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.
ankmsn/Getty
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.
Extreme flooding during Hurricane Maria in 2017 was hazardous for the Puerto Rican people. But a new study finds that it helped native fish populations rebound after years of drought.
AP Photo/Alvin Baez
Big storms with lots of flooding, like hurricanes Dorian and Maria, actually restore the Caribbean’s delicate balance between native and nonnative fish species, new research finds.
People wave Puerto Rican flags as they attend a rally to celebrate the resignation of Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló in San Juan, Puerto Rico on July 25.
REUTERS/Marco Bello
Rosselló’s corruption is just the latest in a string of disasters for Puerto Ricans – but it also created an opportunity for a stressed community to come together.
Three-year-old Ailianie Hernandez waits with her mother, Julianna Ageljo, to apply for Puerto Rico’s nutritional assistance program.
(AP Photo/Carlos Giusti
Lauren Lluveras, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts
It’s been one year since a Category 4 storm turned Puerto Rico into a disaster zone. Today, nearly every pillar of society — including the economy, health care and schools — remains hobbled.
Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Study of Inequalities, Social Justice, and Policy, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)