Puerto Rico wind farm to be Caribbean's largest

– USATODAY.com
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno says the Caribbean's largest wind farm will be built in the U.S. territory in a bid to reduce the island's dependence on oil.

Fortuno says the $250 million project is financed by San Francisco-based Pattern Energy and will feature 44 turbines capable of providing power to about 25,000 homes.

The Santa Isabela wind farm will start operating by next September and generate up to 75 megawatt hours of energy as part of a 20-year deal with the state-owned Electric Energy Authority.

Thursday's announcement comes a week after Fortuno announced that the Caribbean's largest solar energy project will be built in Puerto Rico.

The U.S. territory relies on oil to generate 70 percent of its power.

Puerto Rico wind farm to be Caribbean's largest – USATODAY.com

Caribbean's largest solar project to be built in Puerto Rico

San Juan –  Puerto Rican Gov. Luis Fortuño announced Thursday that a $98 million solar-energy project - the largest ever in the Caribbean region - will be built on the island.

AES Ilumina's 24 MW solar facility, which will create 200 jobs during the construction phase, is to be installed on a property near the southern town of Guayama that was acquired from the state-run Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company.

Fortuño said that he expects the privately financed facility to begin producing solar energy next summer and that it will be capable of meeting the energy needs of 6,500 area households.

The goal in building the utility-scale solar photovoltaic plant is to reduce the U.S. commonwealth's dependence on fossil fuels, the governor said.

"With the vision of promoting the development of a green Puerto Rico and lessen our dependence on oil, we've strived to create a climate that encourages the real diversification of our energy sources," he added.

The project is the first to benefit from a renewable energy incentives law that Fortuño signed on July 19, 2010.

The governor said the project to be carried out by AES Ilumina - a unit of AES Solar, which is a joint venture between AES Corporation and Riverstone Holdings - is the first of seven renewable energy projects in Puerto Rico that are scheduled to get off the ground between this year and 2012.

•  

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/money/2011/10/06/caribbeans-largest-solar-project-to-be-built-in-puerto-rico/#ixzz1a5MZI44O

Puerto Rico holds one of the planet’s last bright spots

By Leigh Ann Henion

I’m standing in a narrow alleyway when a stranger approaches to tell me that he can channel the power of the ocean. Crazy? Maybe. But I’m on the island of Vieques with a similarly far-fetched quest: to swim in a celestial sea. I tell the man, who introduces himself as Charlie the Wavemaster, that the Milky Way will soon crackle and shimmer as it slips through my fingers. Bits of stardust will cling to my hair.

Vieques’s Mosquito Bay, also called Bioluminescent Bay or Bio Bay, is one of the last ecosystems in the world where dinoflagellates — microscopic, single-celled organisms — create halos of light around whatever disturbs their nightly flotation. Marine bioluminescence, which appears to mirror stars in the night sky, occurs spontaneously around the globe, but no site on Earth hosts the phenomenon with more regularity than the southern coast of Vieques. Guinness World Records 2008 named Bio Bay the brightest in the world.

“The Bio Bay, it’s all about vibrations,” Charlie says. “You slap the water, and it lights up! It’s inspiring! The water holds so much awe!”

Charlie is wearing a baseball cap and handkerchief headband, and he’s holding a long metal pole, which I gesture toward. “Oh, this is my magic wand!” he says. Charlie taps it on the ground near my feet. “I’m putting out vibrations right now. Feel it?” There is a dull resonation under my sand-encrusted flip-flops.


When I turn to continue my exploration of the town of Isabel Segunda, Charlie follows. Cars blast the thump-de-thump of reggaeton. Neighbors chat through barred windows with people on the street. Young men in athletic clothing ride bareback on horses guided by rough, twisted rope. Roosters run wild through the scene, necks pumping back and forth as they dodge tires and hooves.

Just before Charlie bids me farewell, slipping into the driver’s seat of a borrowed pickup, he says: “There are so many mysterious ways and miracles in the world. There’s so much involved, you could never understand it all.” As he drives away, I can hear his metal rod echoing in the truck bed like a tuning fork.

Vieques, which is about eight miles from the main island of Puerto Rico and has a total population of roughly 9,000, is a place where it hasn’t always been easy for residents to see the bright side of things. In the 1940s, thousands of people were forced from their homes when the U.S. Navy expropriated roughly two-thirds of the 21-mile-long, four-mile-wide island for artillery storage and military training. In the following decades, Vieques was the site of perpetual military training involving munitions that delivered doses of napalm, lead, depleted uranium and a cocktail of other contaminants. In 2003, when the Navy ceased bombing, nearly 18,000 acres were designated as a national wildlife refuge. This move has kept construction concentrated in a narrow swath of land in the center of the island, preserving its status as one of the least developed in the Caribbean.

In 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency added Vieques to its list of Superfund National Priorities, officially designating parts of the island hazardous waste sites. This designation made Vieques a supremely unlikely travel destination, but the Navy’s toxic legacy has proved no match for 50 undeveloped beaches where — on a busy day — visitors might share a crescent of sand with one or two other intrepid souls.

Read more from the Washington Post Magazine

El Chupacabra Mystery Solved: Case of Mistaken Identity

Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster rank as the top two best-known monsters in the world, but since its 1995 debut, El Chupacabra has made a Justin Bieber-like ascension to No. 3 on the charts. The relative newcomer to the monster world is the go-to culprit for weird livestock deaths and creates a massive media stir whenever it's "sighted." It even has a fan club on Facebook.

That could all end, now that Benjamin Radford, author of several books on monsters and paranormal phenomena, managing editor of the journal The Skeptical Inquirer and LiveScience columnist, has released what he says to be definitive proof that El Chupacabra is not real; it's not even a hoax, he said, but rather a leftover memory of a science- fiction film.

Stories of El Chupacabra first surfaced in March 1995 in Puerto Rico, Radford said, when dead, blood-drained goats began showing up (El Chupacabra translates to "goat sucker"). That August, a newspaper printed an eyewitness description of a bipedal creature, 4 to 5 feet tall with spikes down its back, long, thin arms and legs, and an alienlike oblong head with red or black eyes. That depiction became associated with El Chupacabra, and it reports of similar creatures began popping up throughout the Caribbean, in Latin America, Mexico and Florida.

Read more from LiveScience.com

Puerto Rico Heineken International Regatta

http://www.prheinekenregatta.com/

President's Task Force on Puerto Rico's Status Submits Report to Obama

 The President's Task Force on Puerto Rico's Status said island residents should determine its  political fate – and that the decades-old political limbo should be settled by the end of next year.

In its report to President Obama, the task force, among other recommendations, said only Puerto Rican residents – and not their mainland counterparts – should vote in two plebiscites. The first vote should determine if Puerto Ricans want to be a part of the United States or independent. The second plebiscite would give residents a choice among four options: statehood, independence, free association and commonwealth.

"The issue is a difficult one," the report said, referring to limiting the vote to island residents. "But on balance, those who have committed to the island by residing there have strong arguments that only they should vote on its future."

The task force, made up of 18 members, urged the President, Congress and the leadership of Puerto Rico to come to a resolution on the island's status by the end of 2012. It recommended that President Obama draft legislation and work with Congress to push it through.

"The legislation should commit the United States to honor the choice of the people of Puerto Rico (provided it is one of the status options in the legislation) and should specify the means by which such a choice would be made," the report said.

President Obama, who presumably will be running for reelection in 2012, said he wants to work with Congress to ensure that Puerto Ricans can determine their political future.

"I am firmly committed to the principle that the question of political status is a matter of self-determination for the people of Puerto Rico," the president said in the letter.

"Both the president and Congress have roles to play to help Puerto Rico settle on its future status," he added. "I am committed to working with Congress to ensure that a fair, clearly defined, and transparent process for the people of Puerto Rico to decide on their future for themselves."

Obama signed an executive order in October 2009 that directed the task force to examine Puerto Rico's status, as well as economic development, health care and job creation, among other issues. The task force was first created in 2000 by President Bill Clinton. President George W. Bush, too, received two reports by the task force -- one in 2005 and the other in 2007.

The report submitted to Obama also recommended that if voters were to choose statehood, Puerto Rico should control its own cultural and linguistic identity. If Puerto Ricans choose independence, the report said, the president and Congress should commit to preserving U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans during the political transition.

The task force touched on another hot-button issue for Puerto Ricans – Vieques. The report said the U.S. Navy – which used the tiny Puerto Rican island as a bombing range for years – should accelerate the pace with which it is cleaning inert explosives. Further, the U.S. Health and Human Services should seek ways to improve health care for residents there, the report said.

"The task force believes that a needs assessments should be completed to identify the most effective and efficient way to ensure that the people of Vieques receive the care, including expertise in environmental medicine, that they need," it said.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/03/16/presidents-task-force-puerto-ricos-status-submits-report-obama/#ixzz1Gq2lTEfm

Big drug arrest on Caribbean cruise ship

By BEN FOX
The Associated Press
Monday, November 22, 2010; 3:42 PM
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A suburban body shop owner accused of helping to run one of the largest drug smuggling organizations in the Caribbean was arrested Monday as he took a family vacation on a cruise ship.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had been tracking Jorge Luis Figueroa Agosto as part of an investigation into the organization allegedly led by his older brother, Jose Figueroa Agosto, the so-called "Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean," who was captured in July in Puerto Rico after an intensive manhunt.

Federal agents fanned out across Puerto Rico on Monday seeking to arrest 17 alleged members of the organization. But Luis Figueroa had boarded the Caribbean Princess with his wife, two children and in-laws before the operation began.

Agents waiting on board the ship arrested him without incident before the ship reached its first port-of-call in the U.S. Virgin Islands, said John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Authorities simultaneously arrested 11 others sought in a federal indictment and the rest were being sought.

Read more

Juan Manuel Lopez featherweight title champion

Juan Manuel Lopez of Puerto Rico retained his WBO featherweight title after challenger Rafael Marquez retired with a shoulder injury at the end of the eighth round on Saturday.
The undefeated Lopez, 30-0 (27 KOs) dominated much of the bout against Mexico’s Marquez (39-6, 35 KOs), a former bantamweight and super bantamweight champion bidding to win a title in his third weight class.
However, the 35-year-old veteran staged a powerful rally in rounds four and five in an attempt to turn the tide, rocking Lopez with a right hand in the fourth and following up with a furious rally.

Juan Manuel "Juanma" López Rivera (born June 30, 1983) is a Puerto Rican professional boxer. As an amateur, Lopez represented Puerto Rico at numerous international tournaments including the 2002 Central American and Caribbean Games, 2003 Pan American Games and the 2004 Summer Olympics. López's professional career began in 2005. As a professional he won his first nine fights by knockout before winning his first decision. On September 30, 2006 he defeated Jose Alonso to win the WBO Latino super bantamweight Championship, a regional championship sanctioned by the World Boxing Organization. On June 7, 2008, Lopez defeated Daniel Ponce de León by technical knockout to win the WBO super bantamweight championship. He held the title until January 23, 2009, vacating it after defeating Steven Luevano for the organization's featherweight championship.

Read More
Juan Manuel López

OPERATION GUARD SHACK Historic Takedown in Puerto Rico

Early this morning the FBI launched a massive public corruption takedown in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as our agents fanned out across the island to begin arresting 133 subjects—the majority of them police officers.

In what is likely the largest police corruption case in the FBI’s history, nearly 1,000 Bureau personnel from 50 of our 56 field offices were in San Juan for the takedown.

Read More below

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/oct10/sanjuan_100610.html

White House task force hears Puerto Rico grievances

SAN JUAN (Reuters) - Puerto Ricans told a White House task force on Wednesday that persistent wrangling over the U.S. Caribbean territory's political status was hampering solutions to its worsening social and economic problems.
For more on status, unemployment and crime...
read original article from Reuters

House Votes Bill For Puerto Rico To Decide Status

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10— The House of Representatives today passed a bill calling for a referendum next year under which the people of Puerto Rico, governed for nearly a century by the United States, could choose statehood, independence or a continuation of their commonwealth status.
Read NY Times article

Paul McCartney tour coming to Puerto Rico

The concert calendar for Paul McCartney's latest tour of the nation is still growing. The world-famous performer now has five engagements booked for his spring 2010 Up and Coming Tour.

The only Florida performance for the upcoming tour will take place April 3 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami. Macca will also leave the mainland behind for his first-ever concert in Puerto Rico on April 5 at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in the capital city of San Juan.

The fresh dates are joined by the addition of a second concert at the historical Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, CA. McCartney was originally slated for a single night in the open-air venue on March 30, but presale demand for tickets led to the unveiling of a second show on March 31.

Ticketing details are still forthcoming for the event in Puerto Rico, but public onsales in Miami are slated for March 8. As previously announced, general ticket sales begin February 28 for both nights at the Hollywood Bowl and March 1 for the tour's opening night in Arizona.

http://www.macca-central.com/default.php

Each market on the itinerary will feature ticket prices that begin at an affordable $50 and increase to more moderately expensive levels. However, current presales in the Phoenix- and Los Angeles-area markets include much pricier options for exclusive "Front Row Packages."

The VIP ticket packages run up to $2,000 for McCartney's March 28 concert or $1,850 for either of his Hollywood Bowl shows on March 30-31. The highest-priced packages include one ticket for front-row seating, as well as special add-ons like valet parking, an invitation to soundcheck and a complimentary pre-concert dinner.

The Up and Coming Tour is a follow-up to the Summer Live 2009 Tour, which featured just 10 concert dates in the United States and Canada. Additional bookings are expected for Sir Paul's 2010 venture, but it remains to be seen whether the musician will exceed last year's tally.

Paul McCartney itinerary:
(Dates are subject to change.)

March 28 Glendale, AZ Jobing.com Arena
March 30 - 31 Hollywood, CA Hollywood Bowl
April 3 Miami, FL Sun Life Stadium
April 5 San Juan, PR Coliseo de Puerto Rico - José Miguel Agrelot

HUD director in Puerto Rico indicted on corruption charges

Washington (CNN) -- The director of the Puerto Rico office for the federal housing agency has been indicted on 40 counts of corruption, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
He is accused of spending his time shopping and running errands for his family restaurant instead of working, they said.
Michael Colón, director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development office based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was supposed to have been supervising 79 employees in the Caribbean, including the Virgin Islands, according to the U.S. attorney's office for Puerto Rico.
Read original article

36 Hours in Vieques

THE mascot of Vieques seems to be the coquí, a tiny frog whose image adorns everything from T-shirts to hot sauce bottles. Yet, given the island’s rapid metamorphosis from Navy testing ground to upscale beach resort, perhaps a tropical butterfly would be better suited. Since the United States Navy ceased military operations in 2003, this small island just off the east coast of mainland Puerto Rico has seen a boom in restaurants, galleries and hotels, including a new W resort expected next month. It’s a testament to the island’s natural beauty, with its white-sand beaches, coral reefs and bioluminescent bay.

Read more

Mensaje del Gobernador- Puerto Rico explosion Spanish

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

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.

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

Posted using ShareThis

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

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

Puerto Rico Governor Luis G. Fortuno

Puerto Rico Governor Luis G. Fortuno

Shared via AddThis

Gloria Estefan buys concert tickets for PR jobless

Gloria Estefan buys concert tickets for PR jobless

Posted using ShareThis