By Caitlin Dickson 22 December 2017 (Yahoo News) – Christmas marked 96 days since Jesse Vazquez’s house on Calle Alameda in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, lost power in Hurricane Maria.The small generator his children brought him from New York back in October, when Yahoo News accompanied them on their journey, has since been supplemented with a […]
By Bill Weir; editing by Rachel Clarke 20 December 2017 (CNN) – “We need help.” I’ve heard those three words repeated in the mountains of Puerto Rico, amid the wreckage of Big Pine Key and from the mayor who thinks his Texas town may die. I’ve heard them spat in anger and mumbled in resignation […]
By Lin-Manuel Miranda 13 December 2017 (The Washington Post) – Since Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico 84 days ago, my Uncle Elvin hasn’t had electricity. You read that right. Eighty-four days without being able to turn on a light, or stock a refrigerator, or take a hot shower. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans on […]
By Ralph Atkins and Mehreen Khan 17 December 2017 ZURICH (Financial Times) – Austria’s far-right nationalist Freedom party will control several powerful ministries when the country’s new government is sworn in on Monday, after it struck a coalition deal that will significantly toughen Vienna’s stance on immigration and asylum seekers. In a breakthrough for the […]
By Arelis R. Hernández, Whitney Leaming, and Zoeann Murphy 15 December 2017 (The Washington Post) – Puerto Rico’s apagón, or “super blackout,” is the longest and largest major power outage in modern U.S. history. Without electricity, there is no reliable source of clean water. School is out, indefinitely. Health care is fraught. Small businesses are […]
By Omaya Sosa Pascual 7 December 2017 SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO (Center for Investigative Journalism) – It’s official. In the 40 days after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, at least 985 additional people died, when compared to the same period in 2016. And if the entire months of September and October are included (since Hurricane […]
By Neil Collier, Ora Dekornfeld, and Ben Laffin 30 November 2017(The New York Times) – Hurricane Irma was ruthless to Barbuda. It damaged or destroyed pretty much all the buildings on the island. It left everyone vulnerable, their homes open to the sky. Walls collapsed. Windows shattered. And it opened a door for the government. […]
By Carmen Sesin 30 November 2017 MIAMI (NBC News) – The exodus of Puerto Ricans to Florida following Hurricane Maria has reached a whopping 200,000 in just over two months, obliterating initial conservative estimates that had put the number at 100,000. Maria Teresa Rosado, 37, and her husband Luis Flores, 33, arrived in Miami over […]
21 November 2017 (United Nations) – Three weeks following the closure of the Manus Island regional processing centre, the situation on the ground is very serious and deteriorates by the day, a senior United Nations official on protection of refugees has said.“Without distribution of food and clean water over the last three weeks [and] significant […]
By John D. Sutter, Leyla Santiago and Khushbu Shah 21 November 2017 San Juan, Puerto Rico (CNN) – Puerto Rico is asking for help with its efforts to tally deaths from Hurricane Maria. Héctor M. Pesquera, secretary of Puerto Rico’s Department of Public Safety, issued a statement Monday night imploring local funeral home directors to […]
