Tag: Puerto Rico

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Puerto Rico Faces Island-Wide Blackout: A Stark Reminder of Power Grid Challenges

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

San Juan Pr, as Puerto Rico rang in the New Year, millions of residents faced an island-wide blackout early on New Year’s Eve, plunging communities into darkness and highlighting the ongoing struggles with the territory’s aging and fragile power grid. By the following day, efforts to restore electricity were underway, leaving less than 5% of customers without power, yet underscoring the resilience needed to navigate these frequent disruptions.

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Hugin Picks Up More Latino Endorsements

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

MOUNTAINSIDE NJ , At events in Jersey City and Vineland today, U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hugin received the official endorsement of Congresswoman Jenniffer González-Colón, Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, as well as the personal endorsement of Lydia Valencia, President of the Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey.
U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hugin released the following statement:

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New questions, including human trafficking concerns, broadside N.J. basketball power

Paterson Eastside High School

By Matthew Stanmyre and Steve Politi | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on February 24, 2017 at 7:30 AM, updated February 24, 2017 at 2:39 PM

UPDATE, Feb. 24, 1:35 p.m.: The Paterson Public School District has announced wide-ranging penalties to its athletics department, including the suspensions of three district employees and the withdrawal of the Paterson Eastside High School girls basketball team from next week’s state tournament. For details click here.

PATERSON — At least eight international boys and girls basketball players have shown up seemingly out of nowhere to play for Paterson Eastside High School’s powerhouse teams over the past four years, broadening state investigations and drawing the attention of federal agencies, NJ Advance Media has learned.

The discovery of the international pipeline comes a little less than three weeks after an NJ Advance Media report found as many as six players living with Eastside boys coach Juan Griles. Three of the boys were from Puerto Rico and not among the eight who may have violated federal immigration laws.

https://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2017/02/new_questions_including_human_trafficking_concerns.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured

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Readers say “melting pot” email from Ridgewood Schools Superintendent rings hallow

Dan Fishbein 10

This letter is disgraceful. The only “rhetoric concerning immigrants and foreign-born visitors” has been the liberal media’s false spin of the campaign issue of ILLEGAL immigration. Of course he doesn’t provide a single example of the true issue. The dishonesty and liberal bias of entertainment and the media is now abundantly clear in our own local education system. Certainly not a surprise, but extremely unfortunate. If politics is going to be permitted to creep into the education of our children, then present all sides of an issue, and teach our children how to make their own decisions without passing judgment on those who think differently. Shame on all those who consider themselves educators but purposely fail in this manner for their own personal or political agenda.

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Puerto Rico Debt Restructuring at the expense of bondholders

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Puerto Rico unveils fiscal reform plan, braces for cuts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015, 8:54 PM    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2015, 8:55 PM
BY DANICA COTO
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico is bracing for widespread spending cuts after the government released a long-awaited fiscal reform plan on Wednesday that would reduce much of the island’s $72 billion public debt and calls for restructuring the remainder at the expense of bondholders.

The five-year plan proposes that the government cut subsidies to municipalities and the University of Puerto Rico, offer early retirement and reorganize or merge state agencies. It also calls on the government to extend until 2021 legislation that would freeze new hires, salary increases and collective bargaining agreements.

Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla acknowledged in a televised address that Puerto Ricans already have had to endure new taxes, an increase in utility bills and layoffs during a nearly decade-long economic stagnation.

“Our island faces an unprecedented fiscal and economic crisis,” he said. “We have asked our people for many sacrifices.”

During a background briefing late Tuesday, members of the group that worked on the plan said Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank would run out of money by the end of this year if action is not taken and warned that the government would face a liquidity crunch next year if the plan is not implemented.

The U.S. Treasury said it was reviewing the plan and noted that Puerto Rico still needs an orderly process to address its liabilities.

“The situation remains urgent and requires the immediate attention of Congress,” the agency said. “Under the status quo, without a tested legal regime in place, a resolution of Puerto Rico’s financial obligations would likely be chaotic, protracted, and costly both for Puerto Rico and more broadly for the United States.”

https://www.northjersey.com/news/puerto-rico-unveils-fiscal-reform-plan-braces-for-cuts-1.1406256

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PUERTO RICO CONFIRMS IT FAILED TO MAKE $58M DEBT PAYMENT

Ricky Martin

Aug 3, 7:21 PM EDT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The government of Puerto Rico confirmed Monday that it failed to make a $58 million debt payment in a significant escalation of the debt crisis facing the U.S. island territory.

Puerto Rico made a partial payment of $628,000 in interest but could not afford to make the remainder, which was due Saturday, because the legislature did not appropriate the funds, said Melba Acosta Febo, president of the Government Development Bank.

The government had warned on Friday that it would not make the payment and argued that it should not be considered a default under a technical definition of the term, an argument rejected by Moody’s Investor Service and others.

“This event is consistent with our belief that Puerto Rico does not have the resources to make all of its forthcoming debt payments,” said Emily Raimes, a vice president at Moody’s. “This is a first in what we believe will be broad defaults on commonwealth debt.”

 

https://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CB_PUERTO_RICO_DEBT_CRISIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-08-03-19-21-43

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The next Greece may be in the U.S.

GREECE

Published: June 30, 2015 10:23 a.m. ET

When Chicago Public Schools announced on June 24 that it would borrow $1 billion to make a $600 million-plus pension payment due June 30 an eerie feeling spread across bond investors and taxpayers alike.

It was the same feeling that gripped investors when Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Chicago’s credit rating to junk based almost entirely on the city’s pension problems.

The fear was that elevated pension costs, in cities like Chicago, might push these public entities into insolvency, wiping out much of the holdings of municipal-bond investors.

Once a sleepy corner of the municipal bond market — often not even properly reflected on cities’ balance sheets — public pensions have recently turned into the biggest headache for taxpayers and municipal-bond investors, threatening to bring down the finances of U.S. cities and states.

In some places, like Puerto Rico, Illinois, New Jersey and Chicago, entire balance sheets of cities or states hang in the balance.

Detroit, as well as three Californian cities — Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino — had to declare bankruptcy because of their overwhelming pension costs.

In those cases, the courtroom turned into a brutal battlefield pitting bond investors trying to save the money they invested in those cities’ municipal bonds on one side. And on the other side have been public employees trying to save the dwindling pensions that were promised to them.

Recent cases have shown that bond investors are clearly losing this battle.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-lurking-debts-may-turn-us-cities-states-into-greece-2015-06-30