Sunday, October 25, 2009

Mensaje del Gobernador- Puerto Rico explosion Spanish

Mensaje del Gobernador- 24 de octubre, 3:00pm from La Fortaleza, Puerto Rico on Vimeo.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Huge gasoline explosion in Puerto Rico

Fuel storage blast rocks Puerto Rico capital
By MIKE MELIA (AP) – 1 hour ago
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — An explosion at a fuel storage site sent earthquake-force shock waves across Puerto Rico's capital Friday and set more than a dozen tanks on fire, sending up a tower of inky smoke that forced airliners to alter flight paths.
Seemingly miraculously, no one was reported killed by the blast at Caribbean Petroleum Corp. in the suburb of Bayamon. The cause was unknown.
The explosion at 12:30 a.m. was the equivalent of a 2.8 magnitude earthquake, according to the Puerto Rico Seismic Network. It shook people out of bed across metropolitan San Juan and shattered windows across the bay in colonial Old San Juan, one of many neighborhoods where onlookers gaped at the thick smoke boiling north toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Gov. Luis Fortuno declared a state of emergency for five municipalities, including San Juan and Bayamon, to receive federal funds for affected areas. Up to 1,500 people were evacuated from one neighborhood because of concerns over smoke contamination, he said.
Fifteen of the site's 40 fuel tanks caught fire, but several tanks were no longer burning by Friday night, Fortuno said.
He said Puerto Rico still has a 24-day supply of fuel and assured residents six of the U.S. island's seven fuel lines were operating.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Thousands of demonstrators swarm Puerto Rico's financial center to protest government layoffs | San Francisco Examiner

Thousands of demonstrators swarm Puerto Rico's financial center to protest government layoffs | San Francisco Examiner

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Puerto Rico Offering Vending Machines With Clean Needles - Health News | Current Health News | Medical News - FOXNews.com

Puerto Rico Offering Vending Machines With Clean Needles - Health News | Current Health News | Medical News - FOXNews.com

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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Puerto Rico Engulfed in Massive Labor Unrest - Working In These Times

Monday, October 12, 2009

Puerto Rico Governor Luis G. Fortuno

Puerto Rico Governor Luis G. Fortuno

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Saturday, October 10, 2009

Gloria Estefan buys concert tickets for PR jobless

Gloria Estefan buys concert tickets for PR jobless

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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Spice up your mealtime with traditional Puerto Rican flavors, colors and seasonings

By CLEO CANTLON, Correspondent, cecantlon@srt.com

No Spanish is needed to enjoy Puerto Rican food, even though guest chef Clare Rodriguez tossed in bits of language education as she demonstrated some wonderful dishes from the native home of her husband, Obed.
One major component was plantains, a vegetable that looks like an oversize banana.
“It’s like a potato, and it turns from green to yellow to almost black as it ripens,” Rodriguez explained. “It wouldn’t hurt you if you ate it raw but it wouldn’t be very tasty. As it ripens it gets sweeter and sweeter.”
It is sometimes hard to get plantains at the stage of ripeness desired, so she often buys them green and allows them to ripen on the counter or in a paper bag.
One of her family’s favorite foods is a plantain casserole, called piñon, in which fried plantains are layered with a meat mixture and baked.

Read more here>

Spice up your mealtime with traditional Puerto Rican flavors, colors and seasonings

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

YouTube Best of Puerto Rico

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Google News Alert for: "puerto rico"

Google News Alert for: "puerto rico"
motionx GPS Drive
CNET News
We are working on supporting Puerto Rico; we will have a solution soon. Thank you for your patience. motionx is committed to constant improvement. ...
See all stories on this topic
The Associated Press
Raid targets Puerto Rico drug gang
The Associated Press
BAYAMON, Puerto Rico — Some 500 law officers swarmed into a public housing project Friday to dismantle a trafficking ring allegedly run by Puerto Rico's top ...
See all stories on this topic
Jacksonville adds Puerto Rican sister city
Bizjournals.com
Mayor John Peyton, left, and Jorge Santini, mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, sign a sister city agreement Friday. The City of Jacksonville added its eight ...
See all stories on this topic
Walgreen same-store sales rise 5.3 pct. in Sept.
BusinessWeek
... comparable stores increased 12 percent. As of Sept. 30, Walgreen operated 7543 locations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
See all stories on this topic

Google Blogs Alert for: "puerto rico"
Big US raid targets trafficking network of Puerto Rico's alleged ...
By MIKE MELIA
Some 500 law officers swarmed into a public housing project and other sites Friday to dismantle a trafficking ring allegedly run by the island's top drug suspect, a man described as an aspiring Robin Hood and a patron to reggaeton ...
San Francisco Examiner Site Feed - http://www.sfexaminer.com/templates/rss
Benicio Del Toro Urges Halt To Monkey-Breeding Facility In Puerto ...
By Michael d'Estries
Obviously, this isn't sitting well with PETA and they've enlisted the help of Benicio Del Toro to write a letter to Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno urging for a halt to the facility. “I am disappointed to learn from my friends at PETA ...
ecorazzi.com :: the latest in... - http://www.ecorazzi.com/
LaN / Live Architecture Network » Archive » LaN WORKSHP @ San Juan ...
By monika
San Juan, Puerto Rico November 2-6 2009. Description: LaN invites professionals and students alike to attend a 5 day workshop covering Digital Fabrication in Architecture: from intro to advanced. Workshop will instruct on the use of ...
LaN / Live Architecture Network - http://www.livearchitecture.net/
Puerto Rico: A Crisis with Many Names « Racism
By trakkrz-admin
This has been a very difficult week in Puerto Rico: governor Luis Fortuño layed-off nearly 17000 government employees. In total this year, the recently elected government has laid off around 25000 public employees. ...
Racism - http://racism.trakkrz.com/
Federal Bureau of Investigation - The San Juan Division ...
28, 2009, a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico issued a seven-count superseding indictment, charging 65 defendants with federal drug trafficking offenses. This morning, 500 federal and state law enforcement agents from ...
ExcitingAds! FBI News - http://www.fbi.gov/fieldnews/breaking.htm

Google Web Alert for: "puerto rico"
Raid targets Puerto Rico drug gang Yahoo News
Some 500 law officers swarmed into a public housing project and other sites Friday to dismantle a trafficking ring allegedly run by the island's top drug ...
Del Toro urges Puerto Rico to nix monkey facility Yahoo News
Benicio del Toro is asking Puerto Rico to halt a planned monkey-breeding facility, arguing the primates would suffer.

Friday, October 2, 2009

La Fortaleza

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Puerto Rico and other territories left out of healthcare reform - TheHill.com

Puerto Rico and other territories left out of healthcare reform - TheHill.com

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Friday, September 25, 2009

Mensaje Especial del Gobernador de Puerto Rico

Monday, September 21, 2009

US struggles to keep up in Puerto Rico's drug war

By MIKE MELIA (AP) – 8 hours ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — With a stucco mansion in the hills outside San Juan and four luxury cars, including a Corvette, Wilfredo Rodriguez lived well for a part-time worker on an airport ground crew.

U.S. prosecutors say Rodriguez, who wrapped cargo in plastic for American Airlines, built his fortune over the last decade by smuggling drugs aboard commercial flights — one small slice of the hundreds of tons of South American cocaine that flow through Puerto Rico to the U.S. mainland each year.

His arrest last week highlights the challenges for law enforcement authorities on this U.S. Caribbean territory, as traffickers flood the island with drug money and make it one of the most violent places under the American flag.

"It's hard to keep up," U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez said in an interview. "These people make a lot of money and they reinvest their profits in their business and they have the most sophisticated equipment, the most sophisticated methods."

While most of the drugs reaching the United States arrive through the southwest border, an estimated 30 percent come through the Caribbean — and of all the islands, authorities say, Puerto Rico is easily the biggest transshipment point. As American soil, it is attractive because drugs leaving here do not have to clear customs to reach the U.S. market.

At least 1,430 metric tons of cocaine reached the island last year, according to the Key West, Florida-based Joint Interagency Task Force South, which coordinates the tracking of drug shipments in the region. The drugs, which have come at similar levels for years, are often spirited ashore Puerto Rico's 300-mile (480-kilometer) coastline in boats from neighboring islands.

U.S. authorities say Colombian organizations oversee most of the smuggling into and through the island with help from Dominican and Puerto Rican traffickers.

The middlemen's profits sustain a thriving underground economy.

Wilfredo Rodriguez, who allegedly contracted his smuggling services to multiple cocaine traffickers, lived in the biggest home by far in his quiet neighborhood in Morovis, a town southwest of San Juan. U.S. authorities have seized the two-story, beige home as well as a nearby apartment complex that belonged to Rodriguez. Neighbors said Rodriguez, who told them he owned a roofing company, was constantly expanding the house on a street named Happiness Way.

Now he is in federal custody on charges that he recruited other American Airlines employees to an operation that smuggled more than 9,000 kilograms (19,840 pounds) of cocaine to cities on the U.S. east coast. His lawyer says he is innocent of charges that could send him to prison for life.

While many of the suspected drug kingpins and money launderers live in peaceful, gated communities, the people who suffer most from Puerto Rico's drug war live in the island's housing projects — many of them vast concrete complexes, gated off from surrounding communities, that traffickers control as personal fortresses.

From inside the projects, traffickers distribute cocaine and heroin that stay on the island, often as payment from Colombian crime syndicates in exchange for sending the rest on to the U.S. mainland. About a third of the drugs that reach Puerto Rico remain on the island, officials say.

Rodriguez, the top prosecutor, said there is at least one distribution point — or "punto" — in each of the island's 240 housing projects.

In the largest housing project in Puerto Rico, two blocks south of a popular San Juan beach, community leader Ana Guzman says she hears gunshots on a near daily basis. The Llorens Torres project is one of many where authorities say traffickers use violence to control their turf. But Guzman hesitates to blame the young gang leaders. It's the only life they know.

"Most of them got into this because somebody killed their father," she said.

Puerto Rico's police chief Jose Figueroa Sancha said the traffickers increasingly are using minors to distribute drugs inside the housing projects because when caught, they face less harsh sentences.

"We're seeing a generation whose only life is being at the drug point," he said.

Violence is also increasing. There have been 619 killings so far this year, an increase of 8 percent from last year when Puerto Rico had its bloodiest year in a decade. The island of 4 million people has long had a high murder rate compared with the U.S. mainland, and most homicides are blamed on the drug trade.

For U.S. authorities, the surge in violence is a sign they are having at least some success.

"If we arrest somebody here I know there's going to be somebody who's going to want to come and control this point," Rodriguez said. "That's the reason for all the violence. They're fighting for drug turf."

Over the last three years, special strike forces involving federal agencies and police have arrested more than 1,000 drug suspects, sweeping up dozens at a time inside housing projects. The U.S. also increased seizures of cocaine at sea near Puerto Rico by nearly 80 percent to 14,640 kilograms (32,275 pounds) last year, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.

A big obstacle is finding witnesses to come forward. In many cases people fear retribution. But on an island where the lyrics of reggaeton artists bred in housing projects have glamorized an underworld of drugs and violence, authorities say others stay silent out of misguided loyalty.

"We believe the community has to start doing their share of supporting law enforcement and being more optimistic about the prospects of our law enforcement efforts," Rodriguez said. "They need to report the crimes, come and testify, and everybody needs to chip in because it's an island-wide crime."

Associated Press writer Jill Laster contributed to this report from Morovis.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Cool Salsa dancing scene from the film My Puerto Rico

Friday, September 18, 2009

Puerto Rico Upends Cuba at World Cup - Havana Times.org

Puerto Rico Upends Cuba at World Cup - Havana Times.org

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Cockfighting in Puerto Rico

Saturday, September 12, 2009

5 Culebra Pictures that will make you vacation there!

5 Culebra Pictures that will make you vacation there

Puerto Rico Creates Its Own Weather

Friday, September 11, 2009

Cuba Blanks Puerto Rico Behind Vera

(Habana Times article here)

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Caribbean islands crack down on illegal immigrants

TOA BAJA, Puerto Rico — First, riot police raided the slum with batons and pepper spray. Then authorities shut off the water and electricity. With an eviction order pending in the courts, police stand sentry outside the shacks belonging mostly to Dominican migrants.

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Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Canada closes out preliminary round with loss to Puerto Rico

Canada closes out preliminary round with loss to Puerto Rico

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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Congrats to Miss Puerto Rico & Miss Dominican Republic

Last night was a thrilling night for Latinos!

Not only did Miss Venezuela take home the crown again, but three of the five finalists were from Latin America!

Congratulations to Mayra Matos Perez, Miss Puerto Rico, and Ada Aimee De la Cruz, Miss Dominican Republic.

We were rooting for Ada, but we’re happy with the results!

From:
Congrats to Miss Dominican Republic & Miss Puerto Rico - Latin Gossip

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Inversión para el Sistema 9-1-1 (Puerto Rico invests in 911)

La Fortaleza

Miss Universe 2009: Miss Puerto Rico Mayra Matos Betting Odds

Miss Universe 2009 Miss Puerto Rico Mayra Matos Betting Odds: If you are looking for a reason to tune into watch Miss Universe 2009, search no further. Where else can you see more gorgeous women from all areas around the globe in different setting like Nightgown and the ever-popular Swimwear Competition? (read more)

PR gov to restrict alcohol sales amid rising crime

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Gov. Luis Fortuno said Tuesday he will submit a proposal for the legislature to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages after certain hours as a way to cut down on crime in Puerto Rico. (read more)

Monday, August 17, 2009

La Fortaleza

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Golf resorts up their game

Tropical storms Ana, Bill form; hurricane expected

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Tropical storms Ana, Bill form; hurricane expected

Friday, August 14, 2009

El Conquistador Resort in Fajardo, Puerto Rico Offers Families the Ultimate Adventure with Its Coquí Water Park

08.13.2009 – There’s no doubt vacationing families and pools go hand in hand. But taking the family vacation pool experience up a notch – make that several notches – is the Coquí Water Park at El Conquistador Resort, The Waldorf Astoria Collection in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.