Aguas Buenas,, popularly known as "La Ciudad de las Aguas Claras" or "The City of Clear Waters", is a town and municipality of Puerto Rico located in the Central Mountain Range, north of Cidra, south of Bayamón, Guaynabo and San Juan; east of Comerio; and north-west of Caguas. Aguas Buenas is spread over 9 barrios and Aguas Buenas Pueblo. It is part of the San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) persons in Puerto Rico have almost the same protections and rights as heterosexual individuals. Public discussion and debate about sexual orientation and gender identity issues has increased, and some legal changes have been made. Supporters and opponents of legislation protecting the rights of LGBT persons can be found in both of the major political parties. Public opposition still exists due, in large part, to the strong influence of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as socially conservative Protestants. Puerto Rico has a great influence on the legal rights of LGBT citizens. Same-sex marriage has been legal in the commonwealth since July 2015, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional.
Pedro Rafael Pierluisi Urrutia is a Puerto Rican attorney, lobbyist, and politician who serves as the 14th Governor of Puerto Rico since January 2, 2021. He has previously served as the Secretary of Justice from 1993 to 1997, as the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico from 2009 to 2017 and as Acting Secretary of State.
The Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (PRDNER) is the executive department of the government of Puerto Rico tasked with protecting, conserving, developing, and managing the natural and environmental resources in Puerto Rico. The current Secretary is Rafael A. Machargo Maldonado. As of November 2020 the Department has 1,096 employees.
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority was an electric power company owned by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico responsible for electricity generation, power distribution, and power transmission on the island. PREPA was the only entity authorized to conduct such business in Puerto Rico, making it a government monopoly, until on January 22, 2018, then-governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, announced that all assets of the company will be sold in a general privatization of PREPA.
Ricardo Antonio Rosselló Nevares is a Puerto Rican politician, scientist, and businessman who served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 2017 to 2019. He resigned on August 2, 2019 after protests related to the Telegramgate scandal. He is the son of former governor of Puerto Rico and pediatric surgeon Pedro Rosselló.
José Luis Rivera Guerra is a Puerto Rican politician affiliated with the New Progressive Party (PNP). He was a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives representing the 17th District from 2000 to 2013. He was reelected in 2016. He resigned on July 31, 2018.
Enrique "Quique" Questell Alvarado is a Puerto Rican politician and the former mayor of Santa Isabel. Questell is affiliated with the New Progressive Party (PNP) and served as mayor from 2005 until 2020.
The 2015 Caribbean drought is an ongoing drought affecting the Caribbean islands, from Cuba to Trinidad and Tobago. The situation is further aggravated by the presence of an abnormal amount of dust and dry air over the southern Atlantic. Besides the especially hard hit U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, other Caribbean islands were affected by drought conditions to varying degrees. These include Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago. The drought region also extends to Guyana in the northeastern region of South America.
Beatriz Isabel Areizaga, aka Beatriz Rossello, is the former First Lady of Puerto Rico and wife of Ricardo Rosselló, the former Governor of Puerto Rico, who resigned office due to the Telegramgate scandal. She served as First Lady of Puerto Rico from January 2017 to August 2019.
The Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety is the umbrella organization within the Executive branch of Puerto Rico that agglomerates the Puerto Rico Law Enforcement and Emergency Response agencies in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The department was formed on April 10, 2017, when former governor Ricardo Rosselló signed the law to unify all safety agencies. All agencies are bureaus of the department.
Carlos José Saavedra-Gutiérrez is a Puerto Rican lawyer and the current Chief Legal Officer of the Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority of Puerto Rico. As such, Saavedra supervises and coordinates Puerto Rico's legal strategy as part of the largest bankruptcy-like municipal restructuring in the history of the United States. Saavedra previously served as Secretary of Labor and Human Resources of Puerto Rico, from 2017 to 2019. Appointed by Governor Ricardo Rosselló, Saavedra was the youngest individual to lead the Puerto Rico Department of Labor. As Secretary, Saavedra oversaw the implementation of a labor reform that amended and modernized much of the labor and employment legislation in Puerto Rico. During his tenure, Puerto Rico achieved the lowest unemployment rate in the historical series as tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Conversely, during his time as Secretary he was criticized by labor unions and groups opposed to the implementation of the labor reform.
Carmen Maldonado González is a Puerto Rican politician and mayor of Morovis, Puerto Rico. Maldonado is affiliated with the Popular Democratic Party, has been serving as mayor since 2017 and was reelected again in 2020.As of 2019, she is the vice-president of her party.
The Puerto Rico Office for Socioeconomic and Community Development is a government agency of Puerto Rico that manages projects to improve and develop "Special Communities of Puerto Rico",. The agency works with other government agencies, as well as with community members, to improve the infrastructure and economic opportunities of marginalized communities. Its original founding was in 2001 with Law 1-2001 passed by Governor Sila María Calderón. The new entity, employing some of the same people it had under a preceding office, is now responsible for "administering disaster funding".
Telegramgate, also known as Chatgate or RickyLeaks, was a political scandal involving Ricardo Rosselló, then Governor of Puerto Rico, which began on July 8, 2019, with the leak of hundreds of pages of a group chat on the messaging application Telegram between Rosselló and members of his cabinet. The messages were considered vulgar, racist, and homophobic toward several individuals and groups, and discussed how they would use the media to target potential political opponents. The leak came in the midst of allegations by former Secretary of Treasury of Puerto Rico, Raúl Maldonado Gautier, that his department boasted an "institutional mafia" that Rosselló was involved in. The leaks also came a year after a previous scandal, dubbed WhatsApp Gate, involving other members of Rosselló's cabinet.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Puerto Rico is an ongoing viral pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a novel infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is part of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
A special election to elect shadow senators and shadow representatives from Puerto Rico was held on May 16, 2021. Voters chose two special delegates to the United States Senate and four special delegates to the United States House of Representatives. Their work is to demand that the US Congress respect and enforce the results of the 2020 status referendum, and admit Puerto Rico as the 51st state of the Union.
LUMA Energy is the power company responsible for power distribution and power transmission in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. They are also in charge of maintaining and modernizing the power infrastructure. Previously, these duties belonged exclusively to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, but as of July 20, 2018, permission was granted for PREPA assets and service duties to be sold to private companies, and on June 22, 2020, a 15-year contract with LUMA was signed, making LUMA the new operator. The takeover took place on June 1, 2021.
