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Forty-five years ago today, baseball fans woke up to the news that the Pittsburgh Pirates’ star outfielder Roberto Clemente had been killed in an airplane crash on December 31 on his way to Nicaragua to deliver disaster relief after an earthquake. A few months earlier, on September 30, 1972, Clemente had pulled a curveball from New York Met and Rookie of the Year Jon Matlack into the gap for a double. It was his 3,000th hit, and he had become only the 11th player in nearly a century of Major League Baseball to reach that milestone. It was also the...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Thousands of police officers are calling in sick every day in Puerto Rico, partly to press demands for unpaid overtime pay for hurricane recovery efforts as concerns grow over people’s safety in a U.S. territory struggling to restore power. The increase in absences recently prompted Puerto Rico Police Chief Michelle Hernandez to recommend that U.S. National Guard soldiers help fill the temporary vacancies.

119 years after the Treaty of Paris, which enabled the transfer of ownership over Puerto Rico from Spain to the United States, Madrid and Washington have virtually finalized an agreement to return the jurisdiction of the Caribbean island to the European country, confirmed endi.com sources at the three countries. The deal, which has been negotiated in secret for at least two years, is not official yet, but it has the approval of President Donald Trump of the United States and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain, and all that remains is to finalize certain technical details to make the announcement....

MOROVIS, Puerto Rico – Three days before Christmas, Doris Martinez and daughter Miriam Narvaez joined their neighbors in a line outside city hall in Morovis, a town of 30,000 people still living without electricity in the mountains of central Puerto Rico a month after Hurricane Maria battered the U.S. island. They waited two hours under the searing sun for their twice-a-week handout — 24 bottles of water and a cardboard box filled with basic foods such as tortillas, canned vegetables and cereal. Martinez, a 73-year-old cancer survivor, balanced the water atop the food and picked her way up a steep...

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Thursday he will seek to mobilize Latino voters ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, citing the GOP's tax overhaul passed this week. Rosselló, a Democrat and member of the island's New Progressive Party, argued on MSNBC that the Republican tax plan hurts Puerto Rico's economy. Asked which lawmakers he would target ahead of the midterms next year, Rosselló told host Katy Tur, "we're going to be working on that." "Right now, we're going to do an evaluation of all the congressmen and congresswomen that have pledged support toward the people of Puerto Rico, and...

Astronomers will soon get another look at the big, ghoulishly weird space rock that buzzed Earth on Halloween three years ago. The roughly 2,100-foot-wide (640 meters) Halloween asteroid 2015 TB145 gave Earth a close shave on Oct. 31, 2015, coming within just 300,000 miles (480,000 kilometers) of our planet. (For perspective, the moon orbits at an average distance of about 239,000 miles, or 384,600 km.) A Halloween flyby was quite appropriate, it turned out: Observations made at the time by a variety of instruments revealed that 2015 TB145 looks like an enormous skull, at least from some angles. ... The asteroid may...

I didn't realize that hurricane refugee Puerto Ricans could vote in Florida? Is this something to be concerned about?

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello last month asked federal taxpayers to shell out $94 billion to pay for the territory’s recovery from Hurricane Maria — then turned around and paid out about $100 million in Christmas bonuses to government employees on the island. The governor’s aides say the bonuses were part of a long-standing tradition and were included in the budget approved over the summer. But that budget came well before Hurricanes Irma and Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, leaving much of the territory in ruin and the government begging for federal assistance. The island’s financial oversight board, created by...

A few days before the presidential election on November 8, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton trying to defend herself from the FBI announcement that they had resumed an investigation into her emails, her rival, Donald Trump, traveled to Florida and met with a group of Puerto Ricans. On Trump's side was Reince Priebus, then president of the Republican National Committee, and now chief of Staff of president-elect. On the Puerto Rican side were Puerto Rican congressman Raúl Labrador, some 40 Puerto Rican leaders from the Orlando area and, from the island, John Regis, Trump's campaign spokesman here, and Gloria Escudero,...

The Puerto Rican governorÂ’s office put out a call for mainland commercial drivers willing to help. Unfortunately, the capacity of bureaucrats to stifle selfless service is disturbingly strong. By Patrick Weingart By Patrick WeingartNovember 27, 2017 It is not often volunteer opportunities arise that seem so tailored to your skills that they appear to call you by name. This was my experience recently with respect to Puerto Rico and Hurricane Maria. Unfortunately, my efforts since the beginning of October have yet to be successful and may have been in vain.After a deployment to Afghanistan with the Marine Corps between 2010...

The Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) arrives in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Oct. 3, 2017. U.S. Navy PhotoMilitary Sealift Command’s hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) returned to Naval Station Norfolk after providing life-saving medical care in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Comfort departed Virginia Sept. 29 and had been in Puerto Rico for almost two months providing disaster relief support after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Comfort worked with the Puerto Rico Department of Health and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to treat patients since it arrived in Puerto...

Polish the tarnished reputation of the permanently beleaguered Clinton Foundation While Hillary Dreams of Earth 2 ‘Presidency’ Bill’s in Puerto Rico boosting publicity for Clinton Foundation While the too-mad-to-just-go-away Hillary Clinton fantasized about departing Mother Earth for Earth 2, a planet she imagines faces the same issues as the actual Earth, where she can at last call herself El Presidente, she’ dispatched hubby Bill on the earthly assignment of boosting publicity for the beleaguered Clinton Foundation in Puerto Rico. Too bad Hillary’s Earth 2 presidency is only imaginary and will last only long enough as a zany cover for what...

San Juan, Puerto Rico (CNN)Whitefish Energy is stopping its work to restore Puerto Rico's broken electricity grid because the company says it is owed more than $83 million by the island's power authority. Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski told CNN that repeated requests for agreed payments were not met and there was no choice but to suspend work. ---snip---

Puerto Ricans have been fleeing the island at a rate of 2,000 a day, a huge hit to the hurricane-ravaged island, according to Florida Gov. Rick Scott. The impact of the human outflow could be damaging to the island’s manufacturing base, which tops tourism as its income base.

Self-explanatory video at link: http://digg.com/video/puerto-rico-power-restored

Congressional leaders from both sides of the isle defended the Jones Act’s impact on hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico during a hearing this week exploring initial lessons learned from the 2017 hurricanes and key challenges and obstacles that may remain in the way of recovery. The House Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a hearing Wednesday on “Emergency Response and Recovery: Central Takeaways from the Unprecedented 2017 Hurricane Season” during which Congressman John Rutherford (R-FL) and Ranking Member Peter DeFazio (D-OR) highlighted the importance of the American maritime industry for Puerto Rico recovery and the capacity and capability of...

<p>San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, speaks during a House Democratic Leaders news conference with Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. Cruz on Wednesday questioned why Republicans abruptly postponed a House hearing where she was scheduled to testify about the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico. Cruz, who has tangled with President Donald Trump about the federal response, suggested the White House did not want to hear her criticism.</p>

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating a decision by Puerto Rico’s power authority to award a $300 million contract to a tiny Montana energy firm to rebuild electrical infrastructure damaged in Hurricane Maria, according to people familiar with the matter. Agents from the FBI’s San Juan field office are looking into circumstances surrounding the deal that the public power monopoly known as Prepa signed with Whitefish Energy Holdings LLC, according to the people familiar with the matter.

The controversy over the no-bid contract previously set off a Twitter feud between the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, and the company, which is based in Whitefish, Montana, the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.  The company has only two full-time employees, and many were surprised when it received the big contract to help rebuild Puerto Rico's electrical grid in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Whitefish has never worked on a project of that size. 

Is Temporary Jones Act Relief Possible for Reconstruction? HIGHLIGHTS: Four bills are currently pending in Congress to repeal or limit the reach of the Jones Act, including three that are focused upon relief efforts to assist Puerto Rico after the disastrous effects of Hurricane Maria. None of the bills appears likely to advance immediately, although two of the bills linked to Puerto Rico reconstruction may have appeal as part of a broader relief package for the Commonwealth. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did grant a short-term waiver in the wake of Hurricane Maria to allow use of foreign...