Governing board member Herman Cestero also criticized the Popular Democratic Party majority delegation in the island House of Representatives for politicizing the board’s decision to confirm Ríos. The delegation submitted legislation rejecting the confirmation, arguing it was done in an irregular manner.

“They should not politicize what is ultimately an academic issue,” said Cestero, who voted in favor of Ríos on Aug. 22 after an evaluation of all of the information the board had received about her. Her confirmation has been an issue of contention because her

opponents charged that she put the school’s accreditation at risk by allegedly favoring a 15-year-old student and even changing her grades.

Documents examined by the STAR and a report that investigated the allegations do not support that contention. Cestero noted a document from the Registrar’s Office, whose head is Abelardo Martínez, stating that Ríos authorized the student to drop certain courses and not a change in her grades, as has been alleged.

Ríos, who is slated to officially assume the post today, had reached a settlement in July 2022 with the then 15-year-old medical student, who had failed courses and was slated to be expelled, to avoid a lengthy lawsuit against the School of Medicine for failing to provide required assistance the student needed because of her age.

The settlement signed on July 7, 2022, was consistent with a prior one reached with the student in February 2021 with former RCM

Chancellor Segundo Rodríguez.

Marcos Antonio Román López, a former RCM legal adviser, said upon an evaluation of the student’s file that he found out that the School of Medicine’s Promotion Committee had said nothing could be done about the student’s grade after she failed her first year, but that the Office of the President had reached an agreement to allow her to repeat the first year. However, he also noted that the school had failed to provide the student with the help she needed to cope with her coursework as she is a minor. In a declaration, he said he contacted the school’s psychologist, who informed the lawyer that “the girl’s rights had been violated” and that the school did not execute any of the recommendations he had made for the student.

As part of the agreement, Ríos authorized the student to drop some of her second-year courses and take three courses, according to documents obtained by the STAR, to avoid a costly and lengthy lawsuit.

Family Dept. backs creation of human trafficking observatory

By THE STAR STAFF

During the continuation of the public hearings on Senate Bill 1237 that proposes the creation of a human trafficking observatory in Puerto Rico, the island Family Department on Thursday expressed its support for the measure.

“One of the reasons I’m sitting here is precisely because of the efforts of organizations and studies that show the reality of human trafficking, and that’s why I introduced this legislation,” said Dignity Project Sen. Joanne Rodríguez Veve, who chairs the Senate Committee on Life and Family Affairs and is the author of the measure. “This is an issue that should not die, and it requires all of us to continue working continuously.”

The acting Family secretary, Ciení Rodríguez Troche, said she favors the bill, but suggested amendments such as establishing a fund between $300,000 to $500,000 annually. The bill, as proposed in the presentation, contemplates a combined fund fed by commonwealth and federal allocations, but does not stipulate the amount.

According to the agency’s presentation, in Puerto Rico, since the inclusion of the

definition of human trafficking in the Penal Code in 2012 and in Law No. 246-2011 in 2014, a total of 39 cases of human trafficking, and 28 cases of people at risk of being victims of human trafficking have been reported.

“It became very clear that the official government statistics do not match the magnitude of the real problem, as you rightly mention,” Rodríguez Veve said.

“The numbers are very low compared to the stories that have been collected and the information that officials have.”

In response to questions from the senator, the acting Family secretary pointed out that since 2015 the agency has had a protocol on the prevention plan, and in 2021 it was modified to include how they were going to work with cases of human trafficking.

“I think we still need to be more aggressive in bringing the issue to the fore,” Rodríguez Troche said. “I become very worried every time they tell me that we have children running drug points. We talk about sexual exploitation, and we forget the labor exploitation that is part of human trafficking.”

Incoming UPR Medical Sciences Campus Chancellor Ilka Ríos Reyes

Sen. Joanne Rodríguez Veve

Registrar’s document shows Ríos did not change student’s grades as has been alleged, board member says

PRASA workers: Freedom of speech is not for sale

By RICHARD GUTIÉRREZ richardsanjuanstar@gmail.com

Thursday offered a reminder that labor struggles on the island are not limited to the San Juan metropolitan area.

The STAR reported earlier this week on a protest led by Independent Authentic Union (UIA by its Spanish initials) workers who were demanding respect, partly in the form of proper compensation, from the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA). The water infrastructure workers didn’t leave their demands on the steps of the Labor and Human Resources Department in San Juan on Monday, however. The UIA’s Eastern Division also decided to make their voices heard, and on Thursday they stood in front of PRASA’s facilities in Humacao and expressed all the dissatisfaction they feel over the treatment they’ve received.

Some of the UIA members on hand at the gates of the facility, amid alternating heat and rain, talked to the STAR about their take on the situation, and also related what happened after UIA President Luis de Jesús Rivera met Monday with Labor Department officials on the matter of collective bargaining.

“The Authority asked us to remove the [message] we wrote on the street [“U.I.A. Exige Respeto” (UIA Demands Respect)] and after that is done, they would start bargaining,” said Javier Ramírez Machin, a UIA operations delegate. “It isn’t fair to us that they want us to remove the letters, we are simply using our freedom of speech in a correct and respectful way, all we’re doing is asking for respect, which is what we want. We want the Authority to honor our pay and all the benefits they’ve taken away from us. We’ve been taking abuse for many years.”

Ramírez Machin detailed many other reasons the water workers are protesting, some which were previously reported in Tuesday’s STAR.

“Besides the diet benefit [meal compensation], our pay is disgustingly low, extra hours have been in effect as well,” he said. “Now they contract private companies to do our job. It is truly undignifying; our commitment is to the people of the island and it is unacceptable what they are doing to us. No matter what, we will stand tall and fight the good fight.”

When asked whether or not private companies were a threat to PRASA employees, the union official said he believes that “they have the right to bring food to the table.”

“All we ask from private companies is respect,” Ramírez Machin said. “Believe it or not, sometimes we have to go fix up jobs that these private companies perform, because these people don’t have the experience. It’s not practical for the authority to hire private companies, pay them, just so we must go fix up the job they couldn’t perform to begin with.”

“Honestly, I call on the governing board of the authority to respect the employees,” he added. “We don’t have to get into any of these situations.”

Ramírez Machin believes the union workers are very much united and are getting all the support they need from the UIA.

Union member Javier Vélez said regarding the low pay: “Our job is not only difficult, it’s dangerous; there are many risks involved in working with sewers, not just risks of sickness, but risks of death.”

“We work in ruptures [that] can crumble, and we can get stuck buried underground,” he said. “Many of our colleagues have had to retire because they’ve been stuck underground before when excavations crumble. Even with these high-risk situations, we still get paid federal minimum wage when we first enter the authority.”

“The collective [bargaining] agreement was the only increase in pay we had, which gave us hope to at the very least support our families,” Vélez said. “You go to Home Depot and these people start at $12 to $15 an hour. We get paid $10 an hour when we first start out, if we’re lucky, because many people get paid $8 to $9 hourly to start.”

Vélez added that PRASA employees have no benefits because of the labor reform law.

“All of our benefits are gone because of that law,” he said. “Our pay is trash. I have colleagues working in the authority for over 20 years and they are still getting paid $10 hourly. To top it all off, they’ve reduced overtime pay as well, and our working conditions are unmanageable. There are not enough vehicles for us, [and] there are no tools, either; we have to bring our own tools sometimes just to solve certain pipeline problems. Sometimes we have to buy them because we don’t have them at hand. A few days ago, I had to buy a clamp with my own money to hold a pipe in place on a bridge; I had to bring in my own tools to solve the problem.”

“Our working conditions are horrible and $10 an hour is not enough to sustain any family nowadays,” Vélez added.

Vélez also told the STAR that the workers weren’t as angry before because they had other benefits, but now that they don’t have those benefits, it is much harder to survive working for PRASA.

Apart from employees leaving to work for other companies, on and off the island, the deteriorating labor situation has a devastating impact on the mental health of employees.

“The situation in Humacao is no better than any other municipality; we’ve told social workers here that this issue could kill someone, if somebody’s mental health suffers enough,” said Miguel Hernández Resto, an ex-president of the UIA’s Humacao chapter. “One of our colleagues from

Humacao committed suicide by hanging himself because of these issues; his name was Mr. José Santana. The authority must come here and fix this before it gets worse and we lose someone else.”

“We provide service to the people seven days a week,” Hernández Resto added. “They have even reduced the amount of overtime pay from double-pay to time and a half. Even though we have the support of many, there are a select few that don’t support us because PRASA has bought them off. Mark my words, if they don’t solve this now a central protest stoppage will happen. Operators and labs will start halting and then we will all go together. That’s our strategy.”

“We are using our freedom of speech, asking us to remove the letters [on the pavement] and saying they’ll start working with us after that are simply sorry excuses, because this is our freedom of speech,” the current treasurer of the Humacao chapter said. “Those words will soon fade away with time; it’s an immature excuse to stop all negotiations.”

The UIA Eastern Division employees of the public corporation continue to press their demands

Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority Workers belonging to the Independent Authentic Union’s Eastern Division gathered in front of the water utility’s facilities in Humacao on Thursday to express the mounting dissatisfaction they feel over the treatment they’ve received. (Richard Gutiérrez/The San Juan Daily Star)

By THE STAR STAFF

Two prominent Spanish conglomerates are facing each other in the struggle to obtain the contract to operate four toll highways in Puerto Rico, according to Spain’s El Economista.

Abertis and a consortium that includes Spanish firm Sacyr presented their binding offers this week to obtain the contracts -- under a concession regime, to rehabilitate, maintain and operate four toll highways -- valued at almost $2 billion.

Both Abertis and Sacyr were shortlisted last year by the Public-Private Partnerships Authority (P3A) to compete in the final bid for the privatization of PR-52, between San Juan and Ponce; PR-53, between Humacao and Fajardo; PR-66, between Carolina and Río Grande; and PR-20, between San Juan and Guaynabo.

At the time, the P3A said Sacyr was participating as part of the consortium Vías de Puerto Rico with TKO Core Infrastructure Fund LP, and a to-be-formed investment fund that would be called Star America Infrastructure Partners LLC.

The P3A also shortlisted a consortium formed by the North American Plenary and the Israeli Shikun & Binui.

Abertis is already operating in Puerto Rico and Sacyr seeks to grow its concessions in North America.

“Abertis is facing an investment offensive

this summer to add new assets that has already resulted in the acquisition of 56% of the SH-288 in Texas,” El Economista said. “With this privatization, Abertis seeks to strengthen its position as a highway operator in Puerto Rico, where it is already the largest shareholder, with 51% of the capital, of Metropistas, the concessionaire that operates the PR-22 and PR-5 toll roads in the country.”

If Abertis is the bidding winner, the company led by José Aljaro will have the financial support of its partners in Metropistas and the U.S. funds Ullico and Fiera Axium Infrastructure. With this, Abertis intends to facilitate the integration of the entire toll road network into a single company to gain efficiency. The plan is to lead the project with a majority stake and for Ullico and Axium to take, as in

Metropistas, minority positions (28.4% and 20.6% respectively).

Meanwhile, Sacyr is trying to add a new market with Puerto Rico as an infrastructure concession operator, a priority focus of its growth strategy. The Spanish multinational was recently awarded its second concession in the United States. Specifically, in alliance with Acciona, the group has acquired a section of the I-10 highway in Louisiana.

Two Spanish firms submit offers for toll road concessions Loíza’s first Sweet Honey Festival to be held Sept. 10

By THE STAR STAFF

Loíza Mayor Julia Nazario Fuentes is inviting the public to celebrate the first edition of the Sweet Honey Festival, to be held Sept. 10 at the bee sanctuary located in the Cueva María de la Cruz Historical Park (PHCMdelaC) in Loíza.

“Everyone separate Sunday, September 10 starting at 3 in the afternoon, to celebrate together one of the wonders of nature that we welcome with so much affection in Loíza: the production of artisanal honey,” the mayor said this week in a press release.

The family event will feature the music of Plenéalo, the popular group that was born in the town of Aibonito in 1996, creators of “Bella, bella, bella,” “El sabor de mi plena,” “Se me van los pies,” “Hasta mañana,” “Tú me haces falta” and “Qué viva el amor.” Also performing will be the Sanabria Brothers, a Puerto Rican musical institution that has been part of the troubadour family for three generations with its legacy of promoting traditions, culture and traditional music.

There will be a variety of kiosks with traditional Loiceñas food, drinks and treats, as well as stalls of authentic Puerto Rican crafts. Admission to the event is $5 for adults, and children under 12 enter for free.

About four years ago, Nazario Fuentes devised the municipal microenterprise Miel Yuisa at the PHCMdelaC, which not only promotes bee conservation, education and tourism, but also provides hope for the economic recovery of the northeastern coastal town in a sustainable way.

Today, the PHCMdelaC houses the apiary, employs an administrator, two beekeepers, tour guides and maintenance officers. It is under the Loíza Tourism Office. The facilities also have permanent kiosks, a square with acoustic shell, exhibition gallery, administrative offices and sanitary services for visitors, as well as a walking track, special attractions for children such as swings, and the region’s most spectacular ceiba trees.

Adjacent to the Ricky Martin Foundation’s Tau Center on PR-188 in Loíza, the PHCMdelaC has ample parking and security.

Abertis and Sacyr were shortlisted last year by the Public-Private Partnerships Authority to compete in the final bid for the privatization of PR-52, between San Juan and Ponce; PR-53, between Humacao and Fajardo; PR-66, between Carolina and Río Grande; and PR-20, between San Juan and Guaynabo.

Loíza Mayor Julia Nazario Fuentes

Back out to sea, storm leaves long trail of damage

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

President Joe Biden said he will visit the Gulf Coast on Saturday to see the damage from Hurricane Idalia, which left flooding and power outages across Florida’s Big Bend region. The storm’s remnants swept back out to sea Thursday on a path toward Bermuda, but its tail end continued to dump heavy rain on the North Carolina coast.

The storm left behind downed trees, power outages and hazardous roads on a roughly 700-mile path from the Gulf Coast to the Outer Banks. Florida took the worst hit, though state officials said the structural damage appeared minor compared with other recent disasters, including Hurricane Ian, which devastated the state’s Gulf coastline farther south last year.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said in a Thursday morning news conference that there were no deaths confirmed in his state from the storm, which hit as a Category 3 hurricane early Wednesday, in his state, though the Florida Highway Patrol previously reported two weather-related car crashes that resulted in fatalities. Georgia officials said one person died when a tree fell on a car during the storm.

The National Hurricane Center said Idalia was losing its

A destroyed home after Hurricane Idalia in Cedar Key, Fla., Aug. 31, 2023. Initial reports suggested that the former hurricane was not as destructive as had been feared. The police linked two deaths in Florida to the storm, although the toll was still being assessed.

tropical characteristics Thursday afternoon, beginning to transition into a normal storm. But there was a possibility it could restrengthen over the Atlantic before reaching Bermuda this weekend. Here’s what to know:

— As of 2 p.m. Eastern time, the center of the storm was about 120 miles southeast of Cape Lookout, North Carolina. Its maximum sustained winds were at 65 mph, after reaching as high as 130 mph — making it briefly a Category 4 storm — in the hours before landfall early Wednesday.

— Some waterfront areas in Georgia and the Carolinas, where Idalia combined with a high tide and a supermoon to produce heavy flooding overnight, said they had been spared significant damage. In Edisto Beach, South Carolina, the fire chief said there was “zero to minimal damage” after waves had breached sand dunes between the ocean and homes.

— About 200,000 customers in Florida and Georgia remained without power Thursday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages across the United States. Power appeared to have been restored to all but about 11,000 customers in the Carolinas by 2 p.m.

— Biden signed a major disaster declaration to provide aid to places in Florida hit hard by the storm and called on Congress to approve an additional $12 billion for U.S. disaster relief after Idalia and the devastating wildfire in Hawaii. “We need this disaster relief request met, and we need to do it in September,” he said. “We can’t wait.”

Tropical Storm Jose is expected to be absorbed by Hurricane Franklin

By JUDSON JONES

As the remnants of Idalia battered the coast of North Carolina, and while Hurricane Franklin churned far off in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Jose formed early Thursday, becoming the latest named storm of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season.

As of 11 a.m. Thursday, Jose had maximum sustained winds of about 40 mph, just enough to qualify as a named storm, and was about 770 miles east of Bermuda.

The storm is not likely to grow much stronger.

Forecasters expect that it will be absorbed by Hurricane Franklin by Friday.

Wait, one storm can absorb another?

It can! Here’s how that works.

Jose is weak compared to Franklin, which was the Atlantic’s first major hurricane of the year and stayed at that level for days. Franklin is beginning to weaken and will soon transition into a more typical storm system with warm fronts and cold fronts, instead of a solid warm cored tropical cyclone.

By the weekend, after doing a little dance called the Fujiwhara effect, Jose will be absorbed by Franklin. Think of it less like Pac-Man eating a ghost and more like a sponge absorbing water.

The Fujiwhara effect happens when two storms orbit around a shared center point. The effect was named for a Japanese meteorologist, Sakuhei Fujiwhara, who first described the interaction between whirling masses of fluid or air in 1921.

The effect is much more common with cyclones in the west Pacific but does happen in the Atlantic. Sometimes, if the storms are of equal strength, they can spin around each other and then release, going their separate ways. Sometimes they will merge and create a stronger storm.

But in this case, where there is a more significant storm and a weaker storm, Franklin will just be Jose’s demise.

Jose is one of three active storms in the Atlantic.

In addition to Jose and Franklin, another storm, Idalia, battered small towns along the Big Bend region of Florida’s Gulf Coast after making landfall as a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday morning. It had become a tropical storm and was moving east off the coast of North Carolina on Thursday.

We’re in the middle of the hurricane season.

The Atlantic hurricane season started on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.

In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that there

would be 12 to 17 named storms this year, a “nearnormal” amount. On Aug. 10, NOAA officials revised their estimate upward, to 14 to 21 storms.

There were 14 named storms last year, after two extremely busy Atlantic hurricane seasons in which forecasters ran out of names and had to resort to backup lists. (A record 30 named storms took place in 2020.)

This year features an El Niño pattern, which arrived in June. The intermittent climate phenomenon can have wide-ranging effects on weather around the world, and it typically impedes the number of Atlantic hurricanes.

In the Atlantic, El Niño increases the amount of wind shear, or the change in wind speed and direction from the ocean or land surface into the atmosphere. Hurricanes need a calm environment to form, and the instability caused by increased wind shear makes those conditions less likely. (El Niño has the opposite effect in the Pacific, reducing the amount of wind shear.)

At the same time, this year’s heightened sea surface temperatures pose a number of threats, including the ability to supercharge storms.

That unusual confluence of factors has made solid storm predictions more difficult.

“Stuff just doesn’t feel right,” said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, after NOAA released its updated

forecast in August. “There’s just a lot of kind of screwy things that we haven’t seen before.”

There is solid consensus among scientists that hurricanes are becoming more powerful because of climate change. Although there might not be more named storms overall, the likelihood of major hurricanes is increasing.

Climate change is also affecting the amount of rain that storms can produce. In a warming world, the air can hold more moisture, which means a named storm can hold and produce more rainfall, like Hurricane Harvey did in Texas in 2017, when some areas received more than 40 inches of rain in less than 48 hours.

Scorching heat is contributing to migrant deaths

confirmed deaths.

Tracking migrant deaths is an imperfect science. Many drown trying to cross the Rio Grande; others succumb to sweltering desert conditions or a lack of water, with their deaths ultimately attributed to dehydration, heat stroke or hypothermia. The unrelenting heat this summer in Texas, combined with suffocating humidity, has contributed to many of the fatalities, local and federal officials said.

“It would be dangerous to be out there for several hours,” said Jeremy Katz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville, Texas.

Groups such as South Texas Human Rights, which tracks reports of migrants missing, detained or found dead, have seen a surge in caseloads since the spring, from 118 cases in March to double that in both July and August.

The Border Patrol has been posting warnings on social media. “Extreme temperatures contributed to 45 individuals being rescued and 10 individuals who died due to the dangerous heat and conditions,” Chief Jason Owens, the director of the agency, wrote last month on X, formerly known as Twitter. He said his agents found 13 dead migrants the previous week.

not easily defined. On the one hand, he considers himself a political conservative who wants people in places such as New York and Los Angeles to understand the dangers migrants face when they do not follow the legal immigration process. But he also considers it his duty to prevent people from dying in their attempt to find a better life.

His phone never stops beeping with messages from desperate people, mostly in Latin America, whose relatives have gone missing. He pulled out his phone and read messages from a woman from Guatemala who had not heard from her brother in months. “Please find him,” she had written. She included a photo and description: 28 years old, black eyes, brown skin and a tattoo of a rose.

For White, that was little to go on.

“Without coordinates, how can you find someone lost in this vast land?” he said.

The bodies of those who do not survive are most often sent to local morgues, and then sometimes laid to rest in graves without names. Some are sent to labs for further examination to determine how they died.

By EDGAR SANDOVAL

On patrol in the harsh brush along the border in South Texas, Deputy Don White of the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office paused to study some empty water jugs, torn clothing and several indistinct footprints, looking for signs of migrants who might have been lost in the scorching heat.

Through the long summer, temperatures have lingered for days at a time at 100 degrees or higher. The heat has been stifling for many Texans, but deadly for some of those making

their way through the hot, barren shrub land where migrants travel to avoid detection from Border Patrol agents.

“These are old,” White said, gesturing at the faint tracks in the dirt. “No one is in danger right now.” For now, at least, he said under his breath.

Fewer people are crossing from Mexico this year compared with last year, but already there have been more than 500 deaths in 2023 — confirmed by the discovery of bodies or partial remains by White and others like him as they conduct their grim patrols. In 2022, among the deadliest in recent years, there were 853

AVISO IMPORTANTE

DR. CHRISTIAN E. SCHENK ALDAHONDO

Anuncia el cierre de su oficina para la práctica de neurología en la oficina ubicada en el CDT de Las Piedras, efectivo el 31 de agosto de 2023.

Los expedientes solo podrán ser solicitados vía email a través de neurologia.schenk@gmail.com o por mensaje de texto al (787)222-0011.

El personal de la oficina se comunicará para orientarle y coordinar la entrega de los documentos.

Expedientes no solicitados antes del 30 de septiembre de 2023, serán destruidos.

Even those migrants who manage to cross the river and make their way inland face myriad challenges, White said. Led by smugglers, many migrants take risky routes to avoid a Border Patrol checkpoint in the county seat of Falfurrias, about 80 miles north of the Rio Grande, often without enough food and water to endure the dayslong trek, he said.

America’s Southwest border has come to be known as one of the deadliest land crossings in the world.

Since 1998, at least 7,805 people have died trying to cross the border with Mexico and more than 3,527 remain missing, according to the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, an advocacy organization that reports on missing migrants and conducts DNA searches to identify remains.

White, 70, knows firsthand how unforgiving his patrol area can be: ranch land thick with cactus, thorny shrubs and occasional stands of oak and mesquite. Several hours before noon on a recent weekday morning, he and two members of his search team, John Baker, a U.S. Army veteran, and Ray Gregory, a paramedic and former Marine, were making their way under a burning sun, sweating through their uniforms and gear. White finally sat down under a tree whose shade provided little relief, trying to catch his breath.

“It doesn’t take long for someone to feel disoriented and get lost here,” he said.

White said his own views on his job were

Molly Kaplan, a doctoral researcher, works as a case manager with Operation Identification, a project of the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, analyzing the remains and personal items of dead migrants to help identify them. She said she was still moved by a case that took the researchers more than a decade to solve.

It involved Sandra Yaneth Aguilar, who was 14 in 2007 when she crossed the border near Brownsville and then vanished. After years of not knowing her whereabouts, her mother submitted a DNA sample in 2011. But it wasn’t until 2022 that investigators matched the sample to a set of remains that had been found four years earlier in an unmarked grave, along with those of dozens of other unidentified persons, in neighboring Willacy County. Sandra’s remains were ultimately released to her family, now living in New England.

“It is extremely rewarding to help give someone answers, after you go 12 years without knowing,” Kaplan said.

Since the project began in 2013, the operation has received 483 remains and identified 95, including 24 this year.

In South Texas, there was a day or two of rain last week, but little real relief from the heat. “We will continue our present steamy weather for the month of September,” White lamented. “October starts the cooling trend, enough to make it easier on crossers.”

For now, he said, he will continue searching the brush for fresh footprints.

Don White, a deputy with the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office in Texas, walks through a cemetery in the county where dozens of unidentified migrant remains were once buried.

Trump, under oath, says he averted ‘nuclear holocaust’

By BEN PROTESS, JONAH E. BROMWICH and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Under oath and under fire, former President Donald Trump sat for a seven-hour interview with the New York attorney general’s office in April, part of the civil fraud case against him and his company.

But as lawyers from the office grilled Trump on the innerworkings of his family business, which is accused of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars, he responded with a series of meandering non sequiturs, political digressions and selfaggrandizing defenses.

Although Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination when initially questioned by the office last year, he answered questions from the attorney general, Letitia James, and her lawyers in the April deposition, a transcript of which was unsealed Wednesday.

The transcript shows a combative Trump, who was named as a defendant in the case alongside his company and three of his children, at times barely allowing lawyers to get a word in. The former president frequently seems personally offended by the idea that his net worth is being questioned.

Trump is seeking to have the case thrown out. A judge could rule on that effort next month, but for now, the case appears headed to trial in early October.

Below are some of the highlights from the transcript of his deposition:

Trump refers to his time in the Oval Office with a notable understatement.

The former president was asked by Kevin Wallace, a senior lawyer in James’ office, about his relationship to his company. He said that he was not the final decision-maker, though he later suggested he might be involved in “something major, final decisions, whatever.”

WALLACE:

Mr. Trump, are you currently the person with ultimate decision-making authority for the Trump Organization?

TRUMP: No.

WALLACE: Who would that be?

TRUMP:

My son Eric is much more involved with it than I am. I’ve been doing other things.

Trump claims to have protected the world from nuclear war while in office.

In an exchange soon after that, Trump acknowledged that those other things included having been president.

TRUMP:

I was very busy. I was — I considered this the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives. I think you would have nuclear holocaust, if I didn’t deal with North Korea. I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.

Trump derides his annual financial statements, saying that he never felt they would be taken seriously.

The attorney general’s case against Trump focuses on his annual financial statements, which she says overvalue his property by up to $2.2 billion each year.

Each of Trump’s financial statements includes a number of disclaimers, which acknowledge that Trump’s accountants had not reviewed or authenticated his claims. During the interview, Trump refers to those disclaimers, saying that they essentially render the statements meaningless.

TRUMP:

I never felt that these statements would be taken very seriously, because you open it up and right at the beginning of the statement, you read a page and a half of stuff saying, go get your own accounting, go get your own this, go get your own that.

WALLACE:

So why did you get these statements prepared?

TRUMP:

I would say more for maybe myself just to see the list of properties. I think more for myself than anything else. Sometimes an institution would like to see.

Trump then went on to say that his properties were even more valuable than was reflected in the statements themselves.

Trump attacks the case.

The former president frequently used the deposition to

attack the case itself. At one point he told Wallace that the banks from which he had received loans were “shocked” at the lawsuit.

TRUMP:

The banks — the banks are shocked by this case. That’s my opinion, because they’ve never had anything like this. Do you know the banks were fully paid? Do you know the banks made a lot of money? Do you know I don’t believe I ever got even a default notice, and even during COVID, the banks were all paid? And yet you’re suing on behalf of banks, I guess. It’s crazy. The whole case is crazy.

Trump describes the value of his brand.

When asked during the deposition what might have been left out of his annual financial statements, Trump at first seemed to dispute the premise of the question, saying, “They list everything in the kitchen sink here.” But he then elaborated.

TRUMP:

The biggest thing that is not included is my brand. My lawyers never bring it up, but the brand is the biggest, and cause you can, maybe you can double or triple my statement. But my brand is — if I wanted to create a good statement, I would put — I’d start off with Sentence 1, my brand is worth billions and billions of dollars.

Donald Trump speaks to reporters at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport after surrendering at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.

By STEVE LOHR

Lori Beer, the global chief information officer of JPMorgan Chase, talks about the latest artificial intelligence with the enthusiasm of a convert. She refers to AI chatbots like ChatGPT, with its ability to produce everything from poetry to computer programs, as “transformative” and a “paradigm shift.”

But it’s not coming soon to the nation’s largest bank. JPMorgan has blocked access to ChatGPT from its computers and told its 300,000 workers not to put any bank information into the chatbot or other generative AI tools.

For now, Beer said, there are too many risks of leaking confidential data, questions about how the data is used and about the accuracy of the AI-generated answers. The bank has created a walled-off, private network to allow a few hundred data scientists and engineers to experiment with the technology. They are exploring uses such as automating and improving tech support and software development.

Across corporate America, the perspective is much the same. Generative AI, the software engine behind ChatGPT, is seen as an exciting new wave of technology. But companies in every industry are mainly trying out the technology and thinking through the economics. Widespread use of it at many companies could be years away.

Generative AI, according to forecasts, could sharply boost productivity and add trillions of dollars to the global economy.

Yet the lesson of history, from steam power to the internet, is that there is a lengthy lag between the arrival of major new technology and its broad adoption — which is what transforms industries and helps fuel the economy.

Take the internet. In the 1990s, there were confident predictions that the internet and the web would disrupt the retailing, advertising and media industries. Those predictions proved to be true, but that was more than a decade later, well after the dotcom bubble had burst.

Over that time, the technology improved and costs dropped, so bottlenecks fell away. Broadband internet connections eventually became commonplace. Easy-to-use payment systems were developed. Audio and video streaming technology became far better.

Fueling the development were a flood of money and a surge of entrepreneurial trial and error.

“We’re going to see a similar gold rush this time,” said Vijay Sankaran, chief technology officer of Johnson Controls, a large supplier of building equipment, software and services. “We’ll see a lot of learning.”

The investment frenzy is well underway. In the first half of 2023, funding for generative AI startups reached $15.3 billion, nearly three times the total for all of last year, according to PitchBook, which tracks startup investments.

Corporate technology managers are sampling generative AI software from a host of suppliers and watching to see how the industry shakes out.

In November, when ChatGPT was made available to the public, it was a “Netscape moment” for generative AI, said Rob Thomas, IBM’s chief commercial officer, referring to Netscape’s

introduction of the browser in 1994. “That brought the internet alive,” Thomas said. But it was just a beginning, opening a door to new business opportunities that took years to exploit.

In a recent report, the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the consulting firm, included a timeline for the widespread adoption of generative AI applications. It assumed steady improvement in currently known technology, but not future breakthroughs. Its forecast for mainstream adoption was neither short nor precise, a range of eight to 27 years.

The broad range is explained by plugging in different assumptions about economic cycles, government regulation, corporate cultures and management decisions.

“We’re not modeling the laws of physics here; we’re modeling economics and societies, and people and companies,” said Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute. “What happens is largely the result of human choices.”

Technology diffuses across the economy through people, who bring their skills to new industries. A few months ago, Davis Liang left an AI group at Meta to join Abridge, a health care startup that records and summarizes patient visits for physicians. Its generative AI software can save doctors from hours of typing up patient notes and billing reports.

Liang, a 29-year-old computer scientist, has been an author on scientific papers and helped build so-called large language models that animate generative AI.

His skills are in demand these days. Liang declined to say, but people with his experience and background at generative AI startups are typically paid a base salary of more than $200,000, and stock grants can potentially take the total compensation far higher.

The main appeal of Abridge, Liang said, was applying the “superpowerful tool” of AI in health care and “improving the working lives of physicians.” He was recruited by Zachary Lipton, a former research scientist in Amazon’s AI group, who is an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Lipton joined Abridge early this year as chief scientific officer.

“We’re not working on ads or something like that,” Lipton said. “There is a level of fulfillment when you’re getting thankyou letters from physicians every day.”

Saving time and streamlining work inside companies are the prime early targets for generative AI in most businesses. New products and services will come later.

This year, JPMorgan trademarked IndexGPT as a possible name for a generative AI-driven investment advisory product.

“That’s something we will look at and continue to assess over time,” said Beer, the bank’s tech leader. “But it’s not close to launching yet.”

The AI revolution is coming. But not as fast as some people think.

JPMorgan Chase headquarters in New York, March 23, 2022. JPMorgan has blocked access to ChatGPT from its computers and told its 300,000 workers not to put any bank information into the OpenAI chatbot or Google’s Bard.

S&P 500 climbs as inflation data fuels interest rate optimism

The S&P 500 .SPXrose on Thursday after U.S. inflation data matched estimates, underscoring expectations the Federal Reserve could pause its monetary tightening, while Salesforce climbed following an up upbeat forecast.

The Nasdaq .IXIC reached its highest in four weeks after a Commerce Department report showed the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, considered the central bank’s preferred inflation gauge, climbed 3.3% in July on an annual basis, in line with expectations.

Excluding volatile food and energy components, the core PCE price index rose 4.2% in July, year-on-year, also in line with estimates.

Traders’ expectations for a pause in rate hikes at the Fed’s September policy meet remained at an 88.5% chance, while their bets on the central bank keeping rates unchanged in November stood at 51%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

“Investors believe the Fed is data dependent, and the data is in the market’s favor. All these interest rate hikes are paying off,” said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Investors are awaiting more comprehensive non-farm payrolls data due on Friday for greaterclarity on the Fed’s likely monetary path.

HP Inc tumbled 6.6% after the personal computer maker trimmed its annual forecast due to slowing demand.

Traders’ bets on the Fed leaving interest rates unchanged in September stood at nearly 89%, up from 86% the day before, while bets of a pause in November rose to 54% from about 52%, the CME Group’s FedWatch tool showed.

U.S. Treasury yields slipped to a near three-week low, with the 10-year yield last at 4.12%.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was light, with 9.0 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 10.6 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.38% to end at 4,514.87 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.54% at 14,019.31 points, while Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.11% to 34,890.24 points.

Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, nine rose, led by information technology, up 0.83%, followed by a 0.51% gain in energy.

Investors are now looking to the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, and non-farm payroll numbers due on Thursday and Friday, respectively, for more clues on interest rates.

Trading activity has been light this week ahead of Monday’s U.S. Labor Day holiday.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury notes US10YT=R eased to 4.09%, driving major growth stocks including Amazon AMZN.O, Meta Platforms META.O and Tesla TSLA.O up between 0.8% and 2.1%.

Salesforce CRM.N rallied 3.7% following upbeat rev-

MOST ASSERTIVE STOCKS

enue forecasts from the cloud-based software provider as it benefits from price hikes and a resilient demand.

The most traded stock in the S&P 500 was Tesla TSLA.O, with $22 billion worth of shares exchanged during the session. The electric car maker’s shares rose 0.8%.

Weekly jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 26 fell to 228,000, compared with estimates of 235,000 claims, reining in investor sentiment, the Labor Department said in a report.

The data follows smaller-than-expected growth in private payrolls on Wednesday that signaled a softening labor market and drove the S&P 500 to a three-week closing high.

All three main indexes were on course to post gains for the week but losses for August, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq set for their first monthly declines since February.

The S&P 500 was up 0.20% at 4,524.12 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.47% at 14,085.29 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.10% at 34,856.97 points.

Among other stocks, Dollar General DG.N slumped over 12% after the discount retailer cut its annual same-store sales forecast. Rival Dollar Tree’s DLTR.O shares fell 1.9%.

Fire in Johannesburg kills at least 74 people, including a dozen children

By JOHN ELIGON and LYNSEY CHUTEL

Ablaze on Thursday tore through a building in Johannesburg where squatters lived in dangerous conditions, city officials said, killing at least 74 people and injuring dozens of others in one of the deadliest residential fires in South Africa’s history.

Authorities were still trying to determine what caused the blaze. It consumed a fivestory downtown building that had become a dilapidated informal settlement where electric cables dangled in dark corridors and trash spilled from windows — a vivid illustration of a political crisis that has resulted in a severe lack of affordable housing in one of Africa’s most populous cities.

Officials said many residents lit fires for warmth and light, posing a deadly hazard.

Mgcini Tshwaku, a Johannesburg city council member who oversees public safety, said when he arrived at the scene of the fire, people were jumping out of windows to escape.

Residents and officials said that illegally occupied buildings like this one often housed South Africans suffering under the country’s housing and unemployment crises and im-

Police officers and first responders at the scene of a fire in downtown Johannesburg which killed at least 74 people in the early hours of Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023. Dozens of others were injured when a blaze tore through a building where squatters lived in dangerous conditions, city officials said, in one of the deadliest residential fires in South Africa’s history.

migrants who have struggled to find stability in a country gripped by economic woes. On Thursday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa called the fire a “wake-up call,” saying South Africa needed to do more to prevent these types of buildings from being “taken over by criminals, who then levy rent on vulnerable

people and families who need and want accommodation in the inner city.”

Here is what else to know:

— By midmorning, the fire had been extinguished and firefighters were combing the structure floor by floor, searching for bodies. At least 12 children were among the dead,

according to the city’s emergency services.

— The blaze ranks among the deadliest residential fires in recent years. The toll already exceeds that of the 2017 fire at Grenfell Tower in London, which claimed 72 lives.

— Initial evidence suggests the fire started on the ground floor, Tshwaku said, adding that a security gate trapped many residents who were trying to escape. The building was one of more than 600 derelict structures in Johannesburg that are illegally occupied, he said.

— Journalists for The New York Times visited the building in May while reporting for an article about the chaotic state of Johannesburg. They saw garbage sagging out of second-floor windows, a pile of trash partly blocking the entrance and a building so overcrowded that some squatters had erected tin shacks in the back lot.

— Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda of Johannesburg said the city owned the building, which was once an apartheid government checkpoint for Black workers. He said that in recent years the city had leased it to a nonprofit organization that provided emergency housing for women but that the nonprofit had subsequently ended its operations there.

Typhoon Saola threatens China with Category 4 winds

By MIKE IVES

Typhoon Saola, a powerful tropical cyclone packing the force of a Category 4 hurricane, was moving west through the South China Sea on Thursday toward Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.

Saola was about 254 miles east-southeast of Hong Kong on Thursday morning, the Chinese territory’s meteorological agency said in a warning, adding that the storm would produce high winds and “heavy squally showers” there starting Friday. Hong Kong said that it planned to issue weather warnings later Thursday, and China was already under the highest level of alert under a four-tier typhoon warning system.

Saola was generating sustained winds of 155 mph on Thursday, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, a meteorological service operated by the U.S. Navy. That is 2 mph below a Category 5 storm on the five-tier wind scale that is used to measure tropical cyclones in the Atlantic.

The storm has been moving through the region for days. It prompted evacuations in the Philippines and some school closures and travel disruptions in Taiwan, but it has not been linked to any deaths or injuries.

Saola was one of three tropical systems swirling in the Northwest Pacific on Thursday. The others, Kirogi and Haikui, were swirling farther east, and far from land, as tropical storms.

Hurricanes and typhoons are tropical cyclones with sustained winds of at least 74 mph. The term “hurricane” refers to tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin; “typhoon” refers to ones that develop in the northwestern Pacific and affect Asia.

Typhoon Saola is named for an elusive species of wild ox that is native to parts of Southeast Asia.

Forecasters say it is hard to say exactly where — or if — the storm will make landfall. That is partly because Tropical Storm Haikui might influence its trajectory. Saola could also be influenced by the annual summer monsoon.

The Philippine meteorological agency said that Saola would likely move parallel to the coast of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Saturday, and that a land-

fall in mainland China was possible on Sunday. Either way, the agency said, the storm was expected to weaken as it moved through the South China Sea, becoming a tropical storm by Monday.

A satellite image showing typhoon Saola moving north toward Taiwan on Tuesday.

Decades after dictatorship, Chile mounts search for hundreds who vanished

By PASCALE BONNEFOY

Thirty-six years after Fernando Ortíz’s abduction and disappearance, his family finally received his remains: five bone fragments in a box.

Ortíz, a 50-year-old professor, was kidnapped in 1976 during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, rounded up with other communist leaders in Chile and sent to a torture center so secret that no one knew of its existence for three decades.

No one came out alive from the black site named for the street it was on: Simón Bolívar. It was little more than a house in a rural area east of the capital run by the regime’s intelligence agency, DINA. There were no witnesses or survivors to shed light on the detainees’ fates. For decades, there was only deafening silence.

Ortíz was one of 1,469 people who disappeared under Chile’s military rule from 1973 to 1990. Only 307 of them have been found and identified.

Now, before the 50th anniversary of the coup that toppled one of Latin America’s most stable democracies and installed the 17-year dictatorship that imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands of its opponents, Chile has enacted a national search plan to track down the remaining disappeared.

“Justice has taken too long,” President Gabriel Boric of Chile said during a ceremony Wednesday in which he signed a presidential decree to codify the plan. “This is not a favor to the families. It is a duty to society as a whole to deliver the answers the country deserves and needs.”

The measure marks the first time since the end of the Pinochet regime that the Chilean government has tried to find those who went missing — an effort that until now has largely fallen to the surviving family members, mainly women, who protested, went on hunger strikes and took their cases to court. So far, only through these judicial cases have burial sites been identified.

“The state took them away, and it is the state that has to be responsible for reparation, justice and sustaining the search,” Luis Cordero, Chile’s minister of justice and human rights, said in an interview with The New York Times.

Two of Cordero’s great-uncles were abducted in 1973 and never found.

Other South American countries under military rule in the 1970s and ’80s have had mixed success in recovering the remains of their disappeared. Forensics teams in Argentina recovered more than 1,400 bodies and

identified 800 of them. In Brazil, efforts to find 210 people who went missing have had scant results. The Paraguayan agency given the task of finding and identifying its 336 disappeared has discovered only 34.

The plan will centralize and digitize the enormous volumes of judicial case files and other archives scattered across government agencies and human rights organizations, using a special software to cross-reference information. It will also finance the exploration of sites where victims may be buried, or where excavations have been pending for years because of a lack of funding.

In general, getting justice for the dead or missing has been a drawn-out, painful process.

For decades, Chile’s court system was paralyzed by a Pinochet-era amnesty law that prevented prosecution of those responsible for human rights abuses committed from 1973 to 1978. It wasn’t until 2000 that the judiciary stopped using it to dismiss cases, and special judges were appointed to investigate these crimes. Since then, the Supreme Court has issued about 640 rulings, sending hundreds to prison, and has 17 judges exclusively dedicated to nearly 1,500 cases, as of January 2023.

It often took the victims’ families years to acknowledge that the disappeared would never come back.

“The idea of their death seeps in slowly,” says María Luisa Ortíz, the daughter of Fernando Ortíz who is now the head of collections and research at the Memory and Human Rights Museum in Santiago, Chile’s capital.

The families know that the likelihood of finding the disappeared is slim. In 1978, when the remains of 15 missing men were discov-

ered in an abandoned limekiln, Pinochet ordered the military to exhume hundreds of victims buried secretly around the country and dispose of them permanently. Bodies were dumped in the ocean or volcanoes. Others were blown up or incinerated. Most of what has been discovered are bone fragments, teeth and shreds of clothing.

Pinochet gave up his rule in 1990, but he continued to command Chile’s army until 1998. Later that year, he was arrested in London to face charges in Spain for human rights abuses, but he was ultimately released and sent back to Chile because of his poor health. Pinochet lived his final years in relative seclusion and died in 2006.

Efforts to put Boric’s plan into motion are underway. Forensics experts have started excavating new sites. The judiciary has begun digitizing its human rights files. A new director at Chile’s national forensics agency, which holds 896 DNA samples from the relatives of the disappeared, hopes to erase the negligence that has plagued it in the past.

Missing from Boric’s project is any plan to pry information out of the military or those serving sentences. Only a few convicted agents, facing terminal illnesses or nearing death, have provided new data, said Cordero.

“The plan has to result in information about the perpetrators,” said Congresswoman Lorena Pizarro, who is the daughter of a communist leader abducted in 1976 and former president of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared. “And where is this information? We have to face the fact that the armed forces have it, and it’s time they stop saying that it doesn’t exist.”

The armed forces have never turned over their files from the dictatorship era, claiming they no longer exist. Some, converted to microfilm in the 1970s, were incinerated in 2000. The military provides specific data to the courts only when requested, but no action has been taken to retrieve all their records.

Nelson Caucoto, a human rights lawyer who has handled hundreds of cases, says he believes the key lies in approaching former lowranking agents, conscripts and civilian collaborators who may

not know the names of the people they killed, but can remember where they buried them.

“The state has to be proactive and go to their homes,” he said. “These are agents who are completely abandoned, sometimes living in poverty and outside the control of the military. They are vulnerable, and as they get older, they are more prone to repent and reveal secrets.”

But even with the government’s involvement, the process of finding and identifying the victims could take many more years.

In 2001, the Chilean army revealed information that led to excavations in Cuesta Barriga, a mountainous area west of the capital. María Luisa Ortíz and other family members were on site the entire 90 days as bits and pieces of remains were unearthed.

“That was a brutal shock,” said Ortíz. “No one ever thought we would find tiny pieces. We imagined finding their entire bodies.”

Later in 2006, a DINA guard at the Simón Bolívar barracks revealed the black site’s existence and described in graphic detail the torture that prisoners endured there.

Fernando Ortíz was clubbed to death, his family learned. His broken body, along with others, was thrown into a mine shaft in Cuesta Barriga. Other bodies were dropped from helicopters into the Pacific.

It took 12 more years before the nearly 200 bone fragments and bits of clothing found in Cuesta Barriga were identified, including those of Ortíz. The legal case took even longer. In June, 47 years after the disappearances, the Chilean Supreme Court issued its final ruling: up to 20 years in prison for 37 Simón Bolívar agents.

“I spent practically my entire life mired in the horror,” said María Luisa Ortíz, who for 47 years was immersed in court documents and human rights organizations. “Nothing repairs the damage. You are given five bits of bone and that is supposed to be your father. For me, he is still, in a way, disappeared. There is no closure. It’s too late.”

People visit a wall of photos of people missing from the Pinochet era at the Memory and Human Rights Museum in Santiago, Chile on Jan. 7, 2011.

The US and China are talking again. Where it will lead is unclear.

By ANA SWANSON and KEITH BRADSHER

When Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, visited China this week, she joined a long line of U.S. politicians who have come to the country to try to sway Chinese officials to open their market to foreign businesses and buy more American exports, in addition to other goals.

Raimondo left Shanghai on Wednesday night with no concrete commitments from China to treat foreign businesses more equitably or step up purchases of Boeing jets, Iowa corn or other products. In a farewell news conference, she said hoping for such an outcome would have been unrealistic.

Instead, Raimondo said her biggest accomplishment was restoring lines of communication with China that would reduce the chance of miscalculation between the world’s two largest economies. She and Chinese officials agreed during the trip to create new dialogues between the countries, including a working group for commercial issues that American businesses had urged her to set up.

“The greatest thing accomplished on both sides is a commitment to communicate more,” Raimondo said Wednesday.

She had also delivered what she described as a tough message. The Biden administration was willing to work to promote trade with China for many categories of goods. But the administration was not going to heed China’s biggest request: that the United States reduce stringent controls on exports of the most advanced semiconductors and the equipment to make them.

“We don’t negotiate on matters of national security,” Raimondo told reporters during her visit.

While she called the trip “an excellent start,” the big question is where it will lead.

There is a long history of frustrating and unproductive economic dialogues between the United States and China, and there are not many reasons to believe this time will prove different.

Forums for discussion may have helped resolve some individual business complaints, but they did not reverse a broad, yearslong slide toward more conflict in the bilateral relationship. Now, the U.S.-China relationship faces a variety of significant security and economic issues, including China’s more aggressive posture abroad, its use of U.S. technology to advance its military and its recent raids on foreign-owned businesses.

Raimondo says she has the backing of the president and U.S. officials. And Biden administration officials argue that even the shift to begin talking has been significant, after a particularly tense period. Relations between the United States and China became frosty last August when Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House

speaker at the time, visited Taiwan, and they froze entirely after a Chinese surveillance balloon flew across the United States in February.

Raimondo’s trip capped a summer of outreach by four senior Biden administration officials. R. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, who took office in January 2022 and accompanied Raimondo on the trip, said Tuesday that American officials “literally were not talking to the Chinese leadership at a senior level, my first 15 months here.”

Not everyone views reengagement as a good thing. Republican lawmakers, in particular, increasingly see the conflict between the United States and China as a fundamental clash of national interests. Critics view the outreach as an invitation for China to drag out reforms, or a signal to Beijing that the United States is willing to make concessions.

The space for compromise also seems narrow. Both governments have little desire to be

seen by domestic audiences as making concessions. And in both countries, the share of trade that is considered off limits or a matter of national security concerns is growing.

Kurt Tong, a former U.S. consul general in Hong Kong who is now a managing partner at the Asia Group, a Washington consulting firm, said Raimondo had offered China half of what it wanted. She sent a clear message that many American companies should feel free to do business in China, after years of receiving criticism for doing so during the Trump administration and still from many Republicans in Congress. But she did not agree to relax American export controls.

The recent weakness in the Chinese economy may create some opening for compromise. The Chinese economy has only limped back from its pandemic lockdowns. China’s youth unemployment rate has risen, its debt is piling up, and foreign investment in the country has fallen, as multinational companies look for other places to set up their factories.

In a meeting with Raimondo on Wednesday, the Shanghai party secretary, Chen Jining, admitted that the sluggish economy made business ties more crucial.

“The business and trade ties serve the role as stabilizing ballast for the bilateral ties,” Chen said. “However, the world today is quite complicated. The economic rebound is a bit lackluster. So stable bilateral ties in terms of trade and business is in the interest of two countries and is also called for by the world community.”

Raimondo responded that she was looking forward to discussing “concrete” ways they might be able to work together to accomplish business goals and “to bring about a more predictable business environment, a predictable regulatory environment and a level playing field for American businesses here in Shanghai.

Ms. Raimondo at Shanghai Disneyland on Wednesday. She said her biggest accomplishment in her trip to China was restoring communication to reduce the chance of miscalculation.

One nation, two flags?

By GREGORIO IGARTÚA

The law establishes the colors and design of the Puerto Rican flag (LPRA Cap. 3-31). It also sets the simultaneous display of the United States and Puerto Rico flags. It requires their display in equal prominence in any government structure, municipalities, public corporations and by any official thereof (1 LPRA 3-33 b).

Former Gov. Luis Muñoz’ Marín’s Popular Democratic Party used both flags in all municipal committees and rallies. Ratifying it as a requirement of the party -- this is how it emerges from several of the leader’s writings (letter of Sept. 30, 1943).

With the passing of the years, the use of the U.S. flag has been reduced to almost zero. Even in pro-statehood activities, it does not stand out. On the other hand, the pro-independence movement, which has failed to win votes, has managed to project independence at the state and national level by leaps and bounds with the mere use of the Puerto Rican flag. Consider:

In Puerto Rico, there is no union labor activity where the Puerto Rican flag is not displayed. It gives the impression that the only ones supporting the workers are the independentistas. On the contrary, from 1900

to 1930, the unions led by Santiago Iglesias Pantín and Samuel Gompers, the British-American founder of the American Federation of Labor, brought us closer to statehood. In 1917, they managed to grant us American citizenship.

In 1952, Muñoz Marín, along with the founder of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party and eventual governor Luis A. Ferré and pro-statehood leader García Méndez, obtained the approval of our Constitution, such as the states of the union have. There, allegiance to American citizenship and Constitution is sworn. The two flags affirming the union with the United States are the American (I am American) and the Puerto Rican (I am Puerto Rican).

On the contrary, Puerto Ricans living in the States have projected themselves as if their residential areas were colonies or ghettos of a Republic of Puerto Rico, displaying the Puerto Rican flag without the American one. They are called the Puerto Rican diaspora, a term referring to citizens who have forcibly moved out of their country to another. In other words, they are called foreigners within their own nation, even though they can move between the states and Puerto Rico without a passport. Ironically, leaders like U.S. Reps. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez promote this antiAmerican Puerto Rican patriotic spirit. The press calls Olympic gold medalist Jasmine Quinn-Camacho (by her preferred) “Camacho-Quinn.” In the States, basketball players who are descendants (including grandchildren) of native-born Puerto Ricans are sought to play in the superior territorial basketball league (called National, as in Baloncesto Superior Nacional).

In sports events in the States, if a Puerto Rican participates, 300 Puerto Ricans go, even if the team is not from Puerto Rico, and every time they make a play, they display the Puerto Rican flag. They are the only ones in the nation, even if it is ridiculous, inadmissible and reckless and embarrassing for the public and for the team.

On local television and radio, they refer to Puerto Rico as the nation, not as a state or territory. In several states, a Puerto Rican parade is held annually, but to reaffirm that every day we are Puerto Ricans, not Americans. I mean -- I’m Boricua so you know it!!! They want to name streets in American cities after Puerto Ricans. I got lost on a street in Boston that turned out to be called Aguadilla.

How do the independentistas manage to promote their patriotic agenda?

Converting Puerto Rican neighborhoods in large cities into neighborhoods or ghettos identified with the

Puerto Rican flag.

Refusing to use the American flag in their home states at sporting events, parades, professional meetings and elsewhere.

Turning the Puerto Rican flag into an idol of their patriotic movement.

They ignore the fact that millions of Hispanics would give the unspeakable to enjoy the benefits of U.S. citizenship. There are more than 4 million Americans of Puerto Rican descent residing in the States. They are benefiting, or have benefited from, public schools, universities, and serve in the military. They pay federal and state taxes, Social Security and Medicare. Many have excelled in industry, commerce, sports, the arts, journalism, education, science and government. Even so, they promote the idea that we are foreigners in our own nation.

In other words, the group behind this national scaffolding wants us, the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico, not to vote for the president, for two senators and five representatives, while they do vote.

To all those patriots who reside in the States for better social benefits, I suggest they mitigate the damage they have caused us (of over $10 billion annually).

* Use both flags (I have both in my heart)

* Demand parity in federal funding for us

* Promote our vote in federal elections.

They should also return to Puerto Rico to reduce the shortage of plumbers, painters, electricians, doctors, police officers, teachers, firefighters, engineers, lawyers and nurses, albeit temporarily.

Who knows, maybe they will stay.

Meanwhile, Gutiérrez, la Ocasio y la Velázquez, Rubén Berríos, Calle 13, Ricky Martin, and others can dress up as Uncle Sam and enjoy their good life in statehood.

Gregorio Igartúa is an attorney with a private practice in Aguadilla.

Junta de Relaciones del Trabajo ordena elecciones sindicales para los profesores de UPR

POR CYBERNEWS

SAN JUAN – La Junta de Relaciones del Trabajo decidió el jueves, ordenar elecciones sindicales para que los docentes de la Universidad de Puerto Rico escojan a su representante exclusivo.

“Han ordenado elecciones en la UPR para que los docentes seleccionen a la APPU como el sindicato que velará por sus derechos”, mencionó Rosa Rodríguez en declaraciones escritas.

Conforme a la Orden de Elección, las votaciones ocurrirán del 23 al 26 de octubre de 2023, en varios

recintos de la UPR, detalló la profesora del Recinto de la UPR en Cayey.

Tras una reunión programada en la Junta de Relaciones del Trabajo para el 11 de septiembre, se proporcionarán detalles sobre el proceso electoral. Esta elección permitirá a los más de 4 mil profesores tener una organización para negociar directamente con la UPR sobre condiciones de trabajo, plan médico y sistema de retiro, entre otros temas.

Rosa Rodríguez, presidenta de la APPU, recomendó a los docentes estar atentos a las redes sociales y al sitio web de la APPU para obtener más información sobre la

Brigadas de ASSMCA atienden salud mental en Culebra

CULEBRA – Brigadas de los programas de Prevención y Tratamiento de la Administración de Servicios de Salud Mental y Contra la Adicción (ASSMCA) llevaron este jueves, servicios de salud mental a los residentes de Culebra como parte del proyecto ASSMCA Visita Tu Comunidad.

“Buscamos llevar ayuda a quienes lo necesitan,

cambiando el estigma asociado a la enfermedad mental y las adicciones. Estamos fomentando el autocuidado desde la niñez”, afirmó Rodríguez Mateo en declaraciones escritas.

El impacto comunitario incluyó talleres para estudiantes y personal de la Escuela Ecológica sobre manejo emocional y los riesgos del uso de drogas. Además, se sostuvo un encuentro con líderes locales para orientarlos sobre salud mental y cómo acceder a servicios

de ASSMCA.

Se impartieron talleres a adultos mayores en el Centro de Envejecientes Marcelina Díaz Pellot, enfocándose en el manejo adecuado de medicamentos para evitar adicciones. También se ofrecerán charlas a comerciantes y empleados municipales sobre la responsabilidad y consecuencias del consumo de sustancias.

La actividad en Culebra culminará con un impacto comunitario en la Barriada Clark. Quienes necesiten ayuda emocional pueden comunicarse con la Línea PAS al número 9-8-8 o visitar el portal de ASSMCA en assmca.pr.gov.

POR EL STAR STAFF

MOROVIS – La alcaldesa de Morovis, Carmen Maldonado González, informó que envió para examen y aprobación de la Legislatura una Ordenanza para establecer el programa ‘Rehabilitando tu Vivienda’, donde por medio de un convenio con las familias, se entregarán materiales de construcción hasta un máximo de mil dólares ($1,000) para mejoras en las unidades de vivienda. Los fondos separados para estos fines, que totalizan $200,000, provienen de un sobrante del presupuesto del año fiscal pasado.

“En nuestro Municipio de Morovis existe una alta población de familias de moderados y escasos recursos económicos y en muchas ocasiones se les hace imposible vivir en una vivienda que cumpla con los estándares de salubridad mínimos. Nuestra Administración Municipal, por medio de la Oficina de Ayuda al Ciudadano, será responsable de poner en vigor la política pública en relación con el ‘Programa Rehabilitando tu Vivienda’, señaló Maldonado González.

Los materiales a otorgarse serán tales como plomería, electricidad y sellado de techo, entre otros, según los parámetros establecidos mediante reglamento. En el convenio se dispone que las familias beneficiadas pro-

veerán la mano de obra a su costo. La meta es atender de manera inmediata aquellas solicitudes de familias que su unidad de vivienda requiere mejoras y que por su condición económica no lo han permitido, situación que afecta su calidad de vida.

La Ordenanza autoriza a la Alcaldesa o al funcionario en quien ésta delegue, a aceptar cualquier donación procedente de la ciudadanía y la empresa privada que asista en la consecución de los propósitos del Programa, a solicitar y obtener cualquier permiso necesario para lograr la consecución de las metas del Programa, a tenor con la reglamentación y legislación estatal o federal vigente. Los ciudadanos participantes deberán firmar un acuerdo con el Municipio de Morovis donde se comprometen a realizar las mejoras a la unidad de vivienda para la cual se ha determinado la ayuda correspondiente a través del Programa.

Entre las cláusulas del acuerdo deberá indicar que se le entregará los materiales de construcción correspondientes al ciudadano de que se trate y el mismo se compromete a realizar las mejoras en un periodo de treinta (30) días después de haber recibido la ayuda correspondiente. La Ordenanza señala que será responsabilidad del Municipio de Morovis realizar las cotizaciones conforme las leyes, normas y reglamentos

aplicables para la adquisición de pintura, material de electricidad, plomería, sellado de techo y materiales de construcción a ser entregados a los ciudadanos que cualifiquen para el Programa.

Por otro lado, Oficina de Asuntos al Ciudadano deberá preparar un expediente por cada participante donde se establezca el perfil familiar del mismo, fotos antes y después de las mejoras realizadas a la unidad de vivienda, así como certificación de que el participante es de moderado o escasos recursos u evidencia de que es residente bonafide de Morovis, entre otros documentos necesarios y pertinentes.

Morovis lanza programa ‘Rehabilitando tu Vivienda’, alcaldesa Carmen Maldonado separa $200,000 para auxiliar a familias con reparaciones en sus hogares

Stream these three great documentaries

By BEN KENIGSBERG

The proliferation of documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we’ll choose three nonfiction films — classics, overlooked recent docs and more — that will reward your time.

‘Primary’ (1960)

Stream it on the Criterion Channel and Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play and Vudu.

The run-up to the presidential primary season is (somehow, already) underway. To see how different the nominating process once was, get a look at Robert Drew’s pioneering documentary.

The film has to be watched through the prism of its time. Doubly disorienting, it is a chronicle of the 1960 Democratic presidential primary in Wisconsin at a point when the majority of states did not yet hold primaries; it is also a fly-on-the-wall documentary from a moment when that form — made possible by the increased portability of cameras and sound equipment — was brand-new. While sitting in the room with John F. Kennedy, then the junior senator from Massachusetts, as he receives news of election returns may seem like the sort of sight you could easily catch on TV today, in 1960 it was an innovative, closerange portrait, offering “an intimate view of the candidates themselves,” as the film’s opening narration puts it.

Kennedy ran against his fellow senator Hubert H. Humphrey, of Minnesota, who during the events of “Primary” was campaigning only one state away from his home turf. His advantage is said to be with rural voters; Kennedy has strength in cities. The barnstorming seems oddly wholesome and congenial by today’s standards. The film shows Humphrey pitching a room of farmers on how the Senate votes he’s taken aren’t popular in Boston or New York. Elsewhere, cheering crowds greet Kennedy and sing along with his campaign song, a reworked version of Frank Sinatra’s “High Hopes.” And although much of “Primary” consists of speeches and handshaking, it gives the sense of having captured the national conversation in microcosm. Some voters express the fear that Kennedy’s Catholicism would influence his politics. One woman says she favors him precisely because he is Catholic.

Drew, who takes a “conceived & produced” credit as opposed to calling himself a director, went on to make other films with Kennedy, such as “Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment,” which followed the Kennedy administration’s actions to support the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963. “Primary” may end with its two candidates on roughly even national standing from where they started, but it inaugurated the direct-cinema movement. People who worked on it — including Albert Maysles and D.A. Pennebaker as cameramen — went on to make groundbreaking documentaries of their own.

‘4 Little Girls’ (1997)

Stream it on Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play and Vudu.

Next month will mark 60 years since the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, an act of terrorism that killed four girls. Their deaths, Walter Cronkite says in an interview in Spike Lee’s moving documentary, became an “awakening” for Americans who had, until that point, failed to understand “the real nature of the hate that was preventing integration.”

Lee’s documentary, edited by Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI”), leads by honoring the victims. The film opens with Joan Baez singing

“Birmingham Sunday,” written in response to the bombing, over images of the graves and faces of the four girls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Rosamond Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. We then hear recollections from friends and family members who knew them. McNair’s parents, Maxine and Chris, recall how painful it was to explain to Denise, at around age 6 (she died at 11), why she wasn’t allowed to order from a lunch counter. A friend of Wesley’s, Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, remembers Wesley’s sense of humor and kindness, and how they parted with the words “see you Monday,” not knowing what that Sunday would bring.

“4 Little Girls” also features interviews with civil rights leaders like the Rev. Andrew Young and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who walks viewers through how he barely survived another bombing in 1956. (The commentators, billed as “witnesses” in the credits, include Howell Raines, the executive editor of The New York Times from 2001 to 2003, who wrote extensively about the events.)

But almost unavoidably, Lee’s most memorable interview is with the former Alabama governor George Wallace, a proud segregationist who now claims that his “best friend is a Black friend.” He insists on bringing his aide, Eddie Holcey, before the cam-

era. “Ed come over here, just one minute,” he says. “Here’s one of my best friends right here.” Holcey, whom Wallace barely seems to look at directly, and who glances off-screen to make a sort of eyeroll, appears profoundly irritated at how Wallace is using him.

‘Geographies of Solitude’ (2023) Rent it on Apple TV, Google Play and Vudu.

The naturalist Zoe Lucas first visited Sable Island — a beachy strip that is less than one mile wide, and that lies 100 miles off the coast of mainland Nova Scotia — in 1971. Since then, she has become a tireless and largely solitary cataloger of life on the island: its hundreds of wild horses, its invertebrates and its seabirds, among other animals. She is heard discussing the possibility of finding species that don’t exist anywhere else. The diets of the birds, who have a tendency to eat plastic, are one indicator of levels of pollution in the ocean, another trend that Lucas tracks.

In “Geographies of Solitude,” the filmmaker Jacquelyn Mills, while not a naturalist (to be fair, she is credited as director, editor, cinematographer, sound recordist and producer), takes an approach to this documentary that is, in its way, similar to Lucas’. Both women see boundless possibilities in the island’s treasures. Mills draws on natural elements to make cameraless short films that wouldn’t be out of place in a Stan Brakhage retrospective. With a contact microphone, she and Zoe record the sounds made by the wood of a decaying A-frame on the island. She finds out what happens to film stock when it is buried in horse dung. She handprocesses film in seaweed and electronically renders music out of the crawling of a Sable ant.

Mills’ work is interspersed throughout the movie, which becomes a striking combination of environmental documentary and profile. It’s also a landscape film that makes a real effort to attune viewers to sights and sounds, and that gently dips its toe into the avant-garde. Late in the film, Lucas says it appears that her life is Sable Island — “that’s all I have, that’s all I do, all the time,” she notes, adding, with a hint of regret, “I lost track of everything else.” “Geographies of Solitude” isn’t quite immersive enough to make that happen. But it captures a world where cameras seldom go.

John F. Kennedy, seated facing camera, and Hubert H. Humphrey, behind him, in “Primary”

By ERIC KIM

In the 1980s, long before he became a New York chef, a young Iacopo Falai lived across the hall from a hip uncle who sometimes made penne alla vodka for dinner. The combination of tomato, cream and chile wasn’t traditional by any means, especially in Florence, Italy, where he lived, but his uncle was a travel-loving caterer who introduced Falai to a world of foods.

He had a particular point, Falai said: It doesn’t matter where a dish is made, as long as it’s delicious.

Some might assume that penne alla vodka is an ancient Roman pasta, but it gained popularity only in the 1970s and ’80s. The documentary “Disco Sauce: The Unbelievable True Story of Penne Alla Vodka” explores the dish’s many origin stories, from Italy to the United States, but none are definitive.

One of the first written accounts of vodka in creamy tomato pasta comes from the 1974 cookbook and memoir “L’Abbuffone” (later translated to English as “The Injester”). In it, Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi has a recipe for pasta all’infuriata, “furious pasta,” essentially a pasta all’arrabbiata with a splash of Polish chile-vodka.

In cooking, especially in penne alla vodka, deglazing a pan with liquor has many powers. Wine works, too, but a cleantasting vodka has mostly water and ethanol (a solvent), which is excellent at carrying aromatic compounds — like those in tomatoes. In other words, the vodka in this dish can help you smell, and in turn taste, the sauce’s flavors in a heightened way.

According to the Journal of Food Sci-

ence, the ethanol also helps more evenly disperse the fat, keeping the emulsified sauce bound, glossy and creamy.

So if you wish to taste the full impact of pork fat, red-pepper flakes and brick-red tomato paste blushed with cream, add a little vodka to your sauce (or a lot, as this recipe calls for). It’ll help you taste everything even more. But remember: Even vodka that has been cooked down, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, retains some of its alcohol content after as long as an hour.

In this recipe, the ricotta serving suggestion is inspired by the pappa al pomodoro, a bread-thickened tomato soup, at the now closed Caffe Falai in Manhattan. There, dollops of ricotta lent coolness both in temperature and in flavor — relief between bites of bold savoriness.

Vodka sauce became a source of comfort for Falai, even years later as the culinary director for SA Hospitality Group (Casa Lever, Sant Ambroeus, Felice). Recently in Milan, Falai made his own take on penne alla vodka for his staff.

The vodka in that sauce lent a “lightness of acidity,” Falai said. It might not be an Italian ingredient, but at least it’s delicious.

Ricotta pasta alla vodka

In a 1974 cookbook, Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi published a recipe for pasta all’infuriata, “furious pasta,” a chile-vodkaspiked tomato number. It’s one of the first written accounts of vodka in pasta. The alcohol is said to help fat disperse more evenly, keeping the sauce emulsion glossy and creamy, and to help you smell, and in turn taste, the sauce’s flavors in a heightened way. The ricotta serving suggestion draws inspiration from the creamy tomato soup with three dollops of cool, sweet ricotta on top from the now-closed Caffe Falai in Manhattan. The ricotta lends coolness both in temperature and in flavor, offering relief between bites of spicy booziness.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Total time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Kosher salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 slices thick-cut bacon (6 ounces), coarsely chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons red-pepper flakes

1 teaspoon dried oregano

4 large garlic cloves, crushed but left whole

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

Freshly ground black pepper

5 tablespoons tomato paste, preferably double-concentrated

3/4 to 1 cup vodka, depending on how boozy you want it

1 pound fusilli, penne or rigatoni

1 cup heavy cream

4 ounces Pecorino Romano or Parmesan, finely grated (1 cup)

1 cup/8 ounces whole-milk ricotta

Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley or basil, for serving

Preparation:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

2. Heat a large, high-sided skillet over medium-high. Add the oil and bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is crispy at the edges, about 5 minutes. Carefully drain all but 3 tablespoons of the fat, reserving any excess for later.

3. Lower the heat to medium. Stir in the red-pepper flakes, oregano and garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, just a few seconds. Add the onion, season

generously with salt and pepper and cook over medium-high, stirring, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add more bacon fat if the pan dries out. Add the tomato paste and stir constantly until slightly darker in color, about 3 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the vodka.

4. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package instructions until 2 minutes shy of al dente.

5. While the pasta cooks, turn the heat under the sauce to high and cook, stirring constantly, until reduced by three-quarters, about 2 minutes. Add the cream and bring to a simmer. Take off the heat.

6. Reserve 2 cups of the pasta water. Drain the pasta and add to the pan with the sauce, along with 1 cup pasta water and most of the pecorino. Cook over mediumhigh, stirring vigorously with one hand while moving the pan back and forth with the other, until the sauce glossily drapes the noodles, 5 to 7 minutes. Add more pasta water if the sauce looks dry. Fish out the garlic cloves. Taste and season with more salt and pepper, as desired.

7. Divide the pasta among plates, sprinkling with any remaining pecorino and dolloping each serving with three spoonfuls of ricotta. Top with the parsley, which adds necessary freshness to counter the richness.

What makes penne alla vodka so delicious? It’s all in the sauce.

Ricotta pasta alla vodka. The exact origin story of vodka sauce is uncertain, but its legacy is bold, spicy and ubiquitous.

LEGAL NOTICE

UNITED STATES DISTRICT

COURT DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO FINANCE OF AMERICA REVERSE, LLC.

Plaintiff V. CARMEN MARÍA SUÁREZ ARISTUD A/K/A CARMEN

M. SUÁREZ ARISTUD

A/K/A CARMEN MARÍA SUÁREZ; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Defendants

Civil Action No.: 3:16-cv-02478PAD. COLLECTION OF MONIES AND FORECLOSURE COMPLAINT. NOTICE OF SALE.

To: CARMEN MARÍA

SUÁREZ ARISTUD A/K/A CARMEN M. SUÁREZ ARISTUD A/K/A CARMEN

MARÍA SUÁREZ; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, GENERAL PUBLIC.

WHEREAS: Judgment was entered in favor of plaintiff to recover from defendants the principal sum of $138,060.89, plus the annual interest rate convened of 5.060% per annum until the debt is paid in full. The defendant Carmen María Suárez Aristud a/k/a Carmen M. Suárez Aristud a/k/a Carmen María Suárez to pay Finance of America Reverse, LLC., all advances made under the mortgage note including but not limited to insurance premiums, taxes and inspections as well as 10% ($22,200.00) of the original principal amount to cover costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees guaranteed under the mortgage obligation. The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by interested parties at the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150, Federal Office Building, 150 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. WHEREAS: Pursuant to the terms of the aforementioned Judgment, Order of Execution, and the Writ of Execution thereof, the undersigned Special Master was ordered to sell at public auction for U.S. currency in cash or certified check without appraisement or right of redemption to the highest bidder and at the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 – Federal Office Building, 150 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property.

“URBANA: Solar marcado con el número FF veintidós del Plano de Inscripción del Proyecto de Viviendas a Bajo Costo denominado B.V.C. cincuenta y

dos, radicado en el Barrio Martín González y Hoyo Mulas del término municipal de Carolina, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de doscientos noventa y ocho metros cuadrados con cincuenta y siete centésimas de otro, en lindes: por el NORTE, con el solar FF veintiuno; por el SUR, con el solar FF veintitrés; por el ESTE, con terrenos propiedad de la Corporación de Renovación Urbana y Vivienda de Puerto Rico; y por el OESTE, con la Calle número doce.”

Property Number 31,199 filed at page 203 of volume 776 of Carolina, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section II of Carolina. The mortgage deed is recorded at page 132 of volume 1,508 of Carolina, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section II of Carolina. WHEREAS: This property is subject to the following liens: Senior

Liens: None. Junior Liens: Reverse mortgage securing a note in favor of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, or its order, in the original principal amount of $222,000.00, due on August 1, 2087 pursuant to deed number 50, issued in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 27, 2013, before notary David Garcia Medina, and recorded, at page 134 of volume 1,508 of Carolina, property number 31,199, 5th inscription. Other

Liens: None. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed upon, including but not limited to any property tax, liens, (express, tacit, implied or legal) shall continue in effect it being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation. THEREFORE, the FIRST PUBLIC SALE shall be held on the 12TH DAY SEPTEMBER OF 2023, AT: 9:50 AM. The minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $222,000.00. In the event said first auction does not produce a bidder and the property is not adjudicated, a SECOND PUBLIC AUCTION shall be held on the the 19TH DAY SEPTEMBER OF 2023, AT: 9:50 AM, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum $148,000.00, which is twothirds of the amount of the minimum bid for the first public sale. If a second auction does not result in the adjudication and sale of the property, a THIRD PUBLIC AUCTION will be held on the the 26TH DAY SEPTEMBER OF 2023, AT: 9:50 AM, and the minimum bid that

will be accepted is the sum of $111,000.00, which is one-half of the minimum bid in the first public sale. The Special Master shall not accept in payment of the property to be sold anything but United States currency or certified checks, except in case the property is sold and adjudicated to the plaintiff, in which case the amount of the bid made by said plaintiff shall be credited and deducted from its credit; said plaintiff being bound to pay in cash or certified check only any excess of its bid over the secured indebtedness that remains unsatisfied.

WHEREAS: Said sale to be made by the Special Master subject to confirmation by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of conveyance and possession to the property will be executed and delivered only after such confirmation. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued cancelling all junior liens. For further particulars, reference is made to the judgment entered by the Court in this case, which can be examined in the Office of Clerk of the United States District Court, District of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 11th day of July, 2023. PEDRO A. VÉLEZ-BAERGA, SPECIAL MASTER.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS

REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC

Demandante Vs. SUCESION JUAN IVAN BATISTA ROSARIO

RIVERA T/C/C JUAN

BATISTA ROSARIO

RIVERA T/C/C JUAN

B. ROSARIO RIVERA

T/C/C JUAN ROSARIO

COMPUESTA POR JOHN

DOE Y JANE DOE COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; EVA CARRIN CARRION

T/C/C EVA CARRION DE ROSARIO T/C/C

EVA CARRION POR

SI Y EN CUANTO A LA CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

Demandados

Civil Núm.: CG2021CV02369.

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, S. A: LA PARTE

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

Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Caguas, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América y/o Giro Postal y Cheque Certificado, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, el 25 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Apartamento residencial identificado con el numero uno cero dos (102) del Edificio “DD”, localizado en la primera (1ra) planta del edificio “DD” del Condominio Serenna, sitio en el Barrio Cañabon del término municipal de Caguas, Puerto Rico, el cual tiene una cabida superficial de MIL QUINIENTOS NUEVE PUNTO CINCUENTA Y OCHO PIE CUADRADOS (1,509.58 P.C.), equivalentes a CIENTO CUARENTA PUNTO VEINTICINCO METROS CUADRADOS (140.25 M.C.). En lindes por el Norte, con el apartamento número uno cero uno (101) del edificio “EE”, en una distancia de treinta y nueve pies con dos pulgadas (39’2”), equivalentes a once punto noventa y cuatro metros (11.94 m.); por el Sur, con el apartamento número uno cero uno (101) del edificio “DD”, en una distancia de treinta y un pies con cuatro pulgadas (31’4”), equivalentes a nueve punto cincuenta y cinco metros (9.55 m.) y con el are de escalera y acceso en una distancia de cinco pies con ocho pulgadas (5’8”), equivalentes a uno punto setenta y tres metros (1.73 m.); por el Este, con un elemento común limitado; área de verde destinado para uso exclusivo de este apartamento y con elemento común general, área verde, adyacente al área de estacionamiento de la Calle número Cinco (5), en una distancia de cuarenta pies con diez pulgadas (40’10”), equivalentes a doce punto cuarenta y cinco metros (12.45 m.) y con el área de escalera y acceso al

edificio en una distancia de tres pies con ocho pulgadas (3’8”), equivalentes a uno punto doce metros (1.12 m.); y por el Oeste, elemento común limitado, que es un área verde destinado para uso exclusivo de este apartamento, en una distancia de cuarenta y cuatro pies con seis pulgadas (44’6”), equivalentes a trece punto cincuenta y seis metros (13.56 m.). La puerta principal de entrada y salida de este apartamento se encuentra localizada en la colindancia Este y da acceso a elementos comunes limitados, a saber, pasillo, escalera y a su vez a través de las calles interiores tiene acceso a la vía publica Gran Boulevard de Los Prados. Consta este apartamento de un nivel, donde ubican los elementos de vestíbulo, sala, comedor, sala familiar, cocina, tres (3) cuartos dormitorios, varios roperos (closets), dos (2) cuartos de servicio sanitarios, área con facilidades para destinar a lavandería y área de terraza adyacente al patio del fondo. Además tiene y le corresponde el uso y disfrute del patio al fondo, área verde abierta sin techar, demarcada por verja arquitectónica con un área superficial de setenta metros cuadrados (70.00 m.c.), equivalentes a setecientos cincuenta y ocho punto ochenta y cuatro pies cuadrados (758.84 p.c.), como elemento común limitado destinado de forma y manera exclusiva, única, permanente e inseparable del apartamento. Además tiene y le corresponde el uso y disfrute del patio al frente, área verde abierta sin techar, demarcada por verja arquitectónica con un área superficial de ciento dieciocho punto diecinueve pies cuadrados (118.19 p.c.), equivalentes a diez punto noventa y ocho metros cuadrados (10.98 m.c), como elemento común limitado destinado de forma y manera exclusiva, permanente e inseparable del apartamento. Tiene y le corresponde como elemento común limitado de forma y manera exclusiva, permanente e inseparable, dos (2) espacios de estacionamiento que se identifican con los números trescientos setenta y siete (377) y cuatrocientos nueve (409). Este apartamento tiene una participación en los elementos generales del Condominio de CERO PUNTO CUATRO CINCO DOS SIETE PORCIENTO (0.4527%). Finca número 59,001, inscrita al folio 158 del tomo 1710 de Caguas, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. La Hipoteca Revertida consta inscrita al folio 209 del tomo 1711 de Caguas, Finca número 59,001, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I, inscripción 6ª. Pro-

piedad localizada en: CONDOMINIO SERENNA, APT. DD 102, CAGUAS, PUERTO RICO 00727. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas anteriores o preferentes: Nombre del Titular: N/A. Suma de la Carga: N/A. Fecha de Vencimiento: N/A. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante: Nombre del Titular: Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano. Suma de la Carga: $411,000.00. Fecha de Vencimiento: 26 de agosto de 2077. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo de mínima subasta la suma de $274,000.00, 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 Caguas, el 2 DE OCTUBRE DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $182,666.67, 2/3 partes del tipo mínima establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $137,000.00, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, el 10 DE OCTUBRE DE 2023, A LAS 9:15 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 $282,478.62 por concepto de principal, más la suma de $38,226.36 en intereses acumulados al 31 de mayo de 2022 y los cuales continúan acumulándose a razón de 2.94% anual hasta su total y completo pago; más la sumas de $11,306.50 en seguro hipotecario; $5,635.00 en tarifas de servicio; $1,229.84 en seguro; $425.00 de tasaciones; $600.00 de inspecciones; $1,610.00 de adelantos pen-

dientes; más la cantidad de 10% del pagare original en la suma de $27,400.00, para gastos, costas y honorarios de abogado, esta última habrá de devengar intereses al máximo del tipo legal fijado por la oficina del Comisionado de Instituciones Financieras aplicable a esta fecha, desde este mismo día hasta 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 mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy 10 de agosto de 2023. CARLOS DELGADO CRUZ, ALGUACIL PLACA #593.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE GUAYAMA SALA SUPERIOR BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. JANETTE RODRÍGUEZ SUÁREZ

Demandada CIVIL NÚM.: GM2022CV00789.

SALA: 301. SOBRE: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA “IN REM”. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Guayama, Guayama, Puerto Rico, hago saber, a la parte demandada y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL: Que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 9 de agosto de 2023, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé

en pública subasta y al mejor postor la propiedad que ubica y se describe a continuación:

URBANA: Urbanización Arroyo Village de Arroyo, Puerto Rico. Solar: C-15. Cabida: 312 metros cuadrados. Linderos: NORTE, en trece punto cero cero cero metros (13.000mts) con la Calle número tres (3). SUR, en trece punto cero cero cero metros (13.000mts) con el lote número cuatro (4). ESTE, en veinticuatro punto cero cero cero metros (24.000mts) con el lote número catorce (14). OESTE, en veinticuatro punto cero cero cero metros (24.000mts) con el lote número dieciséis (16). Enclava una estructura de bloques y concreto compuesta de tres cuartos dormitorios, un cuarto servicio sanitario, cocina, comedor, sala y marquesina a destinarse exclusivamente para vivienda familiar. Inscrita en la finca número 9,015, al tomo Karibe de Arroyo. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guayama. La propiedad está ubicada, según pagaré, en: C-15 Arroyo Village, Arroyo, Puerto Rico. Además, el Alguacil que suscribe, hago saber a todos los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o de los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, siempre que surjan de la certificación registral, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante: Hipoteca a favor de Autoridad para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda de Puerto Rico, por la suma principal de $15,000.00, sin intereses, vencedero el día 4 de abril de 2011, constituida mediante la escritura número 473, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 4 de abril de 2003, ante el notario Julio F. Fernández Rodríguez, e inscrita al tomo Karibe de Arroyo, finca número 9,015, inscripción 3ra. Sujeta a Condiciones Restrictivas a favor del Programa La Llave Para Tu Hogar por un término de 8 años. Aviso de Demanda de fecha 28 de noviembre de 2022, expedido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Guayama, en el Caso Civil número GM2022CV00789, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecu-

CHALETS DE SAN PEDRO FAJARDO PR 00738

(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)

EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el

28 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 28 de AGOSTO de 2023. En FAJARDO, Puerto Rico, el 28 de AGOSTO de 2023. WANDA SEGUI REYES, Secretaria. f/LINDA I MEDINA MEDINA, Secretaria Auxiliar del Tribunal.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL

GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CABO ROJO

J & R PRIVATE POLICE AND DETECTIVE SERVICE, INC.

Demandante V. GN & GP FARMING, CORP. HACIENDO NEGOCIOS COMO MONARCA FARMS

Demandado

Civil Núm.: CB2023CV00298.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDIC-

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

A: GN & GP FARMING CORP QUIEN HACE

NEGOCIOS COMO

MONARCA FARMS. PO BOX 2285, SAN GERMAN PR 00683.

POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que la parte demandante, por conducto de su abogado

LCDO. CARLOS L. SEGARRA

MATOS, con oficina en la 2510 Carretera 100 kilómetro 3.5, Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico 00623, y cuyo número de teléfono es el 787 -851-3582, ha radicado ante este tribunal una demanda sobre Partición de Herencia. Se le apercibe que si no compare-

ciera usted a contestar dicha demanda, dentro un término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de este edicto, podrá dictarse sentencia en rebeldía en su contra concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda sin más citarle ni oírle. En Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, hoy día 23 de agosto de 2023.

LCDA. NORMA G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MILITZA LORENZO VEGA, SUB-SECRETARIA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA MUNICIPAL DE SAN JUAN ANDECO CO

Demandante V. JESUS FIGUEROA RODRIGUEZ

Demandado

Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV01550.

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

A: JESUS

FIGUEROA RODRIGUEZ.

115 RES. LLORENS

TORRES APT. 2156, SAN JUAN, PR 00913-7000. Se le notifica que la parte demandante ha presentado ante este tribunal, demanda contra usted, solicitando la concesión del siguiente remedio: Cobro de Dinero - Regla 60. Representa a la parte demandante, el abogado cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato:

Brito.Legal 1607 Ave. Ponce de León St. GM6 #232 San Juan, PR 00969 Tel. 787-705-1011

E-mail: adrian@brito.legal

POR LA PRESENTE, se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://www. poderjudicial.pr/index.php./ tribunal-electronico/, salvo que se presente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

En San Juan, Puerto Rico a 22 de agosto de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SE-

CRETARIA REGIONAL. ORTIZ SILVA, MELBA, SUB SECRETARIA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMON ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC., COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUICITIONS FUND, LLC.

Demandante V. JORGE

ROSADO SÁNCHEZ

Demandado(a)

CIVIL: TB2022CV00585 SALA

403 SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JORGE

ROSADO SANCHEZURB LEVITTOWN 1093

PASEO DAMASCO, TOA BAJA PR 00949. (Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)

EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 23 de agosto de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 24 de agosto de 2023. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 24 de agosto de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria. F/ KATHERINE SANTIAGO RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

CENTRO JUDICIAL DE FAJARDO SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO SALÓN DE SESIONES SALÓN 302.

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC

COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC

Demandante v. MARIA DEL R. OJEDA DIAZ Demandado(a) EDWIN OMAR SERRANO PEÑA EDWIN.SERRANO@ORF-LAW.COM NATALIE BONAPARTE SERVERA NATALIE.BONAPARTE@ORF-LAW. COM

Caso Núm.: RG2022CV00571. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINEROORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: MARIA DEL R. OJEDA DIAZ 313 COND PORTALES DE RIO GRANDE, RIO GRANDE PR 00745 (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 24 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 24 de AGOSTO de 2023. En FAJARDO, Puerto Rico, el 24 de AGOSTO de 2023. WANDA SEGUI REYES, Secretaria. f/ANA CELIS MARQUEZ APONTE, Secretaria Auxiliar del Tribunal.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

MARILYN ECHEVARRÍA LÓPEZ

Demandante v. FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE COMO SUCESOR EN DERECHO DE EXTINTO WESTERNBANK MORTGAGE CORPORATION BANCO

TAL, JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE

Demandado(a)

Civil: AG2023CV00430. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: BANCO TAL, JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE

DIRECCION DESCONOCIDA

P/C LCDO. BENJAMIN HERNANDEZ LOPEZ

545 CALLE GABRIEL CARDONA

MOCA, PR 00676

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)

EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 25 de agosto de 2023 , este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 28 de agosto de 2023 . En AGUADILLA , Puerto Rico , el 28 de agosto de 2023 . SARAHÍ REYES PÉREZ, Secretaria. ZUHEILY GONZALEZ AVILES, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior Municipal de San Juan. FINANCE OF AMERICA

REVERSE LLC Demandante VS. SUCESIÓN DE MARÍA DEL CARMEN GELPÍ

MARTÍNEZ, Y OTROS Demandado (a) Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV01013. Sala: 604. Sobre: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA IN REM. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTOS.

A: SUTANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLE

HEREDERO DE LA SUCESIÓN DE MARIA

DEL CARMEN GELPI

MARTINEZ T/C/C MARIA

DEL C. GELPI MARTINEZ

T/C/C MARIA GELPI

MARTINEZ TIC/C MARIA

DEL CARMEN GELPI

T/C/C MARIA DEL C. GELPI TIC/C MARIA

GELPI, CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA, POR

CONDUCTO DE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO, FULANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLE HEREDERO DE IA SUCESIÓN DE MARIA DEL CARMEN

GELPI, MARTINEZ TIC/C

MARIA DEL C. GELPI

MARTINEZ T/C/C MARIA

GELPI MARTINEZ T/C/C

MARIA DEL CARMEN

GELPI T/C/C MARIA DEL C. GELPI T/C/C MARIA GELPI

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 22 de agosto de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 23 de agosto de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 23 de agosto de 2023. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional. F/ RAQUEL DIAZ LOPEZ, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAGUASSUPERIOR. BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO VS RAMOS SOTO, LUIS ERNESTO

CASO: ECD2017-0281. SOBRE: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA IN REM.

LUIS ERNESTO RAMOS

SOTO T/C/C LUIS E. RAMOS SOTO, KAREN VANESSA CANELA

CASTILLO T/C/C KAREN V. CANELA CASTILLO Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS.

NOTIFICACION DE SEN-

TENCIA POR EDICTO. EL SECRETARIO(A) QUE SUSCRIBE LE NOTIFICA A USTED QUE EL 09 DE MARZO DE 2020 , ESTE TRIBUNAL HA DICTADO SENTENCIA, SENTENCIA PARCIAL O RESOLUCION EN ESTE CASO, QUE HA SIDO DEBIDAMENTE REGISTRADA Y ARCHIVADA EN AUTOS DONDE PODRA USTED ENTERARSE DETALLADAMENTE DE LOS TERMINOS DE LA MISMA. ESTA NOTIFICACION SE PUBLICARA UNA SOLA VEZ EN UN PERIODICO DE CIRCULACION GENERAL EN LA ISLA DE PUERTO RICO, DENTRO DE LOS 10 DIAS SIGUIENTES A SU NOTIFICACION. Y, SIENDO O REPRESENTANDO USTED UNA PARTE EN EL PROCEDIMIENTO SUJETA A LOS TERMINOS DE LA SENTENCIA, SENTENCIA PARCIAL O RESOLUCION, DE LA CUAL PUEDE ESTABLECERSE RECURSO DE REVISION O APELACION DENTRO DEL TERMINO DE 30 DIAS CONTADOS A PARTIR DE LA PUBLICACION POR EDICTO DE ESTA NOTIFICACION, DIRIJO A USTED ESTA NOTIFICACION QUE SE CONSIDERARA HECHA EN LA FECHA DE LA PUBLICACION DE ESTE DICTO. COPIA DE ESTA NOTIFICACION HA SIDO ARCHIVADA EN LOS AUTOS DE ESTE CASO, CON FECHA DE 24 DE AGOSTO DE 2023.

LIC. SOMOZA COLOMBANI, GUILLERMO A. BILLYSOMOZA@YAHOO.COM EN CAGUAS, PUERTO RICO, A 24 DE AGOSTO DE 2023. LISILDA MARTINEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIO. POR: F/ JESSENIA PEDRAZA ANDINO, SECRETARIO AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante v. JOSÉ JULIÁN RODRÍGUEZ NEGRÓN; YAHAIRA GONZÁLEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES

COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA

Demandados

Civil Núm: UT2023CV00037. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO, EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (VÍA ORDINARIA). NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: YAHAIRA GONZÁLEZ PO BOX 1273 UTUADO, PR 00641-1273

622 RD KM 2.5 LTl

CAGUANA, UTUADO, PUERTO RICO 00641 97 43 NYRTLE CREEK

LANE,

ORLANDO, FL 32832

(Nombre de los portes o los que se le notifican lo sentencio por edicto]

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 28 de agosto de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico dentro, de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerara hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos del caso con fecha de 29 de agosto de 2023. En Utuado, Puerto Rico, el 29 de agosto de 2023. En Utuado, Puerto Rico, el 29 de agosto de 2023. Diana Alvarez Villanueva, Sec Regional. Yamaris Estronza Maldonado, Sec Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYNABO SALÓN DE SESIONES SALÓN 201. JOSE RAMON SANTIAGO AGOSTO Y OTROS Demandante v. JOHN DOE Y OTROS Demandado(a) GLORIA E ROLON ROMERO GLORIAROLON@GMAIL.COM

Caso Núm.: GB2023CV00258. SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN O RESTITUCIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE, DEMANDADOS, PERSONAS DESCONOCIDAS Y DE IGNORADO PARADERO QUE PUEDEN SER TENEDORES DE O TENER ALGÚN INTERÉS

EN EL PAGARÉ

HIPOTECARIO

(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRET ARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 24 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta

Life at a Grand Slam: What you don’t see on TV at the US Open

By JESÚS JIMÉNEZ

When Mackenzie McDonald dueled Félix Auger-Aliassime for 3 1/2 hours in the opening round of the U.S. Open, fans were only seeing a glimpse of the time McDonald put in toward his surprise win on Monday.

For both players, and hundreds of others at the sprawling tournament, a match day extends well beyond a warm-up and the contest itself. The preparation, of course, takes weeks and months, with the grueling men’s and women’s professional tennis tours pushing players to seek higher rankings to gain a more favorable path at the Grand Slam tournaments.

And once they arrive in Queens, a new series of obstacles emerges as players adapt to the feel of the courts, the ambience of New York and the demands of one of the world’s biggest sporting events.

For McDonald, the 28-year-old American who broke into the top 50 of the singles rankings in 2022 and upset Rafael Nadal in the second round of this year’s Australian Open, the preparation for the U.S. Open began on Aug. 22 when he arrived in New York. McDonald, who lost in straight sets to Borna Gojo of Croatia in the second round Wednesday, said he trained hard for his first few days, then tapered a bit to recover before his four-set duel against Auger-Aliassime.

Those practices, along with the travel, can become repetitive. Jessica Pegula, the American ranked third in women’s singles, last week compared the routine on tour to “Groundhog Day,” the 1993 film in which a man relives one day again and again. McDonald echoed that sentiment.

“Things can get monotonous week after week, locker room after locker room, hotel after hotel,” McDonald said. “It’s good to have those small goals or little things that drive you that make you believe that you can get better.”

Two days out

Two days before his opening match, McDonald couldn’t focus solely on his play. Before practicing on Saturday, he had to stop by a fan event put on by Wilson, his racket sponsor.

His day began around 8:45 a.m. as he made his way down to the lobby of his hotel in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood. A driver and SUV were waiting for him, his girlfriend and his trainer as they walked out of the hotel.

On a normal day, the drive from the East Side of Manhattan to Billie Jean King National

Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park can take up to an hour in heavy traffic.

“It’s never easy,” McDonald said of the commute to Queens. “Day after day, it definitely adds up.”

But on a Saturday morning, with little traffic and an assertive driver familiar with shortcuts, the ride was a brisk 21 minutes.

The quick ride afforded McDonald some extra time to drop off his bags before heading to the Wilson event, where he spent about half an hour volleying with children, then posed for pictures and videos.

With that commitment filled, McDonald could focus on more intense tennis for the rest of his day, starting by working with a physiotherapist and finding time to eat, and following that with two hours of practice.

McDonald’s first hour of practice was scheduled at noon against Marcos Giron, another American player, on Court 4 near Arthur Ashe Stadium. As McDonald and Giron hit back and forth and played out points, dozens of fans stopped by to watch them. As their practice drew to a close, several of those fans began to gather courtside in hopes of an autograph or a picture. But McDonald had no time.

After shaking hands with Giron and his trainer, McDonald quickly grabbed his bags and scurried off for his next practice on a court on the opposite end of the tennis center, nearly half a mile away.

To avoid having players walk that distance through a sea of fans, the U.S. Open has vans that shuttle them and their trainers out to the farthest practice courts. McDonald and his

trainer hopped in a van, but the driver wanted to stay a few more minutes to see if any other players would come.

Already behind schedule, McDonald politely asked the driver if they could leave without waiting. In the early rounds of the tournament, when hundreds of players need to practice, court time is precious.

“They definitely show the glamour of the sport on TV,” McDonald said. “It is all the behind the scenes, it is the day to day and the around-the-year tournaments that we play that really get us to these moments.”

By the time McDonald arrived at his next practice court, it was just after 2 p.m., and the sun was beaming down with temperatures in the 80s. He trained for another hour before finally cooling down and heading back to his

hotel to rest.

Last practice

On Sunday, McDonald wanted to scale back his workload to only an hour of tennis, so he could be fresher for his match the next day. He still did not know his exact playing time, but because it would likely be in the afternoon, McDonald said he hoped to have an afternoon court slot on Sunday.

He was scheduled for 4 p.m. against Lloyd Harris of South Africa on Court 5, where McDonald was scheduled to play the next day.

“Way more of a chiller day for me,” McDonald said, adding that the rest of his Sunday would be spent resting, hydrating and taking “my mind off of tennis for a bit.”

But even when he’s not training, McDonald said there’s other preparation that goes into playing a match, including creating a game plan and looking over analytics.

“The mental preparation for my match on Monday started once that draw came out,” he said.

Match day

Before McDonald’s match on Monday, there were three others scheduled on Court 5, starting at 11 a.m. Being scheduled later in the day often leaves players trying to figure out how long each of those matches will last so they can plan an ideal time to leave their hotel.

But trying to make those predictions can be a gamble when rain or a lengthy five-set men’s match can delay another match’s start time. At majors, McDonald said that he likes to arrive four hours before a match to be treated by a physiotherapist, hit with a partner for half an hour, have lunch and then prepare his sports drinks and rackets.

Continues on page 28

McDonald greeting his agent Saturday morning before heading to Queens.

From page 27

“There’s definitely a lot of little nuances that go in part of each day that you’re really submerged in,” he said. “Everything’s invested toward what’s going to prepare me best to play this match today.”

McDonald and Auger-Aliassime finally took Court 5 around 5:45 p.m., and after a quick warm-up, it was 5:51 p.m. when umpire Jaume Campistol, said: “Ready? Play.”

From the beginning, it looked like the match was going to be a long duel. It took an hour and nine minutes for McDonald to win the first set on a tiebreaker.

Auger-Aliassime took the second set, but after that, McDonald settled in. As McDonald and Auger-Aliassime played on, cheers from Arthur Ashe Stadium overflowed out of the venue, and they could be heard on Court 5. At one point in the fourth set, Auger-Aliassime appeared to complain to the chair umpire about the noise coming from Ashe.

Eventually, after more than three hours on the court, McDonald prevailed, winning the last five points of the final game of the fourth set to win, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, and advance to the second round.

Before his win, McDonald said that each incremental vic-

tory is what motivates him on tour. The drive to advance, he said, pushes him through long practices, commutes and extensive travel.

“I want to win a title so bad,” said McDonald, who has made one singles final in his career, losing to Jannik Sinner of Italy at the 2021 Citi Open in Washington, D.C. “I always find that each week, your opportunity each week, can be that week that can shift things, and I think that dream is what we’re all chasing.”

And after he beat Auger-Aliassime, the routine of mental and physical preparation began again for Round 2.

When 19 makes you the veteran player at the US Open

By LOLA FADULU

As Coco Gauff and Mirra Andreeva faced off at the U.S. Open on Wednesday, fans in the stands remarked about how old — really how young — they were while competing at the top of their sport.

Gauff, who at 19 is not much older than the 16-year-old Andreeva, has for several years been a household name in tennis, ever since she made a run to the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2019. Her growing stardom means that she often finds herself playing in featured matches at the U.S. Open, in front of the most fans in person and in choice television slots.

On Wednesday, that was in a 6-3, 6-2 win over Andreeva at Arthur Ashe Stadium in the New York borough of Queens, playing before Novak Djokovic. It was a matchup, and a moment, that Gauff, a sixth-seeded American, controlled with ease while keeping a breezy but brisk pace.

Some of her confidence, Gauff ac-

knowledged, comes with experience. When asked on the court what she had learned in the past three years, Gauff said that when she was 16, she played every match as if it were “life or death.”

“You still have to allow yourself time to make mistakes,” she said. “And the losses, as long as you learn from them, are OK.”

Andreeva, an unseeded Russian, said after the match that she hadn’t gotten much advice from older players on tour yet but that she was eager for their wisdom: “I will always listen to them.”

Andreeva played in her first tour event this year and has shown some youthful struggles in maintaining her composure on the court. In her last match against Gauff, at the French Open in the round of 32, she hit a ball into the stands, striking a spectator. She received a code violation and acknowledged that she could have been disqualified, calling it a “really stupid move.” She was also fined $8,000 at Wimbledon for unsportsmanlike conduct after throwing a racket, arguing and refusing to shake hands with the chair umpire.

Andreeva has defended herself by saying that Roger Federer had outbursts when he was young, too, echoing an argument that other players, like Serena Williams, have made about whether women’s players and men’s players receive similar scrutiny for their conduct.

Gauff, who has often been complimented for her composure, said this week that she debated whether to complain during her opening-round match against Laura Siegemund about the pace of play, with Siegemund often pushing the serve clock to its limits.

“I really don’t like confrontation all that much,” Gauff said in her postmatch media interview Monday. She said she had been thinking about the delays the whole match. “I wasn’t sure if I was in the right or not until it happened multiple times,” she said, but she reached a point of frustration and felt the need to speak up to the chair umpire.

“I try my best not to let my emotions to take over myself,” she said.

Gauff pledged before her secondround match not to be flustered by her op -

ponent this time and to ignore age — her own and Andreeva’s. “She has her ranking, and that’s all that matters,” Gauff said before their match.

Instead, their youthfulness played out in the form of athleticism as they traded long, sprinting rallies from the baseline and as Gauff found openings to inch forward and finish points.

One rally in the second set lasted 30 shots and ended with Gauff expertly handling a drop shot from Andreeva with a backhand approach shot for a winner. She celebrated that point by urging the crowd to cheer, a request fans quickly obliged.

By then, it was clear that Gauff and Andreeva have had no trouble reaching young fans.

“It’s amazing that they are so young and they have this amazing skill and talent to just be here and play on that court,” said David Keating, 10, as his father applied sunscreen to him and his twin brother, Michael.

Eve Maulshagen, who started playing tennis three years ago and just made her high school team in Central New Jersey, said in the main plaza at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center that she liked the idea that someone at 16 could be playing in front of so many people on TV. “That’ll be me in a year when I’m 16 — but not like a pro,” she said with a laugh.

Gauff has been trying to ignore age as a factor during her matches. On Friday, she will play Elise Mertens, a 27-year-old from Belgium, in the third round. They have played twice, and Gauff won both matches, most recently during the French Open in 2022 in the round of 16.

“I want to maintain a long career,” Gauff said during her on-court interview Wednesday. “I have to really have fun on the court, and I think I’m having fun with the wins and losses.”

Andreeva, left, congratulated Gauff after their match.

Sudoku

How to Play:

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

Sudoku Rules:

Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

Aries (Mar 21-April 20)

If you’ve been expecting a settlement of some kind, today it might finally come or show signs of coming soon, Aries. This is a great day to invest in a home, land, or property. It’s especially necessary to read the fine print before signing anything. Your mind might be a little foggy. Anything you have to do could require a little more concentration than usual.

Taurus (April 21-May 21)

Some paperwork might need attention today, Taurus. You may also be on the phone a lot. Communication should be clear, open, and honest, so you’ll accomplish exactly what you need to. An intimate and loving conversation could take place between you and a close friend or lover who might follow up with a visit to your home.

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Physically, Gemini, you feel strong and energetic. This is a good day to look into expanding your horizons. All signs point to personal and career success. Some surprising communications from friends or neighbors could bring fascinating information your way. You’ll know just what to do with it. Follow your instincts!

Cancer (June 22-July 23)

Ingenuity and practicality lead to success now. Something may be accomplished that has meant a lot to you, Cancer, and you should feel particularly satisfied with yourself and maybe even a little excited. A lot of comings and goings could take place in the home today, with visitors and family members popping in and out. Stay centered.

Leo (July 24-Aug 23)

You might put a lot of effort into the appearance of your house. Some people you’d like to impress could visit your home tonight, Leo. You should be especially intuitive now, so don’t be surprised if you anticipate what they’ll say before they say it. Make it work for you! Success through entertaining and the astute use of intuition are highly indicated.

Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)

A group you’re affiliated with could meet somewhere in your neighborhood, Virgo. Though you’re usually more sensitive and intuitive than others, today you could be feeling especially so. Expect a lot of phone calls and visitors. Don’t be surprised if you can read their minds! Artistic and creative interests could also be important to you now.

Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)

This is a period when your business and financial interests continue to fly high. You may feel disoriented at times, as everything seems to be happening at once, Libra. Yet all you can do is go with the flow. You’re on a roll! Matters involving friendship and love also are changing rapidly, mostly for the better, though you might leave some longtime companions behind.

Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)

As career and money matters continue to advance, your self-confidence is high and your mind is very positive. You should continue to attract good fortune. Expect more pleasant surprises and sudden breaks this month, Scorpio. You’ll attract new friendships based on shared spiritual values, and old friendships should solidify even more. Life is treating you well.

Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)

Your ESP continues to expand, Sagittarius, and you sense what friends are feeling without their saying anything. Don’t be surprised if one is hiding some repressed anger! The chance to travel may come up unexpectedly, and you could be in a quandary about going. Consider it carefully. If it’s feasible, go for it. This isn’t the time to hold back.

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)

The execution of contracts and other legal documents looks favorable now, Capricorn. You might consider going into business, perhaps in a partnership with some friends. This looks good, but there’s a chance that one of them has been keeping things from you, and this might make you angry. Honest communication is necessary in order to succeed at a new enterprise.

Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)

Everyone is likely to be making demands on you right now, which can have you in a dither. A career success could be offset by an upset with a partner over a miscommunication. This should be worked out, but it might take the wind out of your sails if you let it, Aquarius. It would be a good idea to derail any upset before it runs you down. Invite your partner out to celebrate!

Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)

This should be a fortunate day, Pisces, including love, career, money, and health. Plans for a trip might finally materialize, and a long-awaited solution for a niggling health concern could manifest. You should feel very enthusiastic and optimistic about your future. You might even be daring enough to take a few more chances than usual. Go for the gold, and don’t be surprised if you actually get it!

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