Tag Archives: Hurricane Maria

The Associated Press reports: Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora will not attend the ceremony at the White House on Thursday honoring the 2018 World Series champions. Cora cited the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in his native Puerto Rico as the reason for his decision. “The government has done some things back home that are great, but we …

Axios reports: President Trump doesn’t want to give Puerto Rico any more federal money for its recovery from Hurricane Maria, White House officials have told congressional appropriators and leadership. This is because he claims, without evidence, that the island’s government is using federal disaster relief money to pay off debt. Trump also told senior officials last month that he would …

NBC News reports: FEMA administrator Brock Long Sunday questioned the relevance of independent studies tying thousands of deaths to the aftermath of last September’s hurricane in Puerto Rico, echoing President Donald Trump’s criticism of those findings as Florence continues to batter the Carolinas. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Long defended the president for his response to Hurricane Maria last …

It’s like two days of national scorn didn’t happen: President Donald Trump yesterday said he doesn’t believe the Puerto Rico death toll, and today he continued to stand by that position by touting comments from Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera. During a segment on The New York Times and media bias, Rivera had this to say regarding Puerto Rico:  “They’re saying …

Reuters reports: U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday he had “no reason” to dispute Puerto Rico’s official death toll of 3,000 from last year’s Hurricane Maria, speaking after his fellow Republican President Donald Trump accused Democrats of inflating the death toll to make the president look bad. “Casualties don’t make a person look bad,” Ryan told reporters at …

The Hill reports: President Trump in an early morning tweet on Wednesday doubled down on his defense of the federal response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico while taking aim at one of its frequent critics, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. When asked by reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday what he had learned from the response to …

The Hill reports: The Puerto Rican government acknowledged in a new report in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria that more than 1,400 people likely died on the island because of the storm, roughly 20 times the previous number that had been provided. The government on Thursday published a report titled “Transformation and Innovation in the Wake of Devastation,” which outlines …

The New York Daily reports: The number of people killed in Puerto Rico amid Hurricane Maria is at least 70 times higher than the official government death toll, according to a study published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers in the United States and Puerto Rico estimated more than 4,645 people were killed as a result of …

The Associated Press reports: Florida’s Republican governor says he supports making Puerto Rico the nation’s 51st state. Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday said the United States should “respect the will of the people of Puerto Rico.” The U.S. territory held a referendum last year where more than a half a million voters backed statehood. The U.S. Congress has to approve …

USA Today reports: A $300 million contract to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical infrastructure, which was awarded to a small, two-year-old Montana company that had only two employees when Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory, has sparked calls for an investigation from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. In addition to its size and relative inexperience, the fact that …

Talking Points Memo reports: After President Donald Trump continued his tirade against Puerto Rico Thursday morning, the mayor of San Juan shot back and said Trump’s comments sound like they were coming from “a ‘Hater in Chief,’” not the President. On Thursday morning Trump again criticized the U.S. territory’s debt and infrastructure issues. He tweeted that FEMA, the military and …

USA Today reports: “I don’t give a shit.” That’s one of the first things that Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, said to me, referring to her recent public exchanges with President Trump. In reference to his tweets calling her “nasty,” she went on to say, “This isn’t about me or politics. I’m not going to …

Mediaite reports: The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico that President Donald Trump has been beefing with decided to make a statement against the administration by wearing a t-shirt that read “NASTY” across the front — a way of re-appropriating the insult Trump used against her. During a Spanish speaking interview with Univision, Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz made a clear …

Talking Points Memo reports: “We are going to work something out. We have to look at their whole debt structure,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News that aired Tuesday night. “You know they owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street. We’re gonna have to wipe that out. That’s gonna have to be — you …

The Washington Examiner reports: President Trump told residents of Puerto Rico not to believe the “fake news” media regarding the federal response to Hurricane Maria, and said the administration is “getting great marks” for its recovery efforts. Trump has been criticized for his response to the crisis in Puerto Rico, and Democrats accused the president of paying more attention to …

San Juan Mayor Carmen Cruz became tearful and furious during a CNN interview this morning after being told that the Trump administration is continuing to congratulate itself over the response to Hurricane Maria. Via Raw Story: After viewing a clip of acting secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke telling reporters this was “a good news story,” Cruz became increasingly furious …

The Hill reports: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced early Thursday that President Trump has waived the Jones Act, lifting shipping restrictions to bolster relief efforts on hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that the administration was considering lifting the law, which bans foreign-flagged ships from carrying freight between U.S. ports. But …

The Washington Post reports: In the wake of Hurricane Maria, pretty much the entire island of Puerto Rico is dark, hot and running out of supplies — quickly. Because it’s an island, many lifesaving supplies will arrive by boat. But Puerto Rico has to wait until American boats can reach its shores with supplies because of an obscure, World War …

The Associated Press reports: Jennifer Lopez has pledged $1 million toward hurricane relief efforts in her family’s native Puerto Rico. Lopez announced during a news conference with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday that she would give money from her ongoing Las Vegas residency to various charities in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Lopez says she’s also enlisting the …

CNN reports: A damaged dam is in danger of bursting. Most buildings are damaged or destroyed. Millions are without power, and the communication network is crippled. Puerto Rico is in a dire situation after Hurricane Maria, Governor Ricardo Rosselló told CNN in an interview on “New Day” Monday morning. “This is a game changer,” he said. “We need to prevent …