Category Archives: Puerto Rico

Bermuda and Canada brace for Fiona as Puerto Rico counts cost

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At least six municipalities across island have areas cut off by storm which struck as a category 1 hurricane and has since strengthened

Bermuda and the Atlantic provinces of Canada were preparing for a blast from Hurricane Fiona as authorities struggled on Thursday to open roads for people left stranded and without power by the storm in Puerto Rico.

The storm was expected to still be at category 4 force when it passes close to Bermuda overnight and still dangerously potent when it reaches Canada, probably late on Friday, as an extratropical cyclone.

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Hurricane Fiona batters Turks and Caicos as Puerto Rico fights flooding

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British island territory imposes curfew and urges people to flee flood-risk areas after Category 3 storm lashes Dominican Republic

Hurricane Fiona has blasted the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Category 3 storm after cutting a path of devastation through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico – where most people remained without electricity or running water.

The storm’s eye passed close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 miles (45km) from the center.

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White House rejects ‘sham referendums’ in occupied Ukraine – as it happened

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National security adviser makes remark while Biden will ‘rebuke Russia’ at UN summit

Joined by his fellow New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, majority leader Chuck Schumer is continuing to call for aid to Puerto Rico at a press conference outside the Capitol.

Here’s the latest from Nexstar media:

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Puerto Rico battles blackout and lack of safe water in wake of Hurricane Fiona

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Floods and rain wreak havoc as critics say total blackout shows authorities have learnt nothing since 2017 hurricanes

Most of Puerto Rico was still without power or safe drinking water on Monday, with remnants of a category 1 hurricane that struck there a day earlier forecast to bring more heavy rain and life-threatening flooding.

Hundreds of people are trapped in emergency shelters across the Caribbean island, with major roads underwater and reports of numerous collapsed bridges. Crops have been washed away while flash floods, landslides and fallen trees have blocked roads, swept away vehicles and caused widespread damage to infrastructure.

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Flooding and landslides in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona knocks out power to island

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Category 1 storm damage ‘catastrophic’, says governor, while it continues to strengthen and barrels toward Dominican Republic

Most of Puerto Rico is without power after a category 1 hurricane bringing heavy rains and dangerous winds made landfall on Sunday evening, causing severe flooding and landslides and damaging infrastructure.

Hurricane Fiona was causing “catastrophic flooding” in Puerto Rico early on Sunday evening, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

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Puerto Rico under hurricane warning as tropical storm Fiona nears

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Residents warned of heavy rain, potential landslides, severe flooding and power outages

Tropical Storm Fiona was expected to become a hurricane as it neared Puerto Rico on Saturday, threatening to dump up to 20 inches (51cm) of rain as people braced for potential landslides, severe flooding and power outages.

The storm previously battered various eastern Caribbean islands, with one death reported in the French territory of Guadeloupe. Regional prefect Alexandre Rochatte told reporters on Saturday that the body was found on the side of a road after floods washed away a home in the capital of Basse-Terre.

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Seven more survivors of capsized boat rescued near Puerto Rico

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The number of survivors – most of them migrants from Haiti – is now 38, with a death toll of 11

The US Coast Guard has found an additional seven survivors from the capsizing of a vessel carrying Haitian migrants near Puerto Rico, a coastguard spokesperson said on Friday, taking the total number of survivors to 38 with the death toll remaining at 11.

The vessel, which was first spotted on Thursday north of Desecheo Island, an uninhabited island in the archipelago of Puerto Rico, the US territory, was carrying mostly Haitian migrants as well as two citizens of the Dominican Republic, a spokesman said.

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Boat capsizes near Puerto Rico, killing 11 as a ‘mass rescue effort’ is under way

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The total number of those aboard remains unclear although 31 have been rescued; the incident is the latest in a string across the region

Eleven people were killed and dozens were rescued after a boat capsized near Puerto Rico on Thursday, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear how many people were onboard the boat when it turned over, said a US coast guard spokesman, Ricardo Castrodad. He said a “mass rescue effort” was still under way.

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Puerto Rico power outage plunges over 1 million into darkness

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Fire at a main power plant causes biggest blackout so far this year on island, forcing it to cancel classes and close government offices

More than 1 million customers in Puerto Rico remained without electricity on Thursday after a fire at a main power plant caused the biggest blackout so far this year across the US territory, forcing it to cancel classes and shutter government offices.

The blackout also left some 160,000 customers without water and snarled traffic across the island of 3.2 million people, where the roar of generators and smell of diesel filled the air.

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AOC calls Tucker Carlson ‘trash’ for saying she is not a woman of colour

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‘You’re a creep, bro,’ says New York congresswoman after Carlson attacked Ocasio-Cortez in Fox News segment

The Fox News host Tucker Carlson attacked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday night, claiming the US congresswoman was not a woman of colour.

“She’s a rich entitled white lady,” he said.

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Greta stands with Sami and Navalny on trial again: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico

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Signs of premature ageing found in monkeys after hurricane

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Rhesus macaques in Puerto Rico appear to have aged by about two years more than expected

Monkeys that survived a devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico were prematurely aged by the experience, a study has found.

Scientists say the findings suggest that an increase in extreme weather around the world may have negative biological consequences for the humans and animals affected.

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Ten missing and 17 detained by US after boat capsizes in Puerto Rico

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Incident is latest calamity as migrants from Dominican Republic and Haiti increasingly try to cross treacherous smuggling route

Federal authorities detained 17 Dominican migrants on Friday after their boat capsized near Puerto Rico’s north-west coast in the pre-dawn hours, with the US Coast Guard searching for an estimated 10 others still missing.

Jeffrey Quiñones, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman, told the Associated Press that those detained told officials that a total of 27 people were onboard the boat that struck a rock and turned over near Shacks Beach in Isabela.

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Music producer Flow La Movie among nine dead in Dominican Republic jet crash

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Private jet, which carried seven passengers and two crew members, was headed towards Orlando, Florida

Nine people died in a jet crash on Wednesday in the Dominican Republic, including acclaimed Puerto Rican music producer Flow La Movie.

The private jet, which carried seven passengers and two crew members, took off from La Isabela international airport in El Higüero and was headed towards Orlando, Florida. However, the pilots quickly declared an emergency and attempted to divert the flight to the nearby Las Américas international airport, crashing the plane in an attempted emergency landing.

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Florida issues tropical storm warning for Panhandle region as Fred approaches

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  • Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Grace to hit parts of the Caribbean
  • Fred’s maximum sustained winds at 40mph Sunday morning

Florida’s governor declared a state of emergency for the state’s Panhandle region as Tropical Storm Fred moved through the Gulf of Mexico early on Sunday and parts of the Caribbean were preparing for the impact from Tropical Storm Grace.

Fred was forecast to move across the Gulf before reaching the coast Monday night or Tuesday morning, forecasters said. They said people from Alabama to the central Florida Panhandle should monitor the system’s progress.

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Trump delayed $20bn in aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, report finds

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Funding was ‘unnecessarily delayed’ by bureaucratic obstacles, after hurricane killed thousands of people in 2017

The Trump administration delayed more than $20bn in hurricane relief aid for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, according to a report by the housing department’s office of the inspector General.

The efforts to deliver recovery funding to the island were “unnecessarily delayed by bureaucratic obstacles”, according to the 46-page report. The hurricane, which hit the island in 2017, killed thousands of people and left thousands more without electricity or water for months.

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Puerto Rico sees a surge in tourism – and a rise in aggressive tourist behavior

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Low-cost flights have enticed travelers, but relaxed restrictions have led to large gatherings, fights and Covid rule-breaking

At the Condado Vanderbilt hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Christian Correa clocked in to work the night-shift as a doorman and braced for the worst.

Correa, who is also a bellman at the hotel, has seen a surge in American tourists coming to the US territory in the last three months and the hotel has been busy. Although he used to enjoy high season before the pandemic, recently, many tourists arriving to Puerto Rico have enraged local residents and hospitality workers as the island eases its Covid-19 restrictions.

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New stars on the American flag? Fresh hope as Puerto Rico and DC push for statehood

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Five US territories float in constitutional limbo, but impetus is growing to put and end to a ‘fundamental democratic flaw’

One of the most powerful prosecutions of former US president Donald Trump last week came from Stacey Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands, the first delegate from an American territory to hold the position of impeachment manager.

Yet Plaskett’s status meant that she was unable to vote for Trump’s impeachment because she has no vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. The US Virgin Islands has no representation at all in the Senate. Its residents cannot even vote for president.

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How did Bad Bunny become the world’s biggest pop star?

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The superb Puerto Rican vocalist is now the most streamed artist on Spotify globally, but has never had a UK hit – something he’s determined to change

Each December, Spotify announces who has been the world’s most streamed artist that year, and this generally tallies with who has been popular in the UK. Drake, the Canadian rapper who has had six UK No 1 singles, was first in three of the previous five years, with fellow UK chart-toppers Ed Sheeran and Post Malone leading the others.

But in 2020, someone who has never had an album or solo single in the UK Top 100 is the world’s most popular artist: 26-year-old Puerto Rican vocalist Bad Bunny, streamed more than 8.3bn times this year on Spotify alone. Granted, he has featured on one UK Top 10 hit, but that was back in 2018, appearing on it for less than a minute: Cardi B’s I Like It. He appears nowhere in Spotify’s 50 most-played songs in the UK today, with Brits preferring Christmas classics and Gen Z pop stars such as Billie Eilish, Internet Money and 24kGoldn. Meanwhile, Bad Bunny’s current (and superb) single Dakiti is the most-played in the world at time of writing, earning more than 7m plays each day, 3m more than Ariana Grande’s Positions in second place.

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US to shut down famed huge Arecibo space telescope in Puerto Rico jungle

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The observatory has played a key part in space exploration – and a few movies – but two accidents have rendered the 305m-wide instrument unsafe

A huge US space telescope nestled deep in the Puerto Rican jungle will be shut down after suffering two destructive mishaps in recent months, ending 57 years of astronomical discoveries.

Operations at the Arecibo observatory, one of the largest in the world, were halted in August when one of its supportive cables slipped loose from its socket, falling and gashing a 30-metre (100ft) hole in its 305m-wide (1,000ft) reflector dish.

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