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.
Puerto Rico Ports Authority Executive Director Joel Pizá Batiz on Wednesday rejected legislation that would transfer the assets and operations of Mercedita International Airport to the Ponce Port Authority. The city of Ponce, on the other hand, stressed that it has a realistic plan that would allow for the regionalization of the facility.
Pizá Batiz participated in a public hearing of the Joint Committee for Public-Private Partnerships, chaired by Speaker of the House of Representatives Rafael Hernández Montañez, to discuss House Bill 1617. In his presentation, the Ports chief said other alternatives do not put the airport’s federal certifications and subsidies at risk.
“It is highly regulated … and it is a costly operation that the Ports Authority has been able to assume thanks to other sources of income, both from airports and other ports,” Pizá Batiz said.
He insisted that transferring the airport to the Ponce Port Authority would result in losing the certification granted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Likewise, it would imply a risk of losing over $20 million in federal funds granted to the airport by the FAA. Pizá Batiz noted that the Ports Authority, as owner and manager of federal funds assigned to regional airports, was obliged to comply with an agreement that prevents the transfer of power and control over the airport to a third party.
“To combat economic challenges, economically develop the southern region, promote tourism and job creation, initiatives can be implemented such as the development of hotels, restaurants, retail establishments and other commercial developments,” Pizá Batiz pointed out.
“In this way, the southern municipalities will be able to fulfill the purpose pursued by HB 1617 and meet their needs without jeopardizing what the Ports Authority has achieved so far,” he added.
The official said Mercedita Airport generates between $1.2 million and $1.5 million annually. The Ports Authority, the current airport operator, allocates around $14 million in maintenance, Pizá Batiz said.
There is a five-year economic development plan for the airport. Some of the improvements already made, with an investment of $16 million, include the expansion of the waiting area, expansion of the west taxiway, rehabilitation of the roof waterproofing system and reconstruction of the terminal building, among others.
Currently, the airport’s most important project is the runway reconstruction after the damage suffered by the 2020 earthquakes. Pizá Batiz announced that the reconstruction should be completed in 2024.
Hernández Montañez highlighted that the legislative intention is not for the Municipality of Ponce to administer or manage the operations of the airport, but rather for real estate assets to be transferred and, in this way, for the municipality to be able to carry out a competitive process to hire an operator.
“What we want is to establish a public policy to give participation to the city [of Ponce],” Hernández Montañez said. “We are going to see how far we can go in giving them that participation, which may be that they are given priority within the process [of selecting an operator].”
“What we want to look for is how we can write something that we give, and I will be very clear, an advantage and an opportunity for the city of Ponce to participate in this,” he added.
Pizá Batiz pointed out that the Ports Authority favors privatizing the airport to an entity that “has the experience, knowledge and economic capacity that can pass the screening and approval of the FAA.”
Ponce Mayor Luis Irizarry Pabón said the Municipality of Ponce supported the transfer of the airport’s assets over a period of five years, as established in the measure. Likewise, he stressed that the city council has defined a “realistic plan” to transfer the airport to the Ponce Port Authority under an administrative model that allows it to regionalize the airport’s development.
The New Progressive Party minority leader in the House of Representatives, Carlos “Johnny” Méndez Nuñez, demanded Wednesday that the House speaker, Rafael Hernández Montañez, respect the judicial branch, while rejecting an attempt to tie a salary increase for judges to increases in salaries for governors, legislators and agency heads.
Méndez Nuñez also called on Popular Democratic Party President Jesús Manuel Ortiz González, to convene his legislative conference to vote in favor of House Bill 1292 to raise judges’ salaries.
“The judicial branch, one of the three constitutional branches in our republican system of government, has to be respected,” the former House speaker said. “The president of the Supreme Court, Maite Oronoz, together with her team, negotiated with the Financial Oversight and Management Board a salary increase for judges, and the board endorsed it. Today that agreement is being embarrassed by an attempt to increase the salary of other officials, both in the executive and legislative branches, who have not asked for
it. There is a separation of powers and it has to be respected.”
“Hijacking a branch of government, in this case the judiciary, just because you want to ‘evaluate’ an increase [in salary] for elected officials who have not, I repeat, have not asked for it, as well as the governor, who has not done so either, or the
heads of agencies, is a mistake,” Méndez Nuñez stressed. “The Legislature has not negotiated salary increases for senators and representatives with the [oversight] board, nor has the executive [branch] negotiated with cabinet members; why then tie an agreement between the board and the judiciary to something that no one has asked for?”
The veteran lawmaker noted that the agreement reached between the oversight board and the judiciary for the salary increase for judges would collapse, leaving island jurists at the same level as several decades ago.
“The PDP president, who also chairs the PDP legislative conference, has another chance to do the right thing,” Méndez Nuñez said. “Remember that he did not do it with the appointment of Larry Seilhamer as secretary of state, we hope that on this occasion he will, respecting the agreement reached between the judicial branch and the [oversight] board, to do justice to employees who for more than two decades have not seen an adjustment in their salary compensation.”
Later on Wednesday, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia asked Hernández Montañez
to step aside from the spotlight, in reaction to the House speaker’s determination to put on hold the bill to increase judges’ salaries because there was no agreement to increase the salaries of legislators, the governor and agency heads.
“I think that the issue of increasing judges’ pay should be addressed individually,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “I see that conflicts are arising in the Legislature regarding the form and manner in which bills are addressed. But I think that we must put aside the protagonism, that we must give up, give in when it is for the public interest. There is no doubt here that judges in Puerto Rico have not received a raise for practically two decades and that it is important to have a judicial branch with competent people. It is difficult to recruit in the government, and when the pay is not adequate … and the judicial branch is very important.”
“It makes sense that there is particular legislation to address the demand for a salary increase for judges,” Pierluisi added. “I urge the speaker of the House to reconsider his position. I urge it with the greatest respect.”
Crime is not something to be taken lightly anywhere, whether it is in Puerto Rico or the mainland United States. Unfortunately, even with the equipment modern police forces can possess, sometimes criminals commit very unfortunate acts that inflict great damage on the lives of others. One incident may not affect one person directly, but it can affect other people eventually if it is not dealt with immediately.
That is why on Wednesday, Canóvanas Mayor Lornna Soto Villanueva met with various members of the municipal and state public safety agencies in order to take precautions following the slaying of a young athlete from Loíza.
Soto Villanueva met with Puerto Rico Police Bureau Commissioner Antonio López Figueroa; Family Secretary Ciení Rodríguez Troche; the United States Marshal for the District of Puerto Rico, Wilmer Ocasio Ibarra; the municipal security component; and members of the Loíza Valley Community Board, along with area residents, for the execution of security plan that includes com-
munity leaders and Loíza Valley residents.
“Last Friday we were disrupted by the vile murder of a 15-year-old resident of this community, and we are not going to sit idly by until the Police put him or those responsible for this unfortunate event behind bars,” Soto Villanueva said. “This family is without consolation and the only hope they have is that justice will be done, and our administration will not spare resources until it is achieved.”
“This community is full of working people, and others who enjoy their retirement from work, and we are not going to allow any antisocial person to come and commit another criminal act, neither in this community nor in any other in the municipality of Canóvanas,” the mayor added.
López Figueroa shared the security work plan, addressed each of the residents’ questions and concerns and sought the community’s cooperation in preventing crime.
Rodríguez Troche, meanwhile, stated that “in the Family Department we repudiate violence in all its forms.”
“That said, we stand with the family of
Alarik Jaxiel Santos’ family, a minor who was murdered several days ago, who are in pain,” the Family secretary said. “This murder joins others in which minors die at the hands of criminals who lack any respect for life. I appreciate the invitation … to this meeting aimed at finding solutions to the problems that affect this community. As I have mentioned in other forums, preventing and efficiently addressing the problem of violence requires the unity of all sectors of our society and the development and
implementation of integrated plans that maximize existing resources. Only through the union of all wills will we achieve profound changes in our communities.”
Added Soto Villanueva, “here we are outlining and redefining a tactical plan where technology is involved, but apart from technology, community leaders, merchants, religious folks and other residents are bringing in a helping hand to the federal, state and municipal security forces to prevent these criminals from taking over our city.”
LUMA Energy on Wednesday unveiled “Building a Better Energy Future,” a 12-month plan to increase power system reliability and support services through islandwide initiatives and large projects.
The projects include vegetation clearance, substation modernization, grid automation, pole replacement and meter modernization. Likewise, LUMA said, the plan will focus on new customer tools to add to the progress the company has made in its two years of operations to create a more reliable, resilient, customer-focused and cleaner electricity system for its 1.5 million customers.
“Nothing is more important to us than continuing to improve the reliability of the electrical system and the service we provide to our customers,” LUMA CEO Juan Saca said. “These initiatives, designed to build a better energy future, represent billions of dollars in investments in Puerto Rico’s electrical system, and focus on increasing reliability. In addition, they seek to offer new ways to keep customers informed and serve them in each municipality.”
The new work plan, developed by Saca, focuses on addressing the company’s most urgent short- and long-term needs to improve the electrical system quickly and effectively.
To date, LUMA has reduced the number of service interruptions by 35% compared to 2022. Many of the initiatives in the 12-month work plan will improve the reliability of the electricity system, increase safety in communities, and transform how the company helps clients.
The following programs and initiatives, which will begin or accelerate in the next 12 months, focus on increasing the reliability of electricity service each year:
• Install more than 5,000 automated devices in critical infrastructure by July 2024 to reduce the impact and duration of service interruptions.
• Clear vegetation from over 16,000 miles of power lines
over the next three years to reduce the number of outages by 35-45%.
• Repair and replace 100,000 light poles across the island over the next five years to increase resilience and strengthen the system to withstand hurricane-force winds and weather impacts (e.g. hurricanes).
• Make improvements to modernize 50 substations over the next two years, including the complete reconstruction of six key substations, which will reduce the number of outages and improve the reliability of customers’ electricity service.
• Install more than 1.5 million modern smart meters over the next three years, improving reliability, resilience and the billing process, reducing service restoration times and helping modernize the network.
The following programs will begin or accelerate in the next 12 months and improve customer service, communication and community safety.
• Share regular and more transparent updates on service outages through the recently launched planned improvements
portal and text message alerts about unplanned outages on or before January 2024.
• Promote more ways to pay bills and apply for financial help online and in person on or before November 2023. This is part of the “Here to Help You” initiative, which aims to raise public awareness.
• Launch new energy savings programs on or before October 2023 to provide more access to information and resources to help customers control electricity consumption and reduce monthly electricity bills.
• Install over 300,000 lights in the 78 municipalities over the next three years so that communities consume less energy and are safer, more accessible and more eco-friendly.
Since June 1, 2021 LUMA has:
• Installed 1,500 automated distribution devices to identify service interruptions, reduce the number of affected customers and shorten service restoration times.
• Cleared vegetation from over 3,500 miles of transmission and distribution lines to improve system resiliency.
• Replaced more than 8,900 damaged poles to increase service reliability.
• Installed more than 49,600 lights to increase safety and energy efficiency in communities thanks to the $1 billion Community Street Lighting Initiative.
• Connected to more than 64,000 customers with solar panels with an average of more than 3,000 new solar connections each month, which represents the highest number in the history of Puerto Rico and more than 396 megawatts of clean energy.
• Initiated 393 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) projects, representing over $10.9 billion in federal funds, with 72 projects already under construction.
• Provided over $108 million in financial assistance to customers in need.
• Answered more than 4.9 million calls and reduced the average wait time to less than 30 seconds by this year.
The members of the Special Independent Prosecutor Panel (PFEI by its Spanish initials) held an extraordinary meeting early Wednesday morning and decided to terminate the contractual relationship between attorney Miguel Colón Ortiz and the PFEI because Cólon Ortiz was making faces during a session.
An orderly and corresponding transition process is being established to ensure the continuity of processes engaged in by other prosecutors, as well as the notification of the courts in this regard, according to the PFEI.
The former judges said that all conduct of the prosecutors assigned to cases will always be bound by the canons of ethics that govern the legal profession, as well as the decorum, rectitude and integrity demanded by
the defense of the interests of citizens in the fight against government corruption.
During a Rule Six hearing against former Treasury
Secretary Raúl Maldonado Gautier, Colón Ortiz was called out by prosecutor Manuel Núñez for making faces..Recently the STAR reported on Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia’s announcement of $103 million in benefits through the Nutrition Assistance Program (PAN by its Spanish acronym) for September. PAN benefits hundreds of thousands of families around the island, as well as those who can’t work because of specific disabilities.
Now perhaps this may seem like something that will only benefit those program participants, but what about the island’s local and overall economy and agriculture? How might they benefit from something like this, considering most food products are imported to the island instead of locally planted and grown?
Well, quite a lot, according to the island Family Department. On Wednesday, Gurabo held its monthly farmer’s market, which is commonly known as “Mercado Familiar” (Family Market). It is where many area residents go to purchase food items, especially fruits and vegetables. During the monthly events, those who receive nutrition assistance benefits can purchase food items with the PAN card.
At Wednesday’s family market, the turnout was fairly impressive for the three farmers who participated, perhaps not just
At the monthly “Mercado Familiar” (Family Market), such as the one held in Gurabo on Wednesday, customers who receive nutrition assistance benefits can purchase food items with their PAN card. (Photo by Richard Gutiérrez/The San Juan Daily
because of the extra money they took in via regular customers who receive PAN benefits, but because on that day, those who qualified received two $40 vouchers to use specifically at the event. The vouchers were given to those older than 60 years old and are part of the PAN program.
“Here in Gurabo, we have approximately 6,500 families that participate in the nutrition benefits program,” César Casus Rivera, the associated director of the Family Socioeconomic Development
Administration, told the STAR. “In addition, these people were impacted with a percentage adjustment that was provided to them in September -- over 50 percent more than what they regularly receive.”
“With the large number of people who live here and participate in the nutrition benefits program, and the fact that these people received an additional amount in their benefits, it results in many people coming here and enjoying fresh products from the island,” he added. “But it’s not just
that. Today we had an event in the coliseum where we gave away 450 vouchers to use specifically at this event, if they met the requirement. We were able to give away all 450 of these vouchers in record time, by 7:30 [a.m.] they were already gone. This has boosted agriculture on the island, because when people come to the farmer’s market they have a specific amount that is uniquely and exclusively to be used at the farmer’s market. This obviously doesn’t only help products get sold, but it also creates jobs, because every farmer usually has around 30 to 40 employees, and in these family markets they can use all of their employees and even add new ones because of the high demand -- in a sense, moving the island’s economy.”
“So many people have come to the event,” added Heumara Rivera, an auxiliary office system secretary who works with Casus Rivera in the Caguas Region. “The overall combination of more than 450 people who received the $40 vouchers and those who came additionally who participate in the nutrition benefits program, or even those who do not, have made for a spectacular number of people coming to this event and supporting the local economy of the island.”
Rivera pointed out that in only three hours, the farmers were nearly sold out.
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Wednesday that the fans purchased by the Department of Education as a measure to deal with the heat in public schools “are not common fans.”
“I am aware of the measures that the secretary is taking and they seem right to me,” the governor said at a press conference in Carolina. “I have been kept informed of everything she has been doing, that is, the purchase of fans, because I endorse her. Here they started criticizing the cost of the fans, but they don’t even realize that the bidding process is being used. Bidders who are duly registered, registered with the government, are being used. The government’s auction process is a truly go-tothe-highest-bidder purchase and they are not ordinary fans that are being acquired, they are fans with certain specifications. So the purchase of the fans seemed like the right thing to do to serve the rooms that do not have air conditioning systems.”
“In the same way, I welcomed the change in the schedule in schools that do not have air conditioning or
fans and the heat is at an unbearable level there,” Pierluisi continued. “Well, in those schools, if the school itself demands a change in the schedule, which is what the secretary has said. The time change takes place and then the work at that school is completed, basically a little after noon, at 2:30 in the afternoon. That makes sense, if the school is asking for it, if the school community is asking for it, [and] the school director, because again the school facilities require it. But I agree with the secretary that it made no sense to come and say now we are going to change the schedule in all schools. That didn’t make sense because you could be affecting the teaching process. It must be remembered that in Puerto Rico there are more than 600 schools that have extended hours, in which academic reinforcement is being provided to students in areas such as mathematics, English, Spanish, and science in schools. Thus the resources, art, sports are not what we want to affect because that is for the good, not only of the students, but also of their parents, because then that makes it easier for the father or mother to go to work without worrying … because the schools make it a point to be safe.”
On a sweeping patio overlooking the golf course at his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey, former President Donald Trump dined Sunday night with a close political ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
It was a chance for the former president to catch up with the hard-right Georgia congresswoman. But over halibut and Diet Cokes, Greene brought up an issue of considerable interest to Trump — the push by House Republicans to impeach his likely opponent in next year’s election.
“I did brief him on the strategy that I want to see laid out with impeachment,” Greene said in a brief phone interview.
Trump’s dinner with Greene came just two nights before House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced his decision Tuesday to order the opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, under intense pressure from his right flank.
Over the past several months, Trump has kept a close watch on House Republicans’ momentum toward impeaching Biden. Trump has talked regularly by phone with members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and other congressional Republicans who pushed for impeachment, according to a person close to Trump who was not authorized to publicly discuss the conversations. Trump has encouraged the effort both privately and publicly.
Greene, who has introduced articles of impeachment against Biden, said she told Trump she wanted the impeachment inquiry to be “long and excruciatingly painful for Joe Biden.”
She would not say what Trump said in response, but she said her ultimate goal was to have a “long list of names” — people whom she claimed were co-conspirators involved in Biden family crimes. She said she was confident Trump would win back the White House in 2024 and that she wanted “to go after every single one of them and use the Department of Justice to prosecute them.”
While Biden’s son Hunter Biden is under investigation by a special counsel who is expected to lodge a gun charge against him soon and could also charge him with failure to file his tax returns on time, Republicans have not shown that Joe Biden committed any crimes. House Republicans are proceeding with the
impeachment inquiry without proof that Biden took official actions as vice president to benefit his son’s financial interests or that he directly profited from his son’s foreign deals.
Trump has also spoken weekly over the past month to Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the third-ranking House Republican, according to a person familiar with the conversations who was not authorized to discuss them publicly. During those conversations, Stefanik also briefed Trump on the impeachment inquiry strategy, this person said.
The former president thanked Stefanik for publicly backing the impeachment inquiry in July, the person added. Stefanik, who talked to Trump again Tuesday after McCarthy ordered the impeachment inquiry, had been the first member of House Republican leadership to publicly call for taking the first step in the process of impeaching Biden.
A person familiar with Trump’s thinking said that despite his eagerness to see an inquiry move forward, the former president has not been twisting McCarthy’s arm. Trump has been far more aggressive in pushing several members to wipe his own impeachment record clean, the person said, potentially by getting Congress to take the unprecedented step of expunging his two impeachments from the House record.
Trump has not been expressing concern about the possibility that the McCarthy impeachment effort might backfire and benefit Biden, according to two people with direct knowledge of his private statements over several months. Instead, he wondered to an ally why there had been no movement on impeaching Biden once he learned that the House was back in session.
A spokesperson for McCarthy did not respond to a question about his interactions with the former president regarding impeachment.
When asked for comment, Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, pointed to Trump’s public statements about impeaching Biden.
The former president’s public commentary on the possibility of a Biden impeachment has escalated from wistful musings about the Justice Department’s supposed inaction to explicit demands.
“They persecuted us and yet Joe Biden is a stone-cold criminal, caught dead to right, and nothing happens to him. Forget the family. Nothing happens to him,” the former president said at a rally in March.
In a June town hall with the Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump lamented what happened after authorities found boxes of
classified documents in both his Mar-a-Lago estate and the Bidens’ Delaware residence.
“It is a dual system of government,” Trump said. “You talk about law and order. You can’t have law and order in a country where you have such corruption.”
That same month, after Trump was arraigned on charges that he had improperly retained sensitive national security documents and obstructed investigators, he declared that if reelected he would appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.
By July, Trump had begun suggesting that Republicans should impeach the president, and as the summer wore on, he conveyed his desire with greater urgency.
“So, they impeach me over a ‘perfect’ phone call, and they don’t impeach Biden for being the most corrupt president in the history of the United States???” Trump wrote in all caps on his social media platform, Truth Social.
In yet another nearly all-cap Truth Social post in late August, the former president wrote, referring to congressional Republicans: “Either impeach the bum, or fade into oblivion. They did it to us!”
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A“heat signal” detected by a federal law enforcement aircraft early Wednesday morning led to the capture of the convicted murderer whose escape from a Pennsylvania jail two weeks ago stoked fear across a broad swath of Philadelphia’s western suburbs.
Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police said the fugitive, Danelo Cavalcante, 34, was arrested around 8 a.m. in a wooded area about 15 miles north of Chester County Prison, where he had clambered up a wall and escaped on Aug. 31. That was nine days after he was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder in the April 2021 killing of his former girlfriend.
Bivens said a tripped burglar alarm shortly after midnight focused investigators’ attention on the area. The heat signal was picked up not long after by a Drug Enforcement Administration aircraft that was assisting in the search, and officers gathered to move in.
Officers surprised Cavalcante, who tried to “crawl through thick underbrush, taking his rifle with him as he went,” Bivens said. A police dog was sent in after Cavalcante, and he was quickly taken into custody.
Here’s what to know:
— Authorities shifted their search to an area about 30 miles north of the jail over the weekend, after Cavalcante slipped through a law enforcement perimeter. On Monday night, officials said, Cavalcante stole a .22-caliber rifle from an open garage as the homeowner fired at him with a pistol.
— To make a break for it, the 5-foot tall prisoner crab-walked between two walls in the prison exercise yard, following a route that another prisoner had used in May. He then pushed through razor wires — which had been installed after the previous breakout attempt — and fled across the roof, over a fence and through more razor wire to freedom. A week into the search, the prison fired a corrections officer who had been stationed in a watchtower but failed to see Cavalcante break out.
— During the search’s early days, residents in a quiet stretch of woods and farmland about an hour’s drive outside Philadelphia were forced to live with a relentless unease. Teams of police officers jogged through backyards in search of Cavalcante, while drones and helicopters filled the skies.
— Cavalcante has successfully eluded capture before. He disappeared into the wilderness of northern Brazil after an arrest warrant was issued for him there in connection with a 2017 murder.
Hurricane Lee has grown in size as it continues to churn in the Atlantic, with an uncertain path that will likely include the east coasts of the United States or Canada this weekend.
Could Hurricane Lee hit the East Coast?
Authorities in Bermuda, hundreds of miles east of the Carolinas, issued a tropical storm warning for the island Tuesday, meaning that tropical storm conditions were expected in the area within about 36 hours.
Hurricane forecasters said earlier Tuesday that the core of the storm would probably pass near but to the west of Bermuda in a few days and move offshore of the mid-Atlantic states and New England by the weekend. It is expected to then pick up speed and make landfall late Saturday night into Sunday somewhere along the Maine or Nova Scotia shorelines.
Forecasters with the National Hurricane Center continue to warn that it is too early to know the level of impacts Lee might have along the Northeast U.S. coast and Atlantic Canada late this week and this weekend. Even in locations where landfall doesn’t occur, wind and rainfall hazards will extend well away from the center as Lee grows in size.
On Tuesday afternoon the forecast described it as a “very large hurricane” with hurricane-force winds extending out 125 miles from the center.
The probability that tropical stormforce winds will occur along parts of the mid-Atlantic and New England coastlines over the next five days continues to increase.
Dangerous surf conditions generated by the storm are already affecting parts of the Caribbean and Florida and will spread north along most of the U.S. East Coast, the hurricane center said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said Tuesday that she was deploying National Guard soldiers to prepare for the storm on Long Island “out of an abundance of caution.” She warned New Yorkers in coastal areas to watch the forecast and be prepared.
What is Lee’s current location and path?
As of Tuesday evening, Hurricane Lee was less than 500 miles south-southwest of Bermuda, the hurricane center said.
Lee had maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, making it a Category 3 storm,
and was moving northwest at 7 mph. Some weakening was expected over the next 48 hours, the hurricane center said.
There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect for the U.S. or Canada. Forecasters in Bermuda expect the brunt of Lee’s damaging winds to arrive Thursday into Friday.
The storm will then continue to move in the direction of New England and Nova Scotia, but there are still factors that could affect the forecast path. Lee was expected to generate hazardous surf and rip currents at beaches across the western Atlantic all week, the hurricane center said.
Why is Lee’s path so complicated?
Storms like to move along the path of least resistance. That path is typically toward low pressure. A high-pressure system to the north is currently steering the storm to the northwest, but that system is expected to shift east around the middle of the week. This shift will allow for the storm to travel north and accelerate in forward speed.
The forecast is becoming a little clearer over the next few days, however there is still uncertainty in the exact path of the storm as it nears landfall.
The main question is whether the high-pressure system restrengthens, which would likely push the storm back northwest toward the United States. Forecasters say that it is still too early to know.
Is it true the storm will weaken?
As Lee moves north it has to traverse the wake of this season’s other two major hurricanes, Idalia and Franklin. Hurricanes cause upwelling, drawing up cooler water from deeper ocean depths and in turn leaving a trail of cooler sea surface temperatures. The hurricane center forecasters believe that as Lee crosses the trail of those earlier storms it will gradually weaken through the middle of the week.
By this weekend, after it crosses the warm Gulf Stream, it will enter even cooler waters, and forecasters believe rapid weakening will occur. The storm may even transition into a more typical storm system with cold and warm fronts for affecting land.
While weakening is a good thing, it
does mean the tropical storm-force winds will expand even further, meaning that even if landfall doesn’t happen in the U.S. the effects are still probable. If it moves too quickly and maintains hurricane intensity, those winds are also likely to expand well beyond the eye wall of the storm where they are normally constrained.
What has this year’s hurricane season been like so far?
We’re a little over halfway through the Atlantic hurricane season, which started June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.
In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 12 to 17 named storms this year, a “near-normal” amount. On Aug. 10, NOAA officials revised their forecast upward, estimating 14 to 21 storms, and the past few weeks have been busy.
When it formed, Lee became the 12th named storm of this year’s Atlantic season. (And the 13th if you count an unnamed storm in January that experts at the hurricane center said should have been named.) Lee is also the eighth since Aug. 20, when two tropical storms, Emily and Franklin, formed. A week later, on Aug. 30, Tropical Storm Idalia made landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane.
Tropical Storm Margot formed last week and strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane Monday.
There is 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.
The Justice Department and 38 states and territories on Tuesday laid out how Google had systematically wielded its power in online search to cow competitors, as the internet giant fiercely parried back, in the opening of the most consequential trial over tech power in the modern internet era.
In a packed courtroom at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, the Justice Department and states painted a picture of how Google had used its deep pockets and dominant position, paying $10 billion a year to Apple and others to be the default search provider on smartphones. Google viewed those agreements as a “powerful strategic weapon” to cut out rivals and entrench its search engine, the government said.
“This feedback loop, this wheel, has been turning for more than 12 years,” said Kenneth Dintzer, the Justice Department’s lead courtroom lawyer. “And it always turns to Google’s advantage.”
Google denied that it had illegally used agreements to exclude its search competitors and said it had simply provided a superior product, adding that people can easily switch which search engine they use. The company also said that internet search extends more broadly than its general search engine and pointed to the many ways that people now find information online, such as Amazon for shopping, TikTok for entertainment and Expedia for travel.
“Users today have more search options and more ways to access information online than ever before,” said John Schmidtlein, the lawyer who opened for Google.
The back-and-forth came in the federal government’s first monopoly trial since it tried to break up Microsoft more than two decades ago. This case — U.S. et al. v. Google — is set to have profound implications not only for the internet behemoth but also for a generation of other large tech companies that have come to influence how people shop, communicate, entertain themselves and work.
Over the next 10 weeks, the government and Google will present arguments and question dozens of witnesses, digging into how the company came to power and whether it broke the law to maintain and magnify its dominance. The final ruling, by Judge Amit Mehta of
the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, could shift the balance of power in the tech industry, which is embroiled in a race over artificial intelligence that could transform and disrupt people’s lives.
A government victory could set limits on Google and change its business practices, sending a humbling message to the other tech giants. If Google wins, it could act as a referendum on increasingly aggressive government regulators, raise questions about the efficacy of century-old antitrust laws and further embolden Silicon Valley.
The Justice Department filed the case accusing Google of illegally maintaining its dominance in search in October 2020. Months later, a group of attorneys general from 35 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the District of Columbia filed their own lawsuit arguing that Google had abused its monopoly over search.
Mehta is considering both lawsuits during the trial.
The case centers on the agreements that Google reached with browser developers, smartphone manufacturers and wireless carriers to use Google as the default search engine on their products. Since the lawsuit was filed, more than 5 million documents and depositions of more than 150 witnesses have been submitted to the court. Last month, Mehta narrowed the scope of the trial while
allowing the core claims of monopoly abuse in search to remain.
The trial unfolded Tuesday in Courtroom 10 at Washington’s federal courthouse, a complex minutes from Capitol Hill. It drew a large crowd, with some people standing in line to enter as early as 4:30 a.m. Officials from Google rivals Yelp and Microsoft also attended, as did dozens of attorneys and staff from the Justice Department, states and Google after years of work on the case.
Mehta began the proceedings punctually. In the government’s opening statement, Dintzer focused on the search agreements Google had struck with Apple and others. He referenced internal company documents that described how Google would not share revenue with Apple without “default placement” on its devices and how it worked to ensure that Apple couldn’t redirect searches to its Siri assistant.
“Your honor, this is a monopolist flexing,” Dintzer said.
In blunt language, Dintzer also argued that Google had tried to hide documents from antitrust enforcers by including lawyers on conversations and marking them as subject to attorney-client privilege. He showed a message from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, asking for the chat history to be turned off in one conversation.
“They turned history off, Your Honor, so they could rewrite it here in this courtroom,” Dintzer said.
William Cavanaugh, a lawyer for the states, echoed Dintzer’s concerns about Google’s agreements to become the default search engines on smartphones. He added that Google had limited a product used to place ads on other search engines to hurt Microsoft, which makes the Bing search engine.
In response, Schmidtlein, Google’s lawyer, argued that the company’s default agreements with browser makers don’t lock up the market the way that the Justice Department said. Browser makers such as Apple and Mozilla both promote other search engines, he said, and it was easy for users to switch their default search engine.
Using a slideshow, Schmidtlein demonstrated the number of taps or clicks required to change the default on popular smartphones. People who wished to switch their search engine but did not know how could search Google for instructions or watch a video tutorial on YouTube, which Google owns, he said.
The government’s evidence was coming from “snippets and out-of-context” emails, he said.
The lawyers also sparred over whether Google was as dominant as the government claimed. The Justice Department and the states said Google competes primarily with broad search engines that act as a single place to look for multiple types of information. But Schmidtlein said Google’s universe of competitors was wider, including online retailers like Amazon, food delivery apps like DoorDash and travel booking sites like Expedia.
In the afternoon, the Justice Department called Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, as its first witness to establish that the company had long been aware of its power in search and deliberately tried to sidestep antitrust scrutiny.
In more than three hours of testimony, Varian was asked about views that he shared with other Google employees on the power of defaults, the threat of Microsoft’s entry into search, and his awareness of language that could invite the attention of antitrust regulators. The Justice Department drew from Varian’s emails and memos from as far back as the early 2000s.
Varian was scheduled to return to the witness stand Wednesday.
The latest U.S. inflation data is unlikely to ease worries over persistently high Treasury yields that have gnawed on stocks over the last few weeks, investors said, although many believe the longer-term trend of cooling consumer prices remains intact.
U.S. consumer prices climbed by 0.6% in August, broadly in-line with economists expectations. In the 12-months through August, the CPI jumped 3.7%, though year-on-year consumer prices have come down from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022.
While that data does not necessarily argue for more rate increases, it did little to dispel expectations that the Federal Reserve will leave interest rates at current levels for longer than previously expected, a view that has boosted Treasury yields while dulling the allure of stocks since the equity market peaked in July.
With the S&P 500 already up over 16% year-to-date and stocks richly valued by some metrics, some investors believe equities from will struggle to make headway for the rest of 2023.
“As long as inflation continues to be sticky we believe that the market will face more volatility and trade sideways,” said Alex McGrath, chief investment officer for NorthEnd Private Wealth, adding that falling valuations for risk assets may be “the next shoe to drop” for the U.S. stock market.
Futures tied to the Fed’s funds rate now show a 45% chance of at least one rate hike by December, up from a roughly 31% chance seen a month ago. Markets now anticipate that the Fed will cut rates for the first time in July 2024, compared with expectations a month ago that rates would begin falling by March.
The central bank concludes its monetary policy meeting on Sept. 20 and is expected to leave rates unchanged, though some investors believe it may deliver one more increase later this year.
Rising Treasury yields, which move in the opposite direction to bond prices, can be a stumbling block for stocks as they offer investors returns on an asset that is seen as basically risk-free because it backed by the U.S. government. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was up 2 basis points on Wednesday to 4.284%, putting it about 6 basis points below its highest level since 2007.
The S&P 500 is down 3% from its July highs.
“For the bond market the move higher over the past couple of months has been in anticipation that the Fed will be in a higher for longer position, and that is putting a downward pressure on stock multiples” and increasing the risk of volatility, said Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at the Schwab Center for Financial Research JPMorgan has been one of the banks sounding the alarm on stock valuations, with strategists warning in a note
on Tuesday that a metric based on real interest rates, which strip out inflation, shows the S&P 500 is over-valued by 14%. Overall, the firm estimates that the current real rate implies a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of around 15 times to 16 times versus its current ratio of about 20 times.
“Equities are up 16% YTD mostly on multiple expansion while real rates and cost of capital are moving deeper into restrictive territory,” the firm’s equity strategists said in a note. “History suggests this relationship is becoming in-
At the same time, not everyone believes high yields are currently the market’s biggest risk. Charlie McElligott, managing director and cross-asset macro strategist at Nomura, said the market was vulnerable to an “earnings shock” to one of the handful of megacap stocks that have led markets higher this year, such as Nvidia. Companies will begin reporting third-quarter earnings next month.
“If [the AI] story starts to lose air it doesn’t matter what the interest rates do because there is so much earnings growth built into their share prices,” he said. “Earnings are what matter from here, particularly with an AI sector that needs to justify expectations.”
Aid was trickling into eastern Libya on Wednesday, where more than 5,000 people have died in recent days after catastrophic flooding. But with roads and bridges damaged or cut off, access to the hardest-hit city of Derna, on the Mediterranean coast, remained a major hurdle to bringing in help, according to international aid groups.
Thousands of people are believed to be missing, meaning the death toll was likely to rise further in the hours and days ahead, and at least 20,000 people have been displaced, according to aid groups.
Libya, a North African nation divided by years of civil war and deep political and territorial divisions, was ill-prepared for Storm Daniel, which swept across the Mediterranean Sea, battering its coastline and quickly destroying poorly maintained infrastructure. The country is run by two rival governments — one in the western half and another in the east — further complicating the rescue and aid efforts.
The flooding hit after heavy rains burst through two dams south of Derna, unleashing torrents of water through the city of nearly 100,000 people. Much of Derna was destroyed as entire neighborhoods, including homes, schools and mosques, were swept away in the flooding that began over the weekend. The Derna City Council has called for the opening of a maritime passageway to the city and for urgent international intervention.
Rescue teams and some aid deliveries began reaching Derna on Monday via the damaged roads that made passage more dif-
ficult and time-consuming, said Libya’s Red Crescent spokesperson Tawfiq al-Shukri. Aid is also being sent to the airport in Al Bayda, one of the affected towns in the stricken area that extends some 100 kilometers (about 62 miles), he said.
International aid — including rescue teams sent by Turkey and the United Arab Emirates — sent to the city of Benghazi more than 180 miles away from Derna have already been dispatched to the disaster zone, he said.
“When the aid arrives, it is immediately sent to the affected areas,” he said. “The needs are greater than our abilities and the aid that has come.”
Libya is especially vulnerable to climate change. Warming causes the waters of the Mediterranean to expand and its sea levels to rise, eroding shorelines and contributing to flooding, according to the United Nations. The country’s lowlying coastal areas, where much of Libya’s population lives, is at particular risk.
Ruba Hatem Yassine, a 24-year-old resident of Derna, recounted the moments Monday when the flood tore through her city’s streets. She, her elderly relatives and her pregnant sister clambered from rooftop to rooftop along their narrow street. Eventually, they sought shelter in a small storage unit on a rooftop and watched the
water overwhelm the city.
From there, she could hear the screams of people trapped in their homes by rising water and others screaming from under the rubble, “Save us, save us,” she said Wednesday morning, speaking by phone from a friend’s home in the nearby town of Marj.
After the flood subsided somewhat, some other survivors helped the family of nine get down to safety. They walked barefoot through knee-deep water until they reached a safer area, she said, leaving behind everything, including clothes, money and passports.
“We walked out barefoot and saw our friends and neighbors dying around us. And we couldn’t do anything,” Yassine said.
The Libyan Red Crescent, a nonprofit aid group whose volunteers have helped evacuate residents and which is leading the search and rescue efforts, reported early Wednesday on its Facebook page that for a third day, its volunteers are searching for some of the thousands still missing, combing fields, trails and riverbanks.
“No missing persons have been found at this moment,” the group said.
The group published a document on its Facebook page listing the survivors from Derna. By Wednesday morning, it continued to grow to more than 300 names.
“The support is trickling in. We just need more of it,” said Dax Roque, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s country director for Libya. “The response in Libya for so long has been underfunded. There’s an urgent need for international help.”
He welcomed the U.N.’s announcement
that it was allocating $10 million from its emergency response fund to help those affected by the floods.
By Wednesday, it was still unclear how much of the aid — both from inside Libya and internationally — had arrived in the most-affected areas.
Faris al-Tayeh, who is heading a network of volunteer relief workers, managed to reach Derna on Monday afternoon despite treacherous, torn-up roads packed with people fleeing, he said. The entire city had been split in two by the flooding, he said.
“To get from one side to the other, you need to travel around for over a hundred kilometers,” he said.
Al-Tayeh is now organizing an aid convoy to Derna.
“We could never have imagined what we saw: corpses in the ocean, whole families wiped out, fathers and sons and brothers stacked on top of each other,” said al-Tayeh. “Whole buildings dragged into the water with their residents still inside.”
For years, Libya has been divided between an internationally recognized government in the western half based in Tripoli, the capital, and a separately administered region in the east, including Derna — where the main authority is the Libyan National Army.
Shipments of supplies, including body bags and medical equipment, left early Tuesday morning from Tripoli for the city of Benghazi, the main city on the eastern side, the Tripoli government said. A medical convoy of doctors, nurses and other rescue volunteers had already arrived in Benghazi that morning.
What was most needed, the Tripoli government said, was rescue workers, inspectors and others who specialize in handling floods.
“The infrastructure has been destroyed, which makes it very difficult for emergency medical workers to reach these areas,” said Basheer Omar, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Libya. He added that authorities had to disable the electrical grid for fear of people being electrocuted in the floods.
His organization has been sending supplies and technical support to the Libyan Red Crescent, including body bags and personal protective gear.
“These areas are totally disconnected. There are no phones, no food, no electricity, so the situation is really dire in these areas,” he said. “It’s beyond the capacity of the authorities in Libya, so Libya needs the support of the international community.”
When a devastating earthquake hit Morocco on Friday night, killing more than 2,900 people, King Mohammed VI was in Paris, where he spends a great deal of his time.
It took him most of a day to return to his country and make his only public statement so far — a terse communiqué. Later on Saturday, television showed him presiding over a Cabinet meeting, but there was no sound.
He visited a hospital Tuesday and donated blood. But his low visibility and silence, coupled with the government’s response to the earthquake, have been criticized, with some saying officials are paralyzed because they are awaiting authorization for action from the king.
Moroccan officials argue that they are on top of the crisis and will ask for help as they need it, adding that the king was guiding the response from the beginning.
The king, who turned 60 on Aug. 21, is the richest and most powerful person in Morocco. He is constitutionally both head of the armed forces and, controversially in Islam, of religious matters, as the Commander of the Faithful.
As head of state, he oversees a constitutional monarchy, a managed semi-democracy, with real power exercised by advisers and ministers dominated by his high-school friends. But his authorization for action is vital.
And he is described by Moroccans close to the government as becoming harder to reach and increasingly close to a younger, German-born Moroccan mixed martial arts fighter, Abubakr Abu Azaitar, whom the king met around the time of his divorce in 2018, and his two brothers. Abu Azaitar is seen by some to be driving a wedge between the king and his advisers.
But mystery surrounds much of life at the royal palace and the king, even about the state of his health, as courtiers and family members compete for his affection and attention. The king has had a number of health issues in the past, including an irregular heart rate and acute viral pneumonia, but there is no official information about his current state of health.
Rumors are often spread by those with personal and political interests in Morocco, where the media is tightly controlled and where the king, who has never given a news conference or a television interview, has not
given an unscripted interview for many years.
Morocco is considered a success story in North Africa, comparatively open, stable and attractive to industry and tourists. And it has been a reliable partner to the United States and the West in counterterrorism cooperation, while also in 2020 recognizing Israel.
Crucially, the king managed to ride the waves of the disruptive Arab Spring more than a decade ago better than his neighbors, in part through domestic and political changes that had a more modern, democratic tone. And he and his government have cracked down hard on signs of radical Islamic politics and terrorism after bomb attacks in 2003.
But confusion around the power and life of the king, a taboo subject rather like it is in Thailand, has undermined that reputation to a small but significant degree.
“Rumors in an opaque environment like the palace have to be read carefully because most of them come from interested people,” said Fouad Abdelmoumni, a Moroccan economist who has criticized the slowness of Morocco’s official response to the earthquake, saying the government appears hesitant to take any action until the king authorizes it.
The pattern was similar in 2004, when an earthquake killed more than 600 people. Officials were absent until the king appeared in the stricken villages a few days after the disaster. But that was two decades ago.
Now, Abdelmoumni said, “it seems that all the king’s entourage is very, very unhappy with the time he spends with the Azaitars, the authority he gives them, their behavior toward society and elites and the image this
creates around the king and the state.”
In their business ventures and on their social media, the Azaitar brothers display a closeness to the king, whom they sometimes accompany on trips. This stirs fear and resentment within the court, Abdelmoumni said.
What is clear, however, is that “the king likes the Azaitars a lot, and all the others are unhappy,” he added. “They all agree ‘we have to be all united against Abu Azaitar.’”
Morocco is a conservative society and the monarchy is held in great respect, despite the wealth of the elites and the poverty of the masses, said Aboubakr Jamai, a prizewinning Moroccan publisher of newspapers until he went into exile in 2007 after a defamation charge was brought against him.
The lives of the king, his entourage and his son and heir, Moulay Hassan, 20, are surrounded by official silence.
“We really don’t know him,” Jamai said of the king. “We’ve never seen him in a situation where he had to answer questions, let alone hard questions. He was always reading from a piece of paper.”
Open criticism of the king is rare because the penalties are severe, and political opposition has been weakened or marginalized. But the king is generally revered, with most criticism aimed instead at the government. Moroccans who have left the country feel freer to speak out.
At the same time, the level of media freedom in Morocco is very low, 144th in the world according to the World Press Freedom Index.
Just last month, a Moroccan blogger, Saeed Boukayoud, 48, was sentenced to five years in prison for Facebook posts “denouncing normalization with Israel in a way that could be interpreted as criticism of the king,” said his lawyer, Hassan al-Sunni.
Unlike the king’s father, Hassan II, who was authoritarian but had strong and varied advisers, Mohammed VI lives in a kind of bubble and has enriched both himself and his courtiers, said Jamai, who now teaches international relations at the American College of the Mediterranean in France.
Mohammed VI inherited the throne in 1999 and in a rare interview a year later, for a Time magazine cover, described himself as a reformer who wanted to tackle “poverty, misery, illiteracy.” But “whatever I do,” he said, “it will never be good enough for Morocco.”
Ruling with many men he chose from his high-school class, the king has made serious and important changes in religiously conser-
vative Morocco. He released a number of political prisoners, and after great domestic controversy, he changed the family law, raising the age of marriage to 18 from 15, though local judges, sometimes accused of corruption, are allowed to make exceptions.
The law advanced gender equality, giving women the right to ask for a divorce and first wives the right to refuse should their husbands want to marry a second wife. It also made divorce a legal procedure, eliminating the tradition of a husband divorcing a wife simply by handing her a letter.
Polygamy remains legal, if the first wife agrees, and homosexuality and sex outside marriage are illegal.
The king also managed the popular anger of the Arab Spring, which overturned governments in Tunisia and Egypt, by modifying the constitution and allowing an Islamic Party to govern after winning elections.
But there have been protests since, significantly in 2011 and 2016-17, which were put down by the government. It then cracked down hard on the media, and continues to do so. And urban youth unemployment, considered an important driver of the Arab Spring across the region, is worse now in Morocco, Jamai said.
Government spokespeople like Mustapha Baitas dismiss the criticism of the government aid efforts and the rumors around the king as figments of imagination of the foreign press.
In a video on social media posted Sunday, he said: “From the first seconds this devastating earthquake occurred, and in following the instructions of His Royal Majesty, all civil and military authorities and medical staff, military and civil, have worked on the swift and effective intervention to rescue the victims and recover the bodies of the martyrs.”
François Soudan, editor-in-chief of Jeune Afrique, defended the king just before his 60th birthday in August against articles in the Economist’s 1843 magazine and in the Times of London, which he claimed were based on rumors and written by those with no access to the king or the palace. Instead, he praised the king’s flexibility and closeness to the people.
“Morocco’s current situation is stable compared to other nations, particularly under the reign of the Moroccan monarch,” Soudan wrote in Jeune Afrique. “To rule means to last by adapting to circumstances, and the important thing is to be strong enough to act.”
The North Korean and Russian leaders, Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin, arrived Wednesday at a site in Russia’s Far East for a summit meeting, Russian state media reported. The talks will be closely watched for indications that Kim has agreed to supply munitions the Kremlin needs for its war in Ukraine.
Kim and Putin, the Russian president, are both pariahs, isolated from the West, but the war in Ukraine has elevated the North Korean leader’s significance to the Kremlin. Putin’s invasion has dragged on for nearly 19 months, and he needs allies; North Korea is one of the few countries willing to supply Russia with weapons.
The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that the two leaders had arrived Wednesday morning at Vostochny Cosmodrome, a space launch center in Russia’s far eastern Amur region, where they shook hands.
Putin told reporters that the summit was being held at the cosmodrome because Kim “shows great interest in rocket technology,” RIA journalists reported on Telegram.
Kim arrived in Russia on Tuesday from
North Korea, having traveled to the meeting on his armored train, a trip that took days. North Korean news media reported that he had departed Pyongyang, the capital, Sunday afternoon; the Kremlin confirmed his arrival in Russia on Tuesday, with state media publishing video images of him being greeted by a
Russian official at a stop identified as being in the city of Khasan, just over North Korea’s northeastern border.
Despite international sanctions and domestic economic hardship, North Korea operates one of the world’s largest standing armies and a vigorous defense industry. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that North Korea was shipping artillery shells and rockets for Russian troops in Ukraine, and have warned that Kim’s meeting with Putin could result in additional arms deals.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that the two leaders would discuss trade and economic ties, but he also made a veiled reference to bilateral cooperation in “certain sensitive spheres which should not be publicly revealed or announced,” according to the Russian state news agency Tass.
In recent weeks, Kim has visited North Korean munitions factories, urging them to expedite production of multiple rocket launches, sniper rifles, drones and missiles, according to the country’s state media.
North Korea also has one of the largest fleets of tanks in the world, though most are Soviet-era models. However, as Russian forces try to fend off a counteroffensive in Ukraine,
Moscow urgently needs to replenish its depleted arsenals with tanks and artillery, according to military experts.
North Korea wants Russian parts for its Soviet-era military and civilian aircraft, as well as technological help for its nuclear and missile programs.
Earlier Wednesday, South Korea reported that North Korea had launched two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast. The North often carries out such missile tests, but these were the first it had ever conducted while Kim, its authoritarian leader, was outside the country. Multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions prohibit North Korea from testing ballistic missiles.
North Korea may also seek wheat shipments from Russia in return for weapons in order to help alleviate its chronic food shortages, analysts said. It also hopes to resume exporting construction and logging workers to Russia to bring in cash.
In recent months, Russia has eased travel restrictions on North Koreans, allowing them to stay up to six months on tourist visas, which have often been used as a cover for North Korean workers abroad. Hiring North Korean workers is banned under U.N. sanctions.
Explosions tore through a shipyard at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea before dawn Wednesday, damaging at least two ships and setting off a blaze that continued to burn into the early morning, according to Russian officials.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that Ukraine had fired 10 cruise missiles at the facility in the city of Sevastopol at the same time as it targeted a Russian warship on the Black Sea with three maritime drones. Air defense systems shot down seven cruise missiles, and the patrol ship Vasily Bykov destroyed all the unmanned drones, the ministry said.
The rare acknowledgment of a successful Ukrainian attack came after local residents broadcast images of explosions and raging fires in the shipyard on social media. Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Russian-backed governor of Crimea, later shared a photo that appeared to show the port side of a Ropucha-class large landing ship that sustained damage. Ukrainian officials had no immediate comment on the strikes Wednesday.
Razvozhayev said at least 24 people were injured at the Sevmorzavod shipyard. The initial explosions, and sounds of air defenses, were first reported at about 2 a.m.
The conflict on the Black Sea has escalated in the past few months, expanding another battlefront in the nearly 19-month old war in Ukraine. Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian military operations, including bases, naval facilities and ammu-
nition depots, on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia invaded in 2014 and illegally annexed. Moscow has ramped up attacks on Ukrainian ports, grain facilities and other civilian infrastructure since it backed out of a deal to allow Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea.
Crimea, which is connected to Russia by a single bridge that been repeatedly attacked, is home to Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet and provides a vital link in the Russian military’s supply chain that supports tens of thousands of soldiers now occupying a vast swath of southern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin views the territory as a prized possession, and since Moscow illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin has studded the peninsula with military bases. It was used as a springboard for Russia to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Russia has since used it as a base to launch thousands of missiles and drones at Ukrainian towns and cities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that military facilities in Crimea are legitimate targets. For more than a year, Ukraine has targeted Russia’s bases there with drones, missiles and sabotage operations.
Last October, Ukraine struck the Russian naval base at Sevastopol with maritime drones. Kyiv has expanded its ability to strike at long range, and attacks have grown bolder and more sophisticated.
A Ukrainian maritime drone struck a Russian warship hundreds of miles from the coast in August, demonstrating the
growing range and attack capabilities of the unmanned boats. The strike forced the Russian Navy to take new defensive measures to protect its fleet.
Despite the increase in Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, Russian officials have downplayed the strikes, suggesting that life has gone on as normal on the peninsula.
One of the most influential books of the Trump years was “How Democracies Die” by Harvard University government professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Published in 2018, it served as a guide to our unfolding ordeal. “Over the past two years, we have watched politicians say and do things that are unprecedented in the United States — but that we recognize as having been the precursors of democratic crisis in other places,” they wrote.
Because that volume was prescient about how Donald Trump would try to rule, I was surprised to learn, in Levitsky and Ziblatt’s new book, “Tyranny of the Minority,” that they were shocked by Jan. 6. Though they’ve studied violent insurrections all over the world, they write in this new book, “we never imagined we’d see them here. Nor did we ever imagine that one of America’s two major parties would turn away from democracy in the 21st century.”
What astonished them the most, Levitsky told me in an interview last week, “was the speed and the degree to which the Republican Party Trumpized.” In “How Democracies Die,” he and Ziblatt had reproved Republicans for failing to stop Trump’s rise to power. But at the time, he said, “we didn’t consider or call the
Republican Party an authoritarian party. We did not expect it to transform so quickly and so thoroughly.”
“Tyranny of the Minority” is their attempt to make sense of how American democracy eroded so fast. “Societal diversity, cultural backlash and extremeright parties are ubiquitous across established Western democracies,” they write. But in recent years, only in America has a defeated leader attempted a coup. And only in America is the coup leader likely to once again be the nominee of a major party. “Why did America, alone among rich established democracies, come to the brink?” they ask.
A disturbing part of the answer, Levitsky and Ziblatt conclude, lies in our Constitution, the very document Americans rely on to defend us from autocracy. “Designed in a predemocratic era, the U.S. Constitution allows partisan minorities to routinely thwart majorities, and sometimes even govern them,” they write. The Constitution’s countermajoritarian provisions, combined with profound geographic polarization, have locked us into a crisis of minority rule.
Liberals — myself very much included — have been preoccupied by minority rule for years now, and you’re probably aware of the ways it manifests. Republicans have won the popular vote in only one out of the last eight presidential elections, and yet have had three Electoral College victories. The Senate gives far more power to small, rural states than large, urbanized ones, and it’s made even less democratic by the filibuster. An unaccountable Supreme Court, given its right-wing majority by the two-time popular-vote loser Trump, has gutted the Voting Rights Act. One reason Republicans keep radicalizing is that, unlike Democrats, they don’t need to win over the majority of voters.
All liberal democracies have some countermajoritarian institutions to stop popular passions from running roughshod over minority rights. But as “Tyranny of the Minority” shows, our system is unique in the way it empowers a minority ideological faction at the expense of everyone else. And while conservatives like to pretend that their structural advantages arise from the judicious wisdom of the founders, Levitsky and Ziblatt demonstrate how many of the least democratic aspects of American governance are the result of accident, contingency and, not least, capitulation to the slaveholding South.
It’s worth remembering that in 2000, when many thought George W. Bush might win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College, Republicans did not intend to quietly accept the results. “I think there would be outrage,” Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Bush camp planned to stoke a “popular uprising,” in the words of The Daily News,
quoting a Bush aide: “The one thing we don’t do is roll over. We fight.”
Most Democrats, however, feel little choice but to acquiesce to a system tilted against them. Depending on the Constitution for protection from the worst abuses of the right, they’re reluctant to delegitimize it. Besides, America’s Constitution is among the hardest in the world to change, another of its countermajoritarian qualities.
Levitsky and Ziblatt don’t have any shortcuts for emerging from the straitjacket of minority rule. Rather, they call on readers to engage in the glacial slog of constitutional reform. Some people, Ziblatt told me, might think that working toward institutional reforms is naive. “But the thing that I think is really naive is to think that we can just sort of keep going down this path and that things will just work out,” he said.
Personally, I don’t know anyone who is confident that things will just work out. It’s possible that, as The New York Times reports, Trump’s Electoral College edge is fading because of his relative weakness in battleground states, but he could still, running on a nakedly authoritarian platform, be reelected with a minority of the vote. I asked Levitsky and Ziblatt how, given their work on democracy, they imagine a second Trump term unfolding.
“I think the United States faces a high risk of serious and repeated constitutional crisis, what I would call regime instability, quite possibly accompanied by some violence,” Levitsky said. “I’m not as worried about the consolidation of autocracy, Hungary or Russia-style. I think that the opposition forces, civil society forces, are probably too strong for that.” Let’s hope that this time he’s not being too optimistic.
SAN JUAN – El principal oficial ejecutivo de la empresa Connect Assistance, Antonio Ortiz, informó el miércoles que comenzó un nuevo servicio para recarga de emergencia para vehículos eléctricos.
Esta nueva asistencia se ofrece a través de una unidad portátil, que presta una recarga de 15 minutos, lo que permitiría a los asegurados conducir hasta 15 millas para llegar a un lugar seguro.
“En los pasados seis años, hemos visto cómo el segmento de vehículos eléctricos ha crecido
de manera acelerada en Puerto Rico y en Estados Unidos. Conscientes de la importancia de proveer soluciones a quienes se han movido a esta tecnología, diseñamos un servicio de asistencia dirigido específicamente a este sector”, dijo, Ortiz en declaraciones escritas.
La empresa, que inició operaciones en Puerto Rico en 2011, y cuenta con presencia en Panamá, Costa Rica, Colombia y México, realizó una inversión de más de 75 mil dólares en equipo y capacitación de empleados. Para el nuevo servicio, contarán con unidades portátiles capaces de proveer recarga a una batería de alto voltaje. El
equipo es compatible con el 90 por ciento de los vehículos eléctricos disponibles en el mercado puertorriqueño actualmente.
En esta etapa, la asistencia para vehículos eléctricos estará disponible en el Área Metropolitana, que incluye los pueblos de Guaynabo, Bayamón, Cataño, Toa Baja, Carolina, Trujillo Alto; y la zona sur de la isla, que cubre los pueblos de Ponce, Villalba, Juana Díaz, Peñuelas, hasta Salinas en dirección al Este, hasta Cabo Rojo en dirección al Oeste. Por el momento, fuera de estas áreas, se ofrecería el servicio de grúa de ser necesario.
PONCE – El Doctor David Lenihan, Principal Oficial Ejecutivo de Ponce Health Sciences University (PHSU), anunció el nombramiento de Gino Natalicchio, Ph.D., como presidente de PHSU. En su nuevo cargo, el doctor Natalicchio será responsable de supervisar todas las operaciones de PHSU.
Con más de 25 años de experiencia en alta gerencia, el doctor Natalicchio ha liderado el desarrollo e implementación de estrategias de educación en línea para instituciones de educación superior en Puerto Rico y los Estados Unidos continental. También ha liderado iniciativas comerciales y estratégicas, impulsando un crecimiento y éxito significativos en instituciones similares.
Al Natalicchio entrar en función como presidente, el Dr. Lenihan dejará este cargo para centrarse en
su puesto como director ejecutivo de Tiber Health Corporation, la empresa matriz de PHSU. Lenihan también continuará liderando iniciativas para expandir la presencia de la empresa a nivel mundial, impulsando nuevos avances y oportunidades para PHSU. Además, la Dra. Elizabeth Rivera continuará desempeñándose como vicepresidenta de Asuntos Académicos, cargo que asumió luego de cambios organizacionales anteriores.
“La diversa experiencia y conocimientos del doctor Natalicchio lo posicionan para liderar PHSU hacia el futuro”, dijo Lenihan, quien expresó entusiasmo por el liderazgo dinámico que Natalicchio traerá a la universidad. “Me entusiasman las proyecciones de crecimiento y éxito en los próximos años”, añadió.
POR EL STAR STAFF
MAYAGÜEZ – La representante del Distrito 19, Jocelyne M. Rodríguez Negrón radicó una pieza legislativa para que se investigue la problemática que se ha suscitado por el crecimiento desmedido del bambú en las carreteras del país, las implicaciones a la seguridad vial y las consecuencias ambientales, si alguna, de esta situación.
“En esta ocasión queremos ayudar a mitigar la problemática de los bambúes en las carreteras de nuestro país, situación que se agudiza en temporada de huracanes y que complica el flujo vehicular”, expresó Rodríguez Negrón.
La legisladora dijo que “tomando en cuenta el balance de intereses, la seguridad pública es un tema apremiante que debe ser diligenciado con los más altos estándares de celeridad. Este problema lleva desatendido por muchos años en nuestro país y debemos aunar
esfuerzos dirigidos a salvaguardar nuestros recursos naturales, pero a su vez garantizarles a nuestros ciudadanos unas vías de rodaje seguras y aptas para el beneficio de todos.”
El Bambú, o Bambusa Vulgaris Schrad, es una gramínea gigante que fue introducida a Puerto Rico hace más de 150 años. El área ocupada por el bambú, principalmente son riachuelos, pero también es común verlos a la orilla de las carreteras. Normalmente, crecen en suelos continuamente húmedos y bien drenados, pero pueden soportar inundaciones de corta duración o unos niveles de agua subterránea a 30 centímetros de la superficie. En nuestro país, su crecimiento depende del pH, el cual oscila entre 4.5 y 7.5. Además, es utilizado para una variedad de propósitos, entre ellos la producción de muebles, utensilios y artesanías.
“Teniendo en consideración la preocupación de los ciudadanos, pretendemos diligenciar una solución al problema que lleva años desatendido y que afecta a
gran parte de nuestra población. Es por esto que, se ha radicado la medida para que la Comisión de Recursos Naturales, Asuntos Ambientales y Reciclaje; y la Comisión de Transportación, Infraestructura y Obras Públicas, queden facultadas para iniciar una investigación exhaustiva en torno a la problemática del Bambú en las carreteras de Puerto Rico y a su vez, se determinen cuáles serían las consecuencias ambientales sobre este particular”, manifestó la Representante del Distrito que comprende Mayagüez y San Germán.
Denuncia falta de mantenimiento a bambús en las vías de rodaje
Reality and fantasy were deeply intertwined in Marvel’s Spider-Man, where gamers swung from webs above Lincoln Center and leaped from the Empire State Building’s spire into the crowds leaving the subway station at Herald Square. The comic book icon also brought his own landmarks to that version of New York City, which hosted the Avengers headquarters a few blocks north of the United Nations and a supervillain prison in the East River.
The designers at Insomniac Games are now expanding the superhero’s jurisdiction beyond Manhattan for the sequel, to be released for the PlayStation 5 on Oct. 20. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 swells into Queens and Brooklyn (including Coney Island attractions), testing a design team responsible for nearly doubling the real estate of the 2018 original.
Replicating parts of the largest city in the United States was also a bigger challenge this time because the process began while many designers at Insomniac, which has offices in Burbank, California, and Durham, North Carolina, were working from their homes during the coronavirus pandemic.
The game’s design director, Josue Benavidez, said his research involved contacting organizations such as the Center for Brooklyn History, posting on Reddit groups devoted to the borough and calling businesses near the buildings he was studying.
“It’s been a lot of living in Google Maps,” Benavidez said.
Several open-world video games have leaned on New York’s familiar topography, including Grand Theft Auto IV and Tom Clancy’s The Division; in Assassin’s Creed III, players can scamper across an 18th-century version of the city. But New York is an inextricable part of the Spider-Man mythos, from its comic book origins — Peter Parker was born in Queens — to its movie iterations.
In the franchise’s first live-action movie, 2002’s “Spider-Man,” Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider at Columbia University, rushes to his dying Uncle Ben outside the New York Public Library at Bryant Park and rescues passengers on a Roosevelt Island tram tormented by the Green Goblin.
Insomniac, creator of Spyro the Dragon
and Ratchet & Clank, thrilled players five years ago by letting them swing their way through sights including Central Park and Times Square. The addition of Brooklyn and Queens in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 brought new design challenges that included learning the quirky geometry of brownstones and row houses.
Designers also wanted to vary the urban landscape, ensuring that important sites from the comics, such as Aunt May’s house and Brooklyn Visions Academy, were clearly represented. Another difficulty was identifying where to end the playable area in boroughs that stretch into Long Island.
“The good news was that Spider-Man became successful,” said Bryan Intihar, who returns as the game’s senior creative director. “But with success comes greater expectations.”
In the sequel, players will control two Spider-Men as they navigate new responsibilities and powers, including the ability to jet through the skies with “web wings.” Parker and Miles Morales, who is from Brooklyn, will twist into knots over a symbiote suit that warps Parker into a villain from the comics, the alien parasite called Venom.
The drama unfolds across a landscape of construction cranes, water towers, bridges and tunnels — infrastructure that Insomniac designers studied for months.
“Everything is very intentionally pla-
ced,” Benavidez said, noting that there must be plenty of objects to show off the physics of Spider-Man’s web-slinging abilities.
One design solution was to plant more trees than you would find in the real New York City. Some changes provide sly commentary, with additional greenery and shade in the virtual Times Square and a plethora of newspaper kiosks bordering refuges including Union Square Park. Other choices skew closer to reality: Trash cans and heaps of garbage fill the city’s sidewalks.
“When there is combat, people like breaking things,” reasoned Jacinda Chew, the game’s senior art director.
Designing a believable New York takes time, and Benavidez discussed the lengthy process at the 2019 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. “We wanted the world to feel like a real place, like the actual city,” he told an audience, referring to the original game.
A digital sketch of that version of New York City included generic skyscrapers with gray facades and black windows dotting the horizon. Developers then used their visual research — culled from online images and field photographs — to define the scale of the city and breathe life into its avenues.
Once designers had enough information, they began creating versions of the high-rises and brownstones that characterize a city block. Many of those designs were
then fed into a procedural generation software called Houdini, which helps eliminate tedious tasks including placing individual street lamps.
Expectations are high for Spider-Man 2, which may be the biggest PlayStation exclusive of the year. Insomniac said last year that the original Spider-Man and the Miles Morales spinoff had sold a combined 33 million copies.
A spokesperson for the studio declined to address the budget or size of the development team for Spider-Man 2, but making highfidelity games of that size can require hundreds of millions of dollars. Documents from the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against the Microsoft-Activision merger included an accidental disclosure of budget data from Sony, the publisher of the Spider-Man games, revealing that other popular titles such as The Last of Us Part II and Horizon Forbidden West cost upward of $200 million each.
Market analysts say major studios have relied on established intellectual property to mitigate their risk. But characters with established followings in action movies and comic books do not necessarily have the same appeal in video games.
The team behind the Spider-Man sequel believes it has found a winning formula, one that whisks players into the superhero’s universe by adding a touch of realism and a sucker punch of New York attitude.
“What we have tried to focus on,” said Intihar, the game’s creative director, “is respecting the DNA of the franchise without being afraid of mixing things up.”
Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the United States, announced earlier this week that it would hire a reporter to cover one of biggest names in music: Taylor Swift.
As Swift’s prominence grows during her record-breaking tour, Gannett said it was looking for a reporter who could capture the significance of her music, as well as her “growing legacy” and “the effect she has across the music and business worlds.”
USA Today and The Tennessean, the publisher’s newspaper in Nashville, where Swift began her career as a coun try darling before selling out stadiums across North breaking Eras Tour.
dom that has surrounded Swift, whose cultur
with each album, including the rerecordings of her old music. Her fans have spent thousands of dollars on con cert tickets and shook the ground so hard at one concert that it registered as an earthquake on a seismometer near Seattle.
been mixed, including praise for Gan nett for trying to reach a new audience and criticism o has laid off local journalists in recent years.
tent officer, said in a statement Tues day night that the USA Today Network, w to serving its readers with essential jour nalism, and that “includes providing
the country.
Laura D. Testino, a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that while Nashville is getting a Swift reporter, “Memphis is still without an investigative reporter.”
Gannett has hired 225 journalists since March and now has more than 100 open roles, Roberts said.
Vrinda Jagota, a music writer who has reported on Swift’s cultural significance, said in an interview Tuesday that while Swift is a complex pop icon worthy of journalistic analysis, there are ho are just as big, such as -
sance,” for example, has resonated with y Black and LGBTQ people, she
“I think the question that comes to mind for me is which fandoms and which moments of connection are taken more seriously,” Jagota said. “And Taylor Swift’s fandom is very white. It’s a lot of
Robert Thompson, the director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, said Tuesday that such a hiring “is not as-
ture has broken up into a million little ” he said, there is an increased value to the one thing that emerges that
“You cannot be conscious in the -
ing to come to grips with Taylor Swift,” hompson said. Covering someone like -
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL
GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL SUPERIOR DE AGUADILLA.
MIGDALIA
TIRADO BRAVO PETICIONARIA
Representada en este acto por su apoderada Carmen Rosario Burgos Millán
EX PARTE
CIVIL NÚM: IS2022CV00073.
SOBRE: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS
UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. S.S.
A: LAS PERSONAS
IGNORADAS Y DESCONOCIDAS A QUIENES PUDIERA
PERJUDICAR LA INSCRIPCIÓN DEL DOMINIO A FAVOR DE LA PARTE PETICIONARIA EN EL REGISTRO DE LA PROPIEDAD DE LA FINCA
QUE MÁS ADELANTE SE DESCRIBE; A TODA PERSONA EN GENERAL QUE CON DERECHO PARA ELLO DESEE OPONERSE A ESTE EXPEDIENTE; A LOS HEREDEROS Y/O LEGATARIOS DE EVANS CASTRO BUMBORY Y CLAUDETTE BECERRA
LAMBERTY
POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica para que comparezcan, silo creyeren pertinente, ante este Honorable Tribunal, dentro del término de veinte (20) días contados a partir de la última publicación de este edicto, a exponer lo que a sus derechos convenga en el expediente promovido por la Parte Peticionaria para adquirir su dominio sobre la finca que se describe más adelante. Usted deberá presentar su posición a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando: https://unired. poderjudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación en la Secretaria del Tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar Sentencia, previo a escuchar la prueba de valor de la Parte Peticionaria, sin más citarle ni oírle, y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Petición, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de
su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. RÚSTICA: Solar localizado en el Barrio Bajura del término municipal de Isabela, compuesto de mil doce punto nueve mil novecientos noventa y siete metros cuadrados (1,012.9997 mc.), equivalentes a cero punto dos mil quinientos setenta y siete cuerdas (0.2577 cds.). Colindando por el Norte, en dos alineaciones que suman sesenta y dos punto doscientos setenta metros (62.270 rn), con Víctor Parrilla; por el SUR, en una alineación de sesenta y uno punto cien metros (61.100 m.), con Ismael Rodríguez Santiago y Claudette Becerra Lamberty; por el ESTE, en una alineación de veinticinco punto cero cincuenta metros (25.050 m.) con camino privado; y por el OESTE, en una alineación de siete punto seis cientos cincuenta y tres metros (7.653 m.) con Evans Castro Bumbory. La abogada de la parte peticionaria es la LCDA. VIVIAN GODINEAUX VILLARONGA, P.O. BOX 1957, CAGUAS, PUERTO RICO 00726-1957, TELEFONO (787)427-4164, Email: vagodineaux@gmail.com. Se le informa, además, que el Tribunal ha señalado vista en este caso para el 22 de septiembre de 2023, a las 2:00 p.m., mediante videoconferencia, a la cual usted puede comparecer asistido por abogado y presentar oposición a la petición. Este edicto deberá ser publicado en tres (3) ocasiones dentro del término de veinte (20) días, en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que comparezcan si quieren alegar su derecho. Toda primera mención de persona natural y/o jurídica que se mencione en el mismo se identificará en letra tamaño 10 puntos y negrillas, conforme a los dispuesto en las Reglas de Procedimiento Civil de 2009. Se le apercibe que de no comparecer los interesados y/o partes citadas, o en su defecto los organismos públicos afectados, en el término improrrogable de veinte (20) días a contar de la fecha de la última publicación del edicto, el Tribunal podrá conceder el remedio solicitado, sin más citarle ni oírle. En Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, a de de 2023. Sarahi Reyes Perez, Secretaria Regional. Ariana Guzman Pabon, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO
DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-
NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR HUMACAO MARIO
APONTE DELGADO
Peticionario EX PARTE
Civil Núm.: HU2023CV007718.
Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO, BAJO EL ART. 13 DE LA LEY 118, PROCEDIMIENTO EXPEDITO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PR, SS.
A: INMEDIATOS ANTERIORES DUEÑOS., HEREDEROS, DENOMINADOS FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL., Y LAS PERSONAS IGNORADAS Y DESCONOCIDAS A QUIENES PUDIERA PERJUDICAR LA INSCRIPCIÓN DEL DOMINIO A FAVOR DE LA PARTE PETICIONARIA EN EL REGISTRO DE LA PROPIEDAD DE LA FINCA QUE MÁS ADELANTE SE DESCRIBIRÁ Y A TODA PERSONA EN GENERAL QUE CON DERECHO PARA ELLO DESEE OPONERSE A ESTE EXPEDIENTE.
POR LA PRESENTE se les notifica para que comparezcan, si lo creyeren pertinente, ante este Honorable Tribunal dentro de los veinte (20) días contados a partir de la última publicación de este edicto a exponer lo que a sus derechos convenga en el expediente promovido por la parte peticionaria para adquirir su dominio sobre la finca que se describe más adelante. Usted deberá presentar su posición a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación en la secretaría del Tribunal.
Si usted deja de expresarse dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar sentencia, previo a escuchar la prueba de valor de la parte peticionaria en su contra, sin más citarle ni oírle, y conceder el remedio solicitado en la petición, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. RUSTICA: Solar con residencia construida en concreto en el Barrio Tejas
Afuera del término municipal de Yabucoa, Puerto Rico con una cabida superficial de QUINIENTOS SETENTA Y SIETE
PUNTO NUEVE CINCO NUEVE METROS CUADRADOS
(577.959 M.C). En lindes por el NORESTE en una alineación de dieciséis punto doscientos ochenta pies lineales (16.280 p/l) con terreno perteneciente
a Juan Aponte Delgado; por el SURESTE, en una alineación de treinta punto setecientos sesenta y nueve pies lineales (30.769 p/l) con terreno perteneciente a Andrés Serrano Vázquez; por el ESTE, en una alineación de dieciocho punto setecientos setenta y dos pies lineales (18.772 p/l) del cual se desconoce propietario; y por el OESTE en varias alineaciones de tres punto novecientos diecinueve (3.919 p/l); veinte punto ciento cuarenta y cinco pies lineales (20.145 p/l) y dieciocho punto cuatrocientos sesenta y cuatro pies lineales (18.464 p/l) con camino vecinal Los Apontes. El abogado de la parte peticionaria es la Lcdo.
Ernesto Rovira Gándara, PMB 767, 1353 Ave. Luis Vigoreaux, Guaynabo, PR 00966; Tel. (787)-758-3277; Email: erovira@partnerslegalservicespr. com. Se le informa, además, que el Tribunal ha señalado vista en este caso para el 17 de octubre de 2023, a las 10:00 de la mañana, mediante videoconferencia, a la cual usted puede comparecer asistido por abogado y presentar oposición a la petición. Este edicto deberá ser publicado en tres (3) ocasiones dentro del término de veinte (20) días, en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que comparezcan si quieren alegar su derecho. Toda primera mención de persona natural y/o jurídica que se mencione en el mismo, se identificará en letra tamaño 10 puntos y negrillas, conforme a lo dispuesto en las Reglas de Procedimiento Civil, 2009. Se le apercibe que de no comparecer los interesados y/o partes citadas, o en su defecto los organismos públicos afectados en el término improrrogable de veinte (20) días a contar de la fecha de la última publicación del edicto, el Tribunal podrá conceder el remedio solicitado por la parte peticionaria, sin más citarle ni oírle. En HUMACAO, Puerto Rico, a 21 de agosto de 2023. IVELISSE C. FONSECA RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. IVELISSE M. MONCLOVA CRUZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL. ***
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE MAYAGÜEZ CPD LLC
Demandante V. RÍO CAÑAS, S.E.; RÍO CAÑAS MANAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT, INC.; MARIO S. RODRÍGUEZ GONZÁLEZ Y SU ESPOSA, MARÍA DE
LOURDES MIRANDA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; FRANCISCO CÓRDOVA LÓPEZ Y SU ESPOSA, JULIA EVELYN MARRERO ROLÓN Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; ERIC CONDE LESPIER Y SU ESPOSA, NATALIA GUANIPA SÁNCHEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; ZULMA ANTONIA VILELLA; SUCESIÓN DE CARLOS MANUEL LÓPEZ RIVERA, COMPUESTA POR JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE POR DESCONOCERSE A SU NOMBRE COMO POSIBLES MIEMBROS DE LA SUCESIÓN Y ZULMA ANTONIA VILELLA EN SU CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA; Y EL SECRETARIO DE HACIENDA DE PUERTO RICO
Demandados Civil Núm.: ISCI20131406. (206). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. AVISO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PUEBLO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S. A: LOS CODEMANDADOS DE EPÍGRAFE Y AL PÚBLICO EN GENERAL. YO, el(la) Alguacil que suscribe, por la presente anuncia y hace constar que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento, expedido el 27 de junio de 2023 por la Secretaría del Tribunal, para que proceda a vender en pública subasta la propiedad inmueble embargada, para satisfacer las cantidades adeudadas a la parte demandante conforme a la Sentencia dictada en el presente caso, ascendente a las siguientes sumas: $428,588.03 de principal más intereses a razón del por ciento anual fluctuante igual al tipo resultante al añadir 2.00% a la Tasa Preferencial (“prime rate”), según publicada de tiempo en tiempo por el Wall Street Journal como la Tasa Preferencial (“prime rate”), suma que al día 30 de julio de 2013 ascendía a $79,565.27, y los cuales continúan acumulándose diariamen-
te a razón de $74.41 (“per diem”), hasta su total y completo pago; $50,000.00 pactados por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. Procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, quien pagará el importe de la venta en dinero efectivo o en cheque certificado o en cheque de gerente a la orden del Alguacil suscribiente en moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, el día 25 DE OCTUBRE DE 2023, A LA(S)
11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en mi oficina localizada en el Tribunal de Mayagüez, todo título, derecho o interés que corresponda a la parte demandada sobre el inmueble que se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Identificada como “A” guión Dos (A2), sita en el Barrio Río Cañas de Añasco, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de ciento dos punto quinientos veintiséis (102.526) cuerdas, en lindes por el Norte, con camino que comunica las Carreteras Trescientos Cuarenta y Ocho (348) y Ciento Ocho (108), y con terrenos de Juan Seda; por el Sur, con el Río Cañas que la separa de la parcela “D” perteneciente a Nydia Ponce; por el Este, con parcela “A” guión Tres (A-3) perteneciente a la Sucesión de Waldemar Bravo; y por el Oeste, con la parcela “A” guión Uno (A-1) perteneciente a la Sucesión de Zaida Bravo. Por su esquina Noroeste que cruza la diagonal servidumbre a favor de la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica. Fueron agrupadas las fincas número 546, inscrita al folio 33 del tomo 210 de Añasco, la finca número 188, inscrita al folio 220 vuelto de Añasco y la finca número 419, inscrita al folio 171 del tomo 98 de Mayagüez, de la cual luego de agrupadas se segregó la descrita finca objeto de la presente acción civil. Dirección Física: Km 7.5 West & Interior Road PR 108, Rio Cañas Ward, Añasco, PR. Finca Número 546: La propiedad descrita anteriormente está afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: Afecta por su procedencia: Libre de Cargas. Por sí: Al Asiento 406 del Diario 722, se presentó el día 24 de enero de 2005, la escritura número 114 del 10 de diciembre de 2004 ante el Notario Público Gustavo J. Umpierre Pontón sobre Hipoteca en Garantía de Pagaré, mediante la cual comparecen Río Cañas, S.E., representada por su Socio Administrador Río Cañas Management & Development, Inc., representado a su vez por Francisco Córdova López, ante el mismo Notario a constituir Hipoteca sobre Parcela A-2 de 102.526 cuerdas, a favor del Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, por la suma principal $475,000.00 con intereses
al 2% sobre el prime rate y vencedero a la presentación. Al Asiento 407 del Diario 722, se presentó el día 24 de enero de 2005, sobre Declaración de Financiamiento suscrita por Río Cañas, S.E., a favor del Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, relacionado con Parcela A-2 del Barrio Río Cañas de Añasco de 102.526 cuerdas. Al Asiento 1537 del Diario 728, se presentó el día 24 de abril de 2006, la escritura número 12, otorgada el día 23 de febrero de 2006, ante el Notario Público Gustavo J. Umpierre Pontón, titulada “Deed of First Mortgage and of Equalization of Rank”, mediante la cual Río Cañas, S.E. constituye Primera Hipoteca a favor del Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, por la suma principal de $25,000.00 con intereses al 2% sobre el prime rate y vencedero a la presentación. Por el mismo documento se iguala en rango a la Hipoteca por la suma de $475,000.00, la cual se encuentra presentada el día 24 de enero de 2005 al Asiento 406 del Diario 722. Nota: Documento presentado bajo el número de finca 405 de Añasco, cuando lo correcto es que se tomará nota sobre las fincas 546 de Añasco, 188 de Añasco y 419 de Mayagüez. Al Asiento 1080 del Diario 759, se presentó el día 19 de febrero de 2015 Sentencia en Rebeldía debidamente certificada en el caso Civil ISCI201301406, seguido en el Centro Judicial de Mayagüez, Sala Superior, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria seguido por PR Asset Portfolio 2013-1 International, LLC vs Río Cañas SE; Río Cañas Management & Development Inc; Mario S. Rodríguez González y su esposa María de Lourdes Miranda; Francisco Córdova López y Julia Evelyn Marrero Rolón; Eric Conde Lespier y Natalia Guanipa Sánchez; Zulma Antonia Vilella; Sucesión de Carlos Manuel López Rivera y otros solicitándose se dicte Sentencia en Rebeldía por estar vencidos los pagarés por $475,000.00 y $25,000.00 garantizadas con la Parcela A-2 de 102.526 cuerdas producto de la agrupación de las fincas 546, finca 188 y finca 419 de Añasco y la finca 419 de Mayagüez. Al Asiento 2016-022625MY01 del Sistema Karibe, se presentó el día 5 de abril de 2016, Mandamiento sobre Embargo Preventivo en el caso seguido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Mayagüez, caso Civil Núm.
ISCI201301406 (206) por PR
Asset Portfolio 2013-1 International, LLC, demandante vs. Río Cañas, S.E., Río Cañas Management & Development, Inc., Mario S. Rodríguez Gon-
zález y su esposa María De Lourdes Miranda y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ambos; Francisco Córdova López y su esposa Julia Evelyn Marrero Rolón y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ambos Eñe Conde Lespier y su esposa Natalia Guanipa Sánchez y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ambos; Zulma Antonia Vilella; Sucesión de Carlos Manuel López Rivera compuesta por John Doe y Jane Doe por desconocerse a su nombre como posibles miembros de la Sucesión y Zulma Antonia Vilella en su cuota viudal usufructuaria; y el Secretario de Hacienda de Puerto Rico, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria. Para responder por la suma de $428,588.03 de principal más intereses a razón del por ciento anual fluctuante igual al tipo resultante al añadir de 2.00% a la tasa preferencial (“prime rate”) suma que al día 30 de julio de 2013 ascendía a $79,565.27, y los cuales continúan acumulándose diariamente a razón de $74.41 (“per diem”) hasta su total y completo pago; $50,000.00 pactado de costas, gastos y honorario de abogado resultante al presentado para gravar las fincas 546 de Añasco, 188 de Añasco y la 419 de Mayagüez. Embargo a favor del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico (Ley 12), contra la Sucesión José A. Bechara Galib, en la suma de $17,502.81, según Certificación del día 8 de agosto de 2012, presentado el día 14 de agosto de 2012 y anotado al folio 33, Orden 132 del Libro 2 de Embargos de la Ley 216. Finca Número 188: La propiedad descrita anteriormente está afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: Afecta por su procedencia: Libre de Cargas. Por sí: Servidumbre a favor del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico cedida a favor de la Autoridad de Fuentes Fluviales de Puerto Rico por expropiación forzosa, según Resolución del día 19 de febrero de 1965, expedida en el Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, en los casos número E-62-638 al E-62-652, e inscrita al folio 215 vuelto del tomo 23 de Añasco, finca número 188, inscripción 30ª. Servidumbre a favor de la Autoridad de Fuentes Fluviales de Puerto Rico en consideración a la suma de $1,000.00, según la escritura número 26, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 18 de junio de 1958, ante el Notario Público Clemente Ruiz Jr., inscrita al folio 216 vuelto del tomo 23 de Añasco, finca número 188, Anotación C. Al Asiento 406 del Diario 722, se presentó el día 24 de enero de 2005, la
NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE COMERIO ESTRELLA HOMES III LLC.
Parte Demandante Vs. SUCESION DE JUAN RIVERA PAGAN COMPUESTA POR OMAYRA RIVERA DEL HOYO, JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS, CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Y ADMINISTRACIÓN PARA EL SUSTENTO DE MENORES
Parte Demandada
CASO CIVIL NUM.
CR2022CV00064 SOBRE:
EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA
POR LA VIA ORDINARIA Y COBRO DE DINERO. ANUNCIO DE SUBASTA. El suscribiente, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Puerto Rico, Sala de Humacao, a los demandados de epígrafe y al público en general hace saber que venderá en pública subasta en la Oficina de Alguaciles, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Comería, al mejor postor, en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América en efectivo, cheque certificado, o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, el derecho que tenga la parte demandada en el inmueble que se relaciona más adelante para pagar la SENTENCIA por $70,718.29 de balance principal, los intereses adeudados sobre dicho principal y computados al 7.125% anual hasta su total pago y completo pago desde el primero de septiembre de 2019; cargos por demora devengados, más la suma estipulada de $7,200.00 para honorarios de abogado pactada en la escritura de hipoteca y cualesquiera otras sumas que por cualesquiera concepto legal se devenguen hasta el día de la subasta. La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue: RUSTICA: Parcela marcada con el número cuarenta y nueve guion B (49-B) en el plano de parcelación de la comunidad rural Palomas del Barrio Palomas del término municipal de Comerio, con una cabida superficial de MIL QUINIENTOS SETENTA Y
CUATRO PUNTO SETENTA Y
CUATRO METROS CUADRADOS (1574.74). En lindes por el Norte, con las parcelas numeras cuarenta y ocho (48) y cuarenta y ocho guion B (48-B) de la comunidad, por el Sur, con camino de la comunidad, por el este, con la parcela numero cuarenta y nueve guion C (49C) de la comunidad, por el Oeste, con las parcelas numeros cuarenta y nueve (49) y cuarenta y nueve guion A (49-A) de
la comunidad. Inscrita al folio cuatro (4) del tomo ochenta (80) de Comerio, finca numero siete mil cero cero cuatro (7004 ), Registro de Barranquitas. Dirección Física: RD 779, KM 69 Paloma, Comerio, Puerto Rico 00782 Dicha propiedad se encuentra afecta a los siguientes gravamenes posteriores: Embargo a favor de los Estados Unidos de América contra Juan Luis Rivera, seguro social numero xxx-xx-2118, notificación número 209020716, por la suma de $11,367.56 de fecha 15 de abril de 2016, anotado al sistema Karibe bajo asiento 2016-004474-FED, de fecha 2 de mayo de 2016. Embargo a favor del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico - Departamento contra Juan A. Rivera Pagán, cuenta número xxx-xx-2888, total adeudado $1,480.06, embargo número ARE-19-2888 de fecha 20 de julio de 2018, anotado al sistema Karibe bajo asiento 2018-008472-EST el 12 de octubre de 2018. La primera subasta se llevará a cabo el día 29 de septiembre de 2023, a las 10:30 de la mañana, y servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la suma de $72,000.00 sin admitirse oferta inferior. En el caso de que el inmueble a ser subastado no fuera adjudicado en la primera subasta, se celebrará una segunda subasta el día 6 de octubre de 2023, a las 10:30 de la mañana, y el precio mínimo para esta segunda subasta será el de dos terceras partes del precio mínimo establecido para la primera subasta, o a sea la suma de $48,000.00. Si tampoco hubiera remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una tercera subasta el día 13 de octubre de 2023, a las 10:30 de la mañana, y el tipo mínimo para esta tercera subasta será la mitad del precio establecido para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $36,000.00. El mejor postor deberá pagar el importe de su oferta en efecto, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal. Se avisa a cualquier licitador que la propiedad queda sujeta al gravamen del Estado Libre Asociado y CRIM sobre la propiedad inmueble por contribuciones adeudadas y que el pago de dichas contribuciones es la responsabilidad del licitador. Que se entenderá por todo licitador acepte como suficiente la titulación y que los cargos y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes en entendiéndose que el rematador los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse su extinción al precio rematante. Todos los nombres de los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o de los acreedores de cargas
o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, siempre que surgen de la certificación registral, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Y para conocimiento de licitadores, del público en general y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general diaria en Puerto Rico y en los sitios públicos de acuerdo a las disposiciones de la Regla 51.7 de las de Procedimiento Civil, así como para la publicación en un periódico de circulación general diaria y en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas con antelación a la fecha de la primera subasta y por lo menos una vez por semana. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento indicado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante las horas laborables. (Art. 102 (1) de la Ley núm. 210-2015). Expedido el presente en Comerío, Puerto Rico, a 22 de agosto de 2023. Andrés Vázquez Santiago, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE COMERIO. ***
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA DE CAYEY EN CAGUAS
MIDLAND CREDIT MANAGEMENT
PUERTO RICO, LLC
COMO AGENTE DE MIDLAND CREDIT MANAGEMENT, INC.
Parte Demandante Vs. EVELYN
DIAZ RODRIGUEZ
Parte Demandada CIVIL NÚM. CY2023CV00106
SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.
A: EVELYN
DIAZ RODRIGUEZBO CERTENEJAS I CARR
172 KlO H2, CIDRA PR 00739
POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder
utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Natalie Bonaparte Servera cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección natalie. bonaparte@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO
MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en CAYEY EN CAGUAS, Puerto Rico, hoy día 31 de julio de 2023.En Cayey en Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 8 de agosto de 2023. Lisilda Martínez Agosto. Secretaria. Irasemis Díaz Sánchez, Secretaria Auxiliar.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAYEY EN CAGUAS MIDLAND CREDIT MANAGEMENT PUERTO RICO, LLC COMO AGENTE DE MIDLAND CREDIT MANAGEMENT, LNC.
Parte Demandante Vs. EVELYN
DIAZ RODRIGUEZ
Parte Demandada CIVIL NÚM. CY2023CV00106 SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.
A: EVELYN
DIAZ RODRIGUEZPO BOX 372752, CAYEY, PR 00737-2752. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo en-
tiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Natalie Bonaparte Servera cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección natalie. bonaparte@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO
MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en CAYEY EN CAGUAS, Puerto Rico, hoy día 31 de julio de 2023.En Cayey en Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 8 de agosto de 2023. Lisilda Martínez Agosto. Secretaria. Irasemis Díaz Sánchez, Secretaria Auxiliar.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE PONCE ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC
COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC
Parte Demandante Vs. ANDY W ALMODOVAR MONTALVO
Parte Demandada CIVIL NÚM. PO2022CV03174
SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.
A: ANDY W ALMODOVAR MONTALVO - URB RIO CANAS 2532
CALLE INABON, PONCE PR 00728.
POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Natalie Bonaparte Servera cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección natalie. bonaparte@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en PONCE, Puerto Rico, hoy día 8 de agosto de 2023. En PONCE, Puerto Rico, el 8 de agosto de 2023. CARMEN
TIRU QUIÑONES, Secretaria.
F/SANDRA GONZALEZ RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria Auxiliar.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SAN JUAN
ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC
COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC
Parte Demandante Vs. MARIANGUEL
PIMENTEL SOLANO
Parte Demandada
CIVIL NÚM. SJ2023CV00628
SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO.
EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. TERCERO ENMENDADO.
A: MARIANGUEL
PIMENTEL SOLANOURB FLORAL PARK 243
CALLE PARIS STE 1103, SAN JUAN PR 00917.
POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto.
Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Natalie Bonaparte Servera cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección natalie.bonaparte@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@ orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO
BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, hoy 18 de julio de 2023.
F/Alexis J. Carlo Ríos, Juez Superior. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 9 de agosto de 2023. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria. Idalisse Sáez Ortiz, Secretaria Servicio a Sala.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN
FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO, POR CONDUCTO DE SUCESORES EN DERECHO DE SANTANDER MORTGAGE CORPORATION; JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y CUALESQUIERA
PERSONA
DESCONOCIDA CON POSIBLE INTERÉS EN LA OBLIGACIÓN CUYA CANCELACIÓN POR DECRETO JUDICIAL SE SOLICITA
Demandados
Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV07652.
Sala: 901. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.
Por la presente se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal una Demanda en su contra en el pleito de epígrafe. En este caso la parte demandante ha radicado una Demanda para que se decrete judicialmente el saldo de (1) pagaré hipotecario: pagaré a favor SANTANDER MORTGAGE CORPORATION o a su orden por la suma de $70,000.00 de principal, intereses al 5-3/4% anual, vencedero el 1 de octubre de 2018, según consta de la escritura #21 otorgada en San Juan el 12 de septiembre de 2003 ante el notario Griselle Arbona Martinez; inscrita al folio 41 del tomo 764 de Santurce, Seccion Primera de San Juan, finca número 29896, inscripción 5ta.; sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: PROPIEDAD
HORIZONTAL: Apartment #8-F in Condominium Costamar, located at Inga Street Punta Las Marias, Santurce, Puerto Rico. The apartment is constructed of reinforced concrete,concrete blocks,several of its interior walls being of the type know as dry-wall partitions with a total floor area of 636.12 square feet, equivalent to 59.12 square meters more or less. The apartment is located on the WEST, side of the building; NORTH WEST, of the elevators shaft, in the eight floor of the building. The main entrance of this apartment is located on the EAST boundary in front of the foyer and inmediately comunicates it with the corridor, which corridor leads to the passenger elevators and to the stairs which area common elements of the building, which is turn lead to Inga Street; the boundaries of this apartment are; on the NORTH, in a linear distance of 20’8” equivalent to 6.30 meters more or less with apartment 8-E; on
the SOUTH, in two linear distance , one of 12’7” equvalents to 3.84 meters, more or less with apartment #8-G and the other of 8’1” equivalent to 2.46 meters more or less with the central stairways Wall; EAST, in two linear distance one of 20’9” equivalent to 6.33 meters more or less with the corridor, and the other of 12’ equivalent to 3.66 meters more or less with the central stairways Wall; WEST, along a linear distance of 32’9” equivalent to 9.98 meters more or less with the west exterior Wall of the building. This apartment is to be used for residential purposes and contains the following facilities; foyer, living room,dining room with a linen closet, kitchen, laundry one bathroom and linen closet. This apartment also contains, forming a part thereof, one open terrace of irregular shape located on its WEST boundary with a floor area of fifty six square feet and five hundredths of a square feet equivalent five square meters and twenty one hundredths of a square meters more or less which floor area has already been included in the above mentional total floor area of the apartment. A parking space has been assigned to this apartment as annex thereof in one area designated for said purposes which area located on the ground floor and basement floor of the building. The parking space assigned to this apartment has been marked as space 8-F. Le corresponde una participación en los elementos comunes generales de 1.11913%. Inscrita en el Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Primera de San Juan, al folio 41 del tomo 764 de Santurce, finca 29,896. La parte demandante alega que dicho pagaré ha sido saldado, según más detalladamente consta en la Demanda radicada que puede examinarse en la Secretaría de este Tribunal. Por tratarse de una obligación hipotecaria y pudiendo usted tener interés en este caso o quedar afectado por el remedio solicitado, se le emplaza por este edicto que se publicará una vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de Puerto Rico. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac, salvo que se represente por derecho propio. Debe notificar con copia de ella a la abogada de la parte demandante a la Lcda. Alyssa Rivera Rivera, a la dirección P.O. Box 19815, San Juan, P.R. 00910. Teléfono 787-4007269, dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Se le apercibe que, de no hacerlo así dentro del término indicado, el Tribunal podrá anotar su rebeldía y
dictar sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda sin más citarle, ni oírle.
EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA Y SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy a 1 de septiembre de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. MYRIAM RIVERA VILLANUEVA, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.
LEGAL NOTICE
IN THE UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO.
IN RE:
GRUPO HIMA SAN PABLO, INC.
DEBTOR (EIN #8245)
CASE NO. 23-02510 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE:
CENTRO MEDICO EL TURABO, INC.
DEBTOR (EIN #5905)
CASE NO. 23-02513 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE:
HIMA SAN PABLO PROPERTIES, INC.
DEBTOR (EIN #2718)
CASE NO. 23-02515 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE: PORTAL DE CAGUAS, INC.
DEBTOR (EIN #4874)
CASE NO. 23-02516 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE:
GENERAL CONTRACTING SERVICES, INC.
DEBTOR (EIN #4903)
CASE NO. 23-02517 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE:
IA DEVELOPERS, CORP.
DEBTOR (EIN #4128)
CASE NO. 23-02519 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE
CMT DEVELOPMENT, LLC.
DEBTOR (EIN #4351)
CASE NO. 23-02520 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE: JOCAR ENTERPRISES, INC.
DEBTOR (EIN #5849)
CASE NO. 23-02521 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE: JERUSALEM HOME AMBULANCE, INC.
DEBTOR (EIN #0175)
CASE NO. 23-02522 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
IN RE: HOST SECURITY SERVICES, INC.
DEBTOR (EIN #8802)
CASE NO. 23-02523 (ESL)
CHAPTER 11
NOTICE OF AUCTION AND SALE HEARING FOR ALL ASSETS EXCEPT FOR THE FAJARDO PROPERTIES. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE OF THE
FOLLOWING:
1. On August 15, 2023, the above-captioned debtors and debtors-in-possession (the “Debtors”), filed voluntary petitions for relief pursuant to chapter 11 of Title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Puerto Rico (the “Bankruptcy Court”).
2. On August 21, 2023, the Debtors filed a motion (the “Bidding Procedures and Sale Motion”), pursuant to sections 363 and 365 of the Bankruptcy Code and Rules 2002, 6004, and 6006 of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (“Bankruptcy Rules”), seeking entry of an order (the “Bidding Procedures Order”). To this date, the bidding procedures, auction and sale hearing for the Fajardo assets or properties, remain unaltered, as may be modified by the debtors.
3. On September 8, 2023, the Debtors filed a motion for extension of certain sale-related deadlines except for the Fajardo properties and request for order on sale hearing in nonFajardo assets seeking entry of an order (a) scheduling an auction (the “Auction for Assets other than Fajardo Assets”) for the sale of all, substantially all, or any subset of the Debtors’ assets, except those of Fajardo (in each case, the “Assets”) on or about September 28, 2023, at 3:00 p.m. and a hearing to approve the sale of the Assets (the “Sale Hearing for Assets other than Fajardo Assets”) on or about September 28, 2023, (b) approving procedures (the “Bidding Procedures”) for submitting competing bids for the Assets, (c) authorizing, but not directing, the Debtors to designate one or more Stalking Horse Bidder(s) and approving procedures to seek approval of Bid Protections for such Stalking Horse Bidder(s), (d) approving the form and manner of the notice of the Auction and the Sale Hearing, and (e) establishing procedures for the assumption and assignment of the Assumed Contracts (as defined in the Bidding Procedures and Sale Motion) to any purchaser(s) of the Assets and approving the manner of notice thereof (the “Assumption and Assignment Notice”).
4. On September 8, 2023, the Bankruptcy Court entered the Bidding Procedures Order. Pursuant to the Bidding Procedures Order, if at least two (2) Qualified Bids with regard to any Assets are received by the Bid Deadline (as defined below), the Debtors will conduct the Auction. The Auction shall
be held on September 28, 2023, starting at 3:00 p.m. (Atlantic Standard Time), or such other time as the Debtors shall designate, and notify all Qualified Bidders and all creditors who request access to the Auction prior to the Bid Deadline of September 18, 2023 by contacting the counsel to the Debtors, Lugo Mender Group, LLC, 100 Carr. 165 Suite 501 Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00968, (Attn: Wigberto Lugo Mender (wlugo@ lugmender.com), Alexis Betancourt Vincenty (a_betancourt@ lugomender.com), and Amarys Bolorin Solivan (a.bolorin@lugomender.com)) and the investment banker to the Debtors, IEC Consulting, LLC (Attn: Ivan Colon, ivancolon311@gmail. com).
5. Professionals and principals for the Debtors, each Qualified Bidder, each Consultation Party, the U.S. Trustee, any creditors that request access to the Auction prior to the Bid Deadline, and any other parties the Debtors deem appropriate shall be permitted to attend and observe the Auction.
Only parties that have submitted a Qualified Bid (as defined in the Bidding Procedures), by no later than September 18, 2023 at 4:00 p.m. (Atlantic Standard Time) (the “Bid Deadline”) may bid at the Auction. Any party that wishes to submit a Bid (as defined in the Bidding Procedures) for all or any portion of the Assets must submit a Bid prior to the Bid Deadline and in accordance with the Bidding Procedures. 6. Promptly following the conclusion of the Auction, but in no event later than 24 hours following the conclusion of the Auction, the Debtors shall file a notice on the Bankruptcy Court’s docket identifying (with specificity) the Successful Bidder(s) for the Assets and the Next-Highest Bidder(s), if any, the amounts bid by the Successful Bidder(s) and the NextHighest Bidder(s), and if either is a credit bidder, what portion of the bid is a credit bid and what portion (if any) is cash, and if any Successful Bidder or Next-Highest Bidder is a special purpose entity, the identity of the primary equity holders, or those who otherwise control, the special purpose entity (the “Notice of Successful Bidder(s)”). If no Auction takes place, but there is a Successful Bidder(s), the Debtors shall file the Notice of Successful Bidder(s)”) no later than 24 hours after the Successful Bidder(s) is/are identified. If you wish to download a copy of the Notice of Successful Bidder(s), please visit the Debtors’ claims and noticing agent’s website free of charge at https://dm. epiq11.com/GrupoHIMA under the link for Sale Documents. 7.
The Sale Hearing to consider approval of the sale of the Assets to the Successful Bidder(s), free and clear of all
liens, claims and encumbrances, will be held before the Honorable Enrique S. Lamoutte, United States Bankruptcy Judge, José V. Toledo Federal Building & US Courthouse, 300 Calle del Recinto S STE 109, San Juan, PR 00901-1964 on September 28, 2023 at 3:00 (Atlantic Standard Time), or at such other time thereafter as counsel may be heard. The Sale Hearing may be adjourned by the Debtors from time to time without further notice to parties in interest other than by announcement of the adjournment in open court on the date scheduled for the Sale Hearing or by including such adjournment on any agenda filed with the Bankruptcy Court and/or by the filing of a notice with the Bankruptcy Court. 8. Objections to approval of the Sale (with the exception of objections related solely to the conduct of the Auction, identity of any Successful Bidder, and ability of any Successful Bidder to provide adequate assurance of future performance, which must be received by a different deadline, the Auction Objection Deadline, defined below), must be in writing, state the basis of such objection with specificity, and be filed with the Bankruptcy Court, Clerk’s Office, 300 Calle del Recinto S STE 109, San Juan, PR 00901-1964, and served before September 11, 2023 at 4:00 p.m. (Atlantic Standard Time) (the “Sale Objection Deadline”) by the following parties (collectively, the “Notice Parties”): a) counsel to the Debtors, Lugo Mender Group, LLC, 100 Carr. 165 Suite 501 Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00968, (Attn: Wigberto Lugo Mender (wlugo@lugmender.com), and Alexis Betancourt Vincenty (a_betancourt@ lugomender.com)); b) investment banker to the Debtors, IEC Consulting, LLC (Attn: Ivan Colon, ivancolon311@gmail. com) c) counsel to the DIP Agent, Milbank LLP, 55 Hudson Yards, New York, New York 10001 (Attn: Evan Fleck (efleck@milbank.com) and Matthew Brod (mbrod@milbank.com)); and d) the Office of the United States Trustee for the District of Puerto Rico (the “U.S. Trustee”), Edificio Ochoa, 500 Tanca Street, Suite 301 (Attn: Monsita Lecaroz-Arribas (USTP.Region21@usdoj.gov)).
Service on the Notice Parties may be made through the CM/ ECF system with courtesy copies by email. 9. Objections related solely to conduct at the Auction, identity of any Successful Bidder, and adequate assurance of future performance by a Successful Bidder must be in writing, state the basis of such objection with specificity, and be filed with the Bankruptcy Court and served on the Notice Parties on or before 4:00 p.m. (Atlantic Standard Time) on September 26, 2023 (the “Auction Objection Deadline”). UN-
LESS AN OBJECTION IS TIMELY SERVED AND FILED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THIS NOTICE, THE BANKRUPTCY COURT MAY GRANT THE RELIEF REQUESTED WITHOUT FURTHER HEARING AND NOTICE. 10. This Sale Notice is subject to the Bidding Procedures and Sale Motion and the Bidding Procedures Order, with such Bidding Procedures Order controlling in the event of any conflict. The Debtors encourages all parties-in-interest to review such documents in their entirety. Copies of the Bidding Procedures and Sale Motion and the Bidding Procedures Order, form of Asset Purchase Agreement and form of proposed Sale Order, are on file with the Clerk of the Bankruptcy Court, 300 Calle del Recinto S STE 109, San Juan, PR 009011964, and are available on the Debtors’ claims and noticing agent’s website free of charge at https://dm.epiq11.com/case/ grupohima/infounder the link for Sale Documents.
Dated: September 13, 2023
San Juan, Puerto Rico Lugo Mender Group, LLC Attorney for Debtors 100 Carr. 165 Suite 501 Guaynabo, P.R. 00968-8052 Tel: (787) 707-0404 Fax: (787) 707-0412 wlugo@lugomender.com
s/ Wigberto Lugo Mender Wigberto Lugo Mender USDC-PR 212304
s/ Alexis A. Betancourt Vincenty Alexis A. Betancourt Vincenty USDC-PR 301304 a_betancourt@lugomender.com
Proposed Counsel for Debtors and Debtors in Possession
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN CONDOMINIO BAHÍA PROPERTIES, LLC
DEMANDANTE V. SUCESIÓN DE EVELIO VIDAL RIVERA COMPUESTA POR
FULANA DE TAL, SUTANO DE TAL, MENGANO DE TAL; Y LA SUCESIÓN DE TERESA CONCEPCIÓN GONZÁLEZ COMPUESTA
POR: SUTANA DE TAL, JOHN DOE Y FULANO DE TAL
DEMANDADO(A)
CIVIL: SJ2023CV05039. SALA: 802. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: SUCESIÓN DE EVELIO VIDAL RIVERA
POR: SUTANA DE TAL, JOHN DOE Y FULANO DE TAL.
(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 6 de septiembre 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 8 de septiembre de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 8 de septiembre de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. ELSIE PRATTS MELÉNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS SALÓN DE SESIONES SALÓN 705
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
DEMANDANTE V. JUAN ANTONIO PEREZ
RODRIGUEZ POR SI Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES
COMPUESTA POR
AMBOS Y OTROS
DEMANDADO(A)
XANA M. CONNELLY PAGÁN CONNELLYX@GMAIL.COM Caso Núm.: CG2023CV01442. COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO, EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA: PROPIEDAD RESIDENCIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: JESUS MITCHELL OJEDA GARCIA.
(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)
EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 07 de septiembre 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 08 de septiembre de 2023. En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 08 de septiembre de 2023. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. MARTA E. DONATE RESTO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE PONCE SALA SUPERIOR DE PONCE SALÓN DE SESIONES SALÓN 504 CRIMINAL Y TRÁNSITO
ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC
COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC
DEMANDANTE V. RAMON L. SEGARRA APONTE
Demandado(a)
Caso Núm.: PO2022CV02576. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO - REGLA 60, COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO.
EDWIN OMAR SERRANO PEÑA EDWIN.SERRANO@ORF-LAW.COM
A: RAMON L. SEGARRA APONTE. (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)
EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 29 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 05 de septiembre de 2023. En Ponce, Puerto Rico, el 05 de septiembre de 2023. CARMEN G. TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. KEILENE RODRÍGUEZ MELÉNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN salón de sesiones salón 908
ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC
COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC
Demandante V. MARIO X. LOPEZ PEREZ
Demandado
Caso Núm.: SJ2022CV09318. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO -ORDINARIO.
NATALIE BONAPARTE SERVERA NATALIE.BONAPARTE@ORF-LAW.COM
A: MARIO X LOPEZ PEREZ. 85 RES LLORENS TORRES APT 1671, SAN JUAN PR 00913. (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 01 de septiembre 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 05 de septiembre de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 05 de septiembre de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. JOHANNA RODRÍGUEZ BENÍTEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
Two superteams, the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty, dominated the WNBA season, as expected. They were so good that only two other teams in the 12-team league even managed a winning record.
A final between them has the potential to be a classic. But first, they will have to make it through the six other teams in the WNBA playoffs.
When did the playoffs start?
The first game of the best-of-three quarterfinals, Minnesota at Connecticut, was on Wednesday evening, with Chicago at Las Vegas following at a later hour. The Washington-New York and Atlanta-Dallas series will start on Friday.
The best-of-five semifinals are scheduled from Sept. 24 to Oct. 3, and the finals will start Oct. 8 and run through Oct. 20, if all five games are necessary.
What do the first-round matchups look like?
The big two teams, the Aces (34-6 in the regular season) and the Liberty (32-8), are prohibitive favorites over the Chicago Sky and the Washington Mystics, though the Mystics have their former MVP, Elena Delle Donne, back from injury, and the Sky have a history of deep playoff runs after subpar regular seasons.
The league’s third-best team has clearly been the Connecticut Sun (27-13), which would be expected to beat the Minnesota Lynx. In the final series, the Dallas Wings were three games better than the Atlanta Dream in the regular season and have home-
court advantage, so they should be the favorite.
Who’s going to win it all?
The Aces or the Liberty, the Liberty or the Aces? That has been the question all season.
The Aces are the reigning champions, and they have been even better this year. The Liberty managed to land Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot in the offseason to soar from an average team to greatness.
The teams split their four regular-season league meetings, but the Liberty won a fifth game, the final of the new Commissioner’s Cup.
The betting odds favor the Aces, but, in truth, it looks too close to call.
Could the Sun spoil the party? A 1-6 re -
cord against the top two teams doesn’t bode well. The other five teams in the playoffs would need a run of form not seen all season to win the title.
How can I watch the games?
ABC and the ESPN channels will be telecasting the games.
What’s this I hear about flights?
Unlike in the NBA, travel in the WNBA is mostly commercial, which has been a point of contention between the players and the league. This year, the league announced that, for the playoffs at least, teams would fly charter.
But there are limits, sources have reported: Charter flights would be allowed only once between series, allowing a team, for example, to fly home from a series by charter
but not onward to the next series.
Who are the players to watch?
Just about every Ace who steps on the court. The star forward and reigning MVP A’ja Wilson (22.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks a game, and a record-tying 53-point game) is complemented by the sharpshooting guard trio of Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray (seven assists per game).
A longer WNBA season this year allowed Stewart to break the league record for points scored, though Jewell Loyd of Seattle broke her record a few days later. In addition to Jones and Vandersloot, the Liberty have Sabrina Ionescu, the top 3-point shooter in the league.
The Sun are led by versatile forward Alyssa Thomas, who led the league in rebounds, and nearly in assists. And she recorded six triple-doubles this season, a league record.
What teams and players are missing?
Candace Parker joined the Aces as a splashy offseason signing, but the two-time MVP has been sidelined indefinitely with a fractured foot. She played the first half of the season but has been out since early July.
It would have been fun to see the No. 1 draft pick and probable rookie of the year Aliyah Boston in action, but her Indiana Fever did not make the playoffs.
After 10 straight seasons in the playoffs, the Phoenix Mercury finished last and did not qualify. That means no playoffs for Brittney Griner, who rejoined the league after spending 10 months in Russian prison on drug charges. Remarkably, she returned to make the All-Star team and average 17.5 points a game, just about her career average.
In the dreary, decadeslong history of the New York Jets, Monday night’s game was supposed to be a turning point: Aaron Rodgers, a surefire Hall of Fame quarterback, was set to take the field surrounded by AllPro talent.
For fans of the team, which has long seemed cursed, hopes had perhaps never been higher. The Jets — and Rodgers in particular — were the stars of HBO’s documentary series “Hard Knocks” during training camp, amping up the excitement around
the team to something approaching hysteria. This was supposed to be the year that the Jets finally broke through; even the Super Bowl seemed within reach.
All that hope and hype lasted exactly four plays.
Rodgers fell to the turf on a routine play early in the first quarter, stood briefly, then sat down, a look of disbelief on his face. He had ruptured his left Achilles tendon — a potentially devastating injury for a quarterback. His season was over. At age 39, there will be questions about whether his career is, too.
“We all bought in. We all drank the Kool-
Aid” that Rodgers might lead the Jets to the Super Bowl, said Scott Schoifet, a seasonticket holder who has attended every home opener since the early 1990s. “And then, four plays later, he’s on the ground.”
Improbably, the Jets won the game against the Buffalo Bills on a dramatic overtime touchdown. But it was a hollow win — and, in a bleak summer for New York’s sports teams, a rare one.
This time of year, with football season starting and baseball’s pennant races in full swing, can be one of the most exciting in sports. But for New York fans, this week
might represent a new low.
“It’s a lot of losing,” said Frank Isola, a sports journalist for ESPN who appears on the shows “Around the Horn” and “Pardon the Interruption.” “The U.S. Open ended this weekend. The Mets and Yankees are done. And part of you feels like the Jets and Giants are done already.”
Despite huge payrolls and championship aspirations at the start of the baseball season, the Mets and Yankees are mired at or near the bottom of their divisions.
Continues on page 28
From page 27
And about 24 hours before Rodgers’ injury happened on the very same MetLife Stadium field, a New York Giants team that had entered the season with a high-paid quarterback and star running back with a new contract was summarily thrashed 40-0 by the rival Dallas Cowboys.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a 24-hour span with so much disappointment in one venue, ever,” said Darren Meenan, a Jets fan who watched the game from his home on Long Island. “It’s a kick to the gut.”
This summer, only the WNBA’s New York Liberty, whose first-round playoff series begins this week, have managed to achieve anything more than mediocrity.
The last New York area team to win a championship in one of the four biggest men’s American sports leagues was the Giants, who won the Super Bowl in 2012, at the end of the 2011 season.
Since then, several teams built up fans’ hopes, only to dash them with injuries, personality clashes or the natural vicissitudes of sport. The Brooklyn Nets assembled a dream team, only to watch its stars James Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving fail to coalesce on the court. The Yankees were blessed this season with a high payroll and even higher expectations, but it all unraveled after outfielder and team captain Aaron Judge injured his toe in June.
New injuries continue to plague the Yankees, as highly regarded rookie outfielder Jasson Dominguez was diagnosed Sunday with a ligament tear in his right elbow, ending his season.
Perhaps no team underperformed more spectacularly than the Mets, where Steve Cohen, the team’s billionaire owner, spent more than $400 million on player contracts and “luxury taxes” paid to other teams as a penalty for ignoring Major League Baseball’s spending caps.
That spending spree included a five-year, $102 million contract for pitcher Edwin Díaz, whose season ended before it even began when he tore a tendon in his knee during an international tournament in March. The biggest question now is whether the Mets can avoid ending the 2023 season with the worst record in baseball.
“It was harder to watch games this season than most years I’ve watched this team, just because of how high the expectations were,” said Meenan, owner of The 7 Line, a Metsthemed apparel company.
Even the Red Bulls, owners of the longest active streak of making the Major League Soccer playoffs — 13 years — are sitting near the bottom of the league. The New York City
Football Club, which has made the playoffs for seven straight years and won a championship in 2021, is not faring much better. But it is Jets fans whose agony, in the wake of the news about Rodgers, is most acute — the lowest moment in the history of a team whose most notable recent moment is the so-called butt fumble, which involved a Jets quarterback slamming so hard into his own teammate’s rear end that he lost the ball.
And yet for some fans, hope continues to spring eternal. Spike Lee concedes that some
New York teams are struggling, but not his beloved Knicks.
“Last night was a disaster” for the Jets, Lee said. “But we got the Knicks, though! We’re going to conference finals at least! I have full belief.”
Baseball fans, disappointed by the Yankees and Mets, were looking to the opening games of football season for some relief, said Chris Russo, a longtime New York sports talk radio personality. The Giants drubbing and the Rodgers injury were depressing, Russo said, but not necessarily cause for alarm
since both the Giants and Jets have 16 more games to play in the regular season.
“This was a terrible weekend for the football teams,” Russo said. “But it’s not the apocalypse yet. I don’t think the Jets team is writing off the season because of this one game.”
For many, though, Tuesday morning was spent in the five stages of grief, from denial that Rodgers’ injury was as grievous as it seemed all the way to grim acceptance, when the team announced that its star quarterback would spend the season on the bench.
On ESPN, Mike Greenberg — the host of the morning discussion show “Get Up” and an avowed Jets fan — struggled to get through his remarks. “I can’t pretend this is a normal morning,” he said, and added, “from a sports perspective, this is about as overwhelming as anything that could possibly happen.”
On X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter, Greenberg’s daughter posted, perhaps only partially tongue in cheek: “thank you everyone for your concern about my father’s mental state i am here to confirm it is not good.”
Boomer Esiason, a former Jets quarterback and now a commentator on the radio station WFAN, began his show on Tuesday morning by saying, “Yeah, I’m sick to my stomach, man.”
Fans felt a similar sickness.
“I’m so upset. Devastated, honestly,” said Marin Kerker, 19, who wore a Jets jersey on Tuesday morning as she walked to a doctor’s appointment in Manhattan.
Of course, the team’s fan base has a reputation for enthusiasm that verges on the obnoxious, and its tragedy engendered more than a little schadenfreude on Tuesday.
In Brooklyn, Charles Jackson, a Chicago Bears fan, used a familiar but profane expression about karma to drive home the point.
“That’s what I told everyone this morning in my elevator,” said Jackson, 57, before clarifying: “I don’t like to see anyone get hurt. But I doubt if the guy will be coming back.”
For decades, Ken Pikowski has been a Jets superfan. Known to his friends as “End Zone Kenny,” he attended most home games dressed as The Incredible Hulk, complete with a construction helmet in Jets green and white.
But in the last two years he has found it more difficult to keep the faith, he said. He was not at Monday night’s game. He bore witness to the lowest moment in his team’s history on television.
“I had to take a break,” Pikowski said. “After 45 years as a Jets fan, you get exhausted after a while.”
Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9.
Sudoku Rules:
Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9
Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9
Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9
Answers on page 30
Aries (Mar 21-April 20)
Group activities could escalate almost to a frenzy. New short-term goals could necessitate a lot of work, Aries. You might get caught in a rush of phone calls and errands. This should prove very positive for the group’s goals in the long term, but for now it could drive everyone crazy. Try to stay focused and just do what you have to do.
Taurus (April 21-May 21)
You could receive a phone call from a friend or relative you haven’t seen in a long time, Taurus. This person might announce a pending visit, and very soon! You and your household might go crazy trying to make the place presentable. You’ll probably enjoy the visit, but the announcement will cause some temporary chaos.
Gemini (May 22-June 21)
News about changes in your neighborhood could throw your community for a loop, Gemini. This may involve new businesses, laws, or ordinances that don’t sit well with everyone. You can expect a lot of phone calls, impromptu meetings, and other community contact that could turn into heated quarrels. Be prepared, and stay focused.
Cancer (June 22-July 23)
News about changes in your neighborhood could throw your community for a loop, Gemini. This may involve new businesses, laws, or ordinances that don’t sit well with everyone. You can expect a lot of phone calls, impromptu meetings, and other community contact that could turn into heated quarrels. Be prepared, and stay focused.
Leo (July 24-Aug 23)
Large social gatherings, perhaps group events or festivals, could put you in the middle of an agitated crowd, Leo. At first it could seem exhilarating, but after a while you could feel stifled. Still, you won’t want to miss anything, so you’ll be in a quandary. It’s OK to leave for a while and come back. The crowd should dissipate somewhat by the time you return.
Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)
Too many demands upon you could have you feeling a bit on edge today. If possible, this is a good day to get away by yourself for a while, Virgo, as you might feel a strong need to get your head together. It’s a great day to go for a workout or get out in the open if weather permits. Take a book with you and gather your thoughts.
Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)
A speech or lecture you hear or read could cause your way of thinking to be suddenly and drastically altered, Libra. Some radical information could overturn concepts you’ve embraced for years, and this might shock you. Consider it objectively and you’ll realize that it isn’t all that drastic a change. In the larger scope of things, all ideas stem from the same source.
Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)
A speech or lecture you hear or read could cause your way of thinking to be suddenly and drastically altered, Libra. Some radical information could overturn concepts you’ve embraced for years, and this might shock you. Consider it objectively and you’ll realize that it isn’t all that drastic a change. In the larger scope of things, all ideas stem from the same source.
Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)
A phone call from another state or country could bring some astounding information your way today, Sagittarius, awakening you to events and ideas you’ve never considered before. You might be in a daze for a while. You may want to run this by friends to see what they think. Some interesting discussions could result. By day’s end, you won’t be thinking the same way!
Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)
If you’re trying to get your finances together, today might not be the best day for it, Capricorn. Put it aside for now. Indulge in the lighter side of life. Get family or close friends together and head outside. You can enjoy a day at the park or zoo. Share some laughs and grow closer. Those more serious matters will still be waiting for you tomorrow.
Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)
A surprising phone call might come today from a close friend or business or romantic partner, Aquarius. This person might have encountered an unexpected upset and need to concentrate on getting it together again. An offer to help might meet with scant enthusiasm, as this person may prefer to take care of things alone. The trick is to be supportive and not take on the troubles as your own.
Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)
An unexpected development could throw you into a tailspin, Pisces. This could involve a new person in your life or the reappearance of someone from the past. This presence could incite either personal or professional changes. These could seem like a lot to handle, but could be positive over the long term. Stay calm, deal with issues one at a time, and keep your sense of humor.
