USNS Comfort responds to second hospital generator failure

The U.S. Health and Human Services and Puerto Rico Department of Health representatives are prioritizing patients at each stop prior to Comfort's arrival. The Department of Defense is supporting the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the lead federal agency, in helping those affected by Hurricane Maria to minimize suffering and is one component of the overall whole-of-government response effort.

President Donald J. Trump Approves Major Disaster Declaration for Puerto Rico

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced today that federal disaster assistance has been made available to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to supplement the Commonwealth and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by Hurricane Maria from September 17, 2017, and continuing.

Puerto Ricans flocking to mainland could sway swing states

Residents of Puerto Rico can't vote in presidential elections. But with the island's economy in shambles, many are fleeing to the U.S. mainland, potentially shifting demographic norms in some of the most closely contested states.

Funding threatens future of giant telescope in Puerto Rico

The world's largest single-dish radio telescope is nestled deep in the lush green hills of Puerto Rico, where it performs tasks like searching for gravitational waves, listening for extraterrestrial signals and tracking asteroids that might be on a collision course with Earth. But the outlook is increasingly faint for the Arecibo Observatory, which features a 1,000-foot-wide dish used in research involving stars that led to a Nobel Prize.