It only took the Federal Emergency Management Agency nine months to assess what Puerto Ricans have been saying since Hurricane Maria pummeled the island last September: that the disaster relief agency was really not prepared. At all.
In case you need further proof that the United States government doesn’t give a shit about the people of Puerto Rico or the ongoing, systemic damage Hurricane Maria caused the U.S. island last fall: at least 4,645 people died there because of the storm and its aftermath, according to a new Harvard study released…
The latest single from indie band Hurray for the Riff Raff, fronted by Bronx-born boricua musician Alynda Lee Segarra, is titled “Pa’lante,” which translates to “forward.” It’s a concept that speaks not only to Puerto Ricans but colonized people of all backgrounds—the perseverance inherent in those identities, the…
It’s been eight months since Puerto Rico was first devastated by Hurricane Maria in September 2017, and the situation has yet to improve—leaving in its waste toxic, unlivable conditions for much of the U.S. territory. Women are especially vulnerable.
Any mom or Boy Scout could tell you that a lot of “emergency management” is being prepared beforehand. Perhaps FEMA should take a note?
Since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in fall 2017, FEMA has been providing emergency supplies of food and water to the island. But the agency has announced that aid will end at the end of the month.
On Friday, Governor Ricardo Rossello and interim director of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Justo Gonzalez announced that, months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, only 55 percent of Puerto Rico’s roughly 1.5 million customers have power. That’s a slow crawl from the 50 percent reported in November…
Seven weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, only 18 percent of the US territory has electricity. On Thursday morning, Puerto Rico was around 43 percent electrified—an outrageous percentage, already, constituting the worst power outage in US history—when a main power line serving the northern part of the island …
As much as I would love to make fun of the timeless ubiquity of Hamilton once more, this news is heartwarming and I cannot. For three weeks, Lin-Manuel Miranda will return to his star-making role in the modern Broadway classic when the play heads to Puerto Rico in 2019.
On Friday night, San Juan mayor Carmen Cruz told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the death toll in Puerto Rico may be as high as 500, rather than the official count of 54. She reports that there have been 911 cremations in the past month after Hurricane Maria, which is about double the norm. (This is not counting the death…
Yesterday, Lady Gaga made an appearance at the One America Appeal concert benefit for victims of recent hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Above is the official portrait, with her fans. The image has gone viral.
The celebrities put on their compassion hats and got on the phone last night to raise money for disaster victims in the southern United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in the Somos Live! telethon and benefit concert organized by Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, and A-Rod. Bruno Mars sang in Spanish in front…
In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria some Puerto Ricans, lacking resources and with some islands all but destroyed, have been forced to evacuate the island. One primary destination is New York state, home to the largest population of Puerto Ricans on the mainland, where over 1 million call New York home. In response,…
It was a near certainty that our president’s visit to hurricane-battered Puerto Rico would be unhelpful and unwanted, particularly after he feuded with San Juan’s exhausted mayor and accused the U.S. territory, where millions still lack running water, of not pulling its weight.
Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, as Donald Trump heads to a devastated Puerto Rico whose residents he claimed “want everything to be done for them,” there is still very little cell phone service, only 5 percent of the electrical grid is back up, roads and bridges are destroyed, and over half the island lacks running…
The people of Puerto Rico, who were ravaged by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria two weeks ago, are in their 13th day without any power, remain largely without cell service, and are fighting for their lives without adequate food or water. The island is so low on Donald Trump’s list of priorities that he publicly…
A vocal cheese-fried golf ball who’s been tweeting bitterly from a golf course all weekend may have helped Puerto Rico after all. Trump’s whining, self-aggrandizing remarks to San Juan’s mayor on Saturday received wall-to-wall slams, a Kim Kardashian tweet, and an SNL spoof, all of which happened to synch with a…
You know that the apocalypse is coming when Kim Kardashian West notices it on Twitter.
While Cheetos is backpedalling on this morning’s heartless tweets about San Juan’s mayor (or, at least, while somebody’s on the Twitter account manically typing a bunch of nice things about other Puerto Rican officials and #FAKENEWS (which Puerto Rico can’t read because it’s still out of power you idiot)), fuck it!…
In just three tweets on Saturday morning, Donald Trump managed to make the Puerto Rico disaster about himself, to imply that Puerto Ricans are lazy, that the disaster is their problem, and to launch a subtly sexist attack against San Juan mayor Carmen YulĂn Cruz–who’s been lauded as a hero–calling her mayday call (of…
