An expert on Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria explains why it’s hard for the US to deliver disaster aid in places like Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
A woman waves a Puerto Rico flag to support Puerto Rican statehood on March 2, 2021.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
The political status of Puerto Rico continues to be intensely contested, but measures to make the island the 51st state remain elusive.
Puerto Rican singer Residente performs in Havana in 2010. His back reads, ‘We receive flowers and bullets in the very same heart.’
STR/AFP via Getty Images
Within two weeks of Hurricane Fiona, FEMA had accepted most Puerto Rican housing aid applications. Nearly all those early approvals cover only $700 in assistance and won’t pay the tab for rebuilding.
A 1913 postcard shows the U.S. House of Representatives in the year its membership was fixed by law at 435.
vintagehalloweencollector via Flickr
Since 1913, the number of seats in the House has remained constant even though the nation’s population has more than tripled.
After the death of Queen Elizabeth, questions arise about whose life gets mourned and who does not. Here is the Queen with the Guards of Honour in Nigeria, Dec. 3, 2003, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In the middle of the tremendous outpouring of love and grief for the Queen and the monarchy she represented, not everyone wants to take a moment of silence. And there are a lot of reasons why.
A worker cuts an electricity pole downed by Hurricane Fiona in Cayey, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 18, 2022.
AP Photo/Stephanie Roja
Hurricane Fiona will set back efforts to restore Puerto Rico that date back five years to Hurricane Maria. Two scholars explain how the island’s weak institutions worsen the impacts of disasters.
Tourism-driven development is threatening one of Puerto Rico’s greatest draws: its rural coastlines.
R9 Studios FL/Flickr
Puerto Rico’s tourism industry is booming as nations lift COVID-19 travel restrictions, but development is displacing people who have lived along its coastlines for years.
A Puerto Rican man passes buildings for lease in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on May 16, 2017.
Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
Puerto Rico has reached an agreement to partially settle its historic bankruptcy crisis. But public cuts to education and health care are unlikely to ease, creating ongoing challenges for Puerto Ricans
In Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, the flags of the U.S. and its territory fly side by side.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A series of Supreme Court cases based on racist language and reasoning still govern the lives of 4 million Americans.
A banner reads “Fuera Luma” (Luma out), opposing the company managing Puerto Rico’s electric grid, at a May Day protest in San Juan on May 1, 2021.
Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images
Four years after Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on Puerto Rico, federal money to rebuild its electricity system is finally about to flow. But it may not deliver what islanders want.
As an unincorporated U.S. territory, Puerto Rico has fewer constitutional and political rights than a state.
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Lawmakers are unlikely to grant Puerto Rico’s request for admission into the Union – unless, perhaps, the Democrats win both Senate seats in Georgia’s Jan. 5 runoff election.
Once featured in movies, TV shows and video games, the Arecibo Observatory was the pride of Puerto Rico.
RICARDO ARDUENGO / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images
The Arecibo radio telescope has collapsed but its amazing discoveries will live on.
Dawn Wooten, left, a nurse at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga., speaks at a news conference in Atlanta protesting conditions at the immigration centre.
(AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
Extreme weather events prompt people to move, a trend that could accelerate in a warming climate. But the ability to migrate internally in the US depends largely on economic status.
Hispanic voters go to the polls for early voting in 2004.
G. De Cardenas/Getty Images
Puerto Rico was once home to about 110,000 Taínos, an indigenous people decimated by the Spanish conquest. Their ancient homeland was located in the area hit hard by recent earthquakes.
The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church lies in ruins after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, Jan. 7, 2020.
AP Photo/Carlos Giusti
Puerto Rico’s January earthquakes came after many foreshocks and have been followed by numerous aftershocks. Scientists are studying these sequences to improve earthquake forecasting.
Senior Research Fellow, Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at IUPUI and Journalist-fellow, Religion and Civic Culture Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences