Category Archives: Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico in state of emergency after most powerful quake in over 100 years

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Island rocked by hundreds of earthquakes in recent weeks, killing at least one person and prompting power and water outages

Puerto Rico’s governor, Wanda Vázquez, declared a state of emergency and activated the national guard on Tuesday after a series of earthquakes including one of magnitude 6.4 that was the most powerful to strike the Caribbean island in 102 years.

The quakes killed at least one person, provoked a protective power outage across the entire island and cut off drinking water to 300,000 customers, Vázquez told a news conference.

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‘They believe we’re criminals’: black Puerto Ricans say they’re a police target

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Activists say police racially profile black communities, despite Puerto Rico’s image as a melting pot without racial problems

When Nina Figueroa, 25, protested with fellow Puerto Ricans this summer to oust the then governor, Ricardo Rosselló, she believed she stood out to police. Figueroa, a college student studying comparative literature, had been arrested multiple times while in the streets and was starting to notice a pattern.

“I have been arrested in protests three times and all three times I was doing nothing,” says Figueroa. “I asked myself: ‘Why do the police arrest me so much?’ And obviously it wasn’t until I understood that I’m an easy target for the police because I’m a black woman.”

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Hurricane Dorian: Florida declares state of emergency as it awaits storm’s arrival

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Puerto Rico was spared, but storm is expected to land in Florida Sunday night, potentially as a category 4 hurricane

Florida is bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Dorian with weather experts on Thursday proclaiming the state’s entire east coast at risk.

A state of emergency has been declared and Donald Trump on Thursday canceled his forthcoming trip this weekend to Poland as the storm bears down. It was announced that the vice-president, Mike Pence, will travel to the eastern European nation in the president’s stead.

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Hurricane Dorian spares Puerto Rico and heads for eastern coast of Florida

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Power outages and flooding were reported in the Virgin Islands and the Puerto Rican islands, but no damages

Hurricane Dorian caused limited damage in the northern Caribbean as it left the region and gathered strength late Wednesday, setting its sights on the US mainland as it threatened to grow into a Category 3 storm.

Puerto Rico, which had braced for the worst, seemed to be spared any heavy wind and rain, a huge relief to many on an island where blue tarps still cover some 30,000 homes nearly two years after Hurricane Maria. The island’s 3.2 million inhabitants also depend on an unstable power grid that remains prone to outages since it was destroyed by Maria.

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Puerto Rico thrown into turmoil as supreme court ousts new governor

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  • Move clears way for justice secretary Wanda Vázquez to succeed
  • Pedro Pierluisi was appointed by disgraced Ricardo Rosselló

Puerto Rico’s supreme court on Wednesday overturned the swearing-in of Pedro Pierluisi as the island’s governor less than a week ago, clearing the way for the justice secretary, Wanda Vázquez, to take up the post after weeks of turmoil. The unanimous ruling said Pierluisi must step aside immediately.

The high court’s decision, which cannot be appealed, was expected to unleash new demonstrations and deepen the tumult because many Puerto Ricans have said they do not want Vázquez as governor.

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Puerto Rico’s ousted governor names Pedro Pierluisi as next leader

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Pierluisi is a member of the disgraced leader Ricardo Rosselló’s pro-statehood New Progressive party

Puerto Rico’s ousted governor, Ricardo Rosselló, announced his intended successor on Wednesday morning, two days before the disgraced leader of the US territory is due to resign. He named Pedro Pierluisi as the next head of the island’s government.

Pierluisi served as Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner in Washington between 2009 and 2017, and before that was the US territory’s justice secretary. The position of resident commissioner holds a non-voting seat in the US House of Representatives. He is a member of Rosselló’s pro-statehood New Progressive party (PNP) and served as justice secretary under the administration of Pedro Rosselló, the current governor’s father.

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Obscene texts and corruption: the downfall of Puerto Rico’s governor – podcast

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Mass protests triggered by leaked text messages have led to the resignation of Ricardo Rosselló. Oliver Laughland discusses his time on the island. And: Larry Elliott on why sterling is at a 28-month low

Hundreds of thousands of people have lined the streets of Puerto Rico over the past couple of weeks in some of the largest demonstrations in the US territory’s history. They began in response to hundreds of pages of leaked text messages between the governor, Ricardo Rosselló, and 11 members of his inner circle, which made homophobic and sexist jokes and mocked the victims of Hurricane Maria.

However, the problems go further back than July. The Rosselló administration has been plagued by allegations of corruption and mismanagement during the response to Hurricane Maria. Shortly before the messages were leaked, the FBI arrested five former government officials and contractors accused of misappropriating millions of dollars in federal funds given to the island after the disaster.

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Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló to quit after weeks of protest

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Rosselló says he will stand down on 2 August after key aides deserted him in the face of huge popular discontent

Puerto Rico’s embattled governor has announced his resignation following almost two weeks of continuous mass protest on the island tied to a leaked text message scandal that saw him gradually abandoned by his own party. Ricardo Rosselló’s resignation – set for 2 August – was announced late on Wednesday.

A crowd of demonstrators outside the governor’s mansion in Old San Juan erupted into cheers and singing after his announcement on Facebook Live just before midnight.

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Puerto Rico police fire teargas at protesters demanding governor’s resignation – video

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Police in San Juan fired teargas on Monday to disperse thousands of protesters calling on Puerto Rico’s governor Ricardo Rosselló to quit over leaked homophobic and misogynistic chats with his closest allies. The messages also included homophobic ridicule of singer Ricky Martin, who joined the 100,000-strong protest

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Puerto Rico: thousands flood streets in push to oust governor – in pictures

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Photographer Angel Valentin accompanied our reporter Oliver Laughland to capture the growing protests in Puerto Rico against Governor Ricky Rosselló. The street demonstrations have been sparked by leaked text messages showing the US territory’s top official using misogynistic and homophobic slurs with members of his circle. The scandal focused widespread discontent about alleged corruption under Rosselló’s administration

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Clashes in Puerto Rico during protest against governor Ricardo Rosselló – video

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Demonstrations against the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, turned violent again on Wednesday. Police fired teargas as protesters lit fires and threw rocks. The demonstrations were triggered by leaked homophobic and misogynistic messages between Rosselló and his closest allies

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Puerto Rico police clash with protesters against governor’s homophobic texts

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Teargas and rubber bullets used to disperse huge demonstration following leak of Ricardo Rosselló sexist slurs

Thousands of protesters in Puerto Rico have clashed with riot police, as volleys of teargas and rubber bullets were used to disperse a mostly peaceful protest that descended into chaos just yards from the governor’s residence in San Juan.

The island’s capital has seen days of sustained protest following a leak of hundreds of pages of text messages, many including homophobic and misogynistic slurs, between the Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló and 11 members of his inner circle. A number of people in Rosselló’s administration have resigned after the leak, but the governor has refused to tender his resignation despite continuing violence on the streets.

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Toddler who fell to death from cruise ship ‘slipped out of open window’

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Family’s lawyer claims window was left open in children’s play area on 11th storey of Freedom of the Seas in Puerto Rico

An 18-month-old Indiana girl who fell to her death from the 11th storey of a cruise ship in Puerto Rico plunged from a window inexplicably left open in a children’s play area, the family’s attorney has claimed.

Police in Puerto Rico had said on Monday that Chloe Wiegand apparently slipped from her grandfather’s hands on Sunday while he was holding her out of an 11th-floor window on the Freedom of the Seas.

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‘We stood in shock’: what happens to a city after a hurricane? A cartoon

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After Maria is a graphic novella by Dr Gemma Sou and John Cei Douglas about a family’s recovery from Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in 2017

On 20 September 2017, Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, a US territory that is home to 3.3 million people. Maria devastated the Caribbean island, causing more than $30bn in damage, and an initial death toll of 64 grew to an estimated figure of between 2,975 and 4,645. Many of the deaths happened during the aftermath from treatable chronic illnesses, because power outages prevented people from receiving routine medical care – but most of the media had left by November.

Dr Gemma Sou of the University of Manchester visited Puerto Rico five times during the first year after Maria to talk to families about their recovery. One of the results is After Maria, extracted here, a graphic novella about a fictional family in the neighbourhood of Ingenio that is based on common experiences Sou heard from Puerto Ricans across the island.

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Trump says hurricane-hit Puerto Rico has received too much aid

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President opposes additional disaster aid for territory, saying funds were out of proportion to what mainland states got

Donald Trump told a meeting of Republican lawmakers that hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico had gotten too much rebuilding money compared with mainland states like Florida and Texas, hardening his opposition to further disaster aid for the US island territory.

Trump’s ardent opposition to additional Puerto Rico funding sets up a showdown with House Democrats, who insist that a $13bn to $14bn disaster aid package that’s a top priority for southern Republicans won’t advance without further aid for the island.

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Miranda wins multiple ovations for Hamilton opening in Puerto Rico

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Creator and star says he will never forget reception of musical in parents’ homeland

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s return to the stage in his musical, Hamilton, was brought to a dramatic standstill on Friday night – not by protests in his parents’ homeland of Puerto Rico, as some had feared, but by a spontaneous eruption of cheers, whoops and applause.

The brightest spotlight shone on Miranda as, reprising the title role for the first time since Broadway in July 2016, he sang his introductory line: “Alexander Hamilton”. He got no further. The audience of nearly 2,000 rose to its feet and generated a wall of joyous noise for half a minute. The music stopped and Miranda remained motionless, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead, then finally allowing them to dart about the stage.

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As storm season starts, AP photographer revisits Puerto Rico

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Roberto Figueroa Caballero holds a printed photo taken on Oct. 5, 2017 of him amid his seaside home that was destroyed by Hurricane Maria, as he stands on the same property with his pet dog in the La Perla neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 29, 2018. Figueroa, who found a job at a pizzeria, aims to rebuild his home and is appealing FEMA's second rejection of his application.

Kremlin says Mueller’s Russia investigation is pointless

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Harvard study estimates thousands died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria - CAGUAS, PUERTO RICO - At least 4,645 people died as a result of Hurricane Maria and its devastation across Puerto Rico last year, according to a new Harvard study released Tuesday, an estimate that far exceeds A New Study Says Nearly 6,000 Died In Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria. The Government Still Says 64 People Died.

Sacred Heart links In The Heights with Puerto Rican fundraiser

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In this Oct. 19, 2017, file photo, homes stand covered with FEMA tarps in the Cantera area, as the banking zone stands in the background in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded contracts to deliver hurricane supplies without adequately researching whether winning bidders could deliver what they promised, according to a new investigation by Democrats on a Senate oversight committee.

The Latest: China hopes for restart of N. Korea negotiations

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In this Jan. 18, 2018 photo provided by NAU Athletics, Northern Arizona's Omar Ndiaye warms up before an NCAA college basketball game against Eastern Washington in Flagstaff, Ariz. Ndiaye does not have a right hand due to a birth defect, but was still talented enough to become a Division I basketball player.