Puerto Rico News

BU Bank, a Coral Gables-based commercial bank, said Thursday that it has acquired and merged Banesco International Bank of San Juan, Puerto Rico into its domestic banking operations.

Suzanne Goulet , singer, dancer and tribute artist studied voice in New York City.

Puerto Rico Sen. Melinda Romero Donnelly has filed Senate Resolution 1514, which urges the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to grant Bioculture Puerto Rico, Inc., licenses or permits to import, confine, breed, or sell monkeys at a massive facility being constructed in Guayama.

Photo: LGBTT people, friends and relatives of gay people, it is time to fight back. I resign from the New Progressive Party. I cannot see how Democrats can be members of the right-wing Republican Fortuño Administration. -- Upfront Yankee

Caribbean Business Online - September 2, 2010: New Progressive Party Rep. Norman Ramírez filed a measure Thursday that would amend the island Constitution to explicitly define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

House Resolution 107 also would establish that other unions, regardless of where they were entered, would not enjoy the same legal standing as marriages between a man and a woman.

Ramírez said 28 lawmakers have signed on to the resolution. Measures involving constitutional amendments require the votes of at least 36 members of the House to pass on to a potential referendum.

“It is the public that will have a chance to express themselves at the polls about the composition of marriage,” Ramírez said.

César Vázquez Muñiz, president of the Pastoral Unida a Favor de la Familia, said the measure had firm backing in the religious community.

“Many and varied religious organizations support this measure to give the people the opportunity to protect marriage against changes that may be imposed by a legislature or a court,” Vázquez Muñiz said.

The gay rights group Puerto Rico para Tod@s quickly blasted the proposal as “immoral and discriminatory.”

Puerto Rico para Tod@s spokesman David Román said it was a blatant attempt to revive the controversial Resolution 99, the proposed gay marriage ban that emerged as an election issue in 2008 before being killed in the Capitol ahead of the November vote.

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Luis Colon uses an umbrella to shield himself from rain and wind caused by the approaching Hurricane Earl in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Monday, Aug.

Photo: Surrounded by a group of students, former students and their parents, who have been fighting for improvements in the public shool special education program for 30 years, Gov. Fortuño announces the revamping of the program Wednesday. Department of Education Designate Jesús Rivera Sánchez, behind, to right, and other educators look on.

A sweeping overhaul of the special education system centered on individual children's needs was announced by Gov. Fortuño at La Fortaleza Wednesday after a four-hour long meeting with parents of the children who stand to benefit from the change.

In the process of providing better service to a long forgotten sector, the governor ended a 30-year lawsuit.

The initiative, which was developed by Education Secretary designate Jesús Rivera Sánchez, was accepted enthusiastically by several parents of children who have been overlooked under the present program.

It was the first time that a governor had met with the parents since the suit was filed by parents fighting for better conditions for their children with learning difficulties, developmental limitations or other special circumstances requiring special attention in the classroom.

In 1980, Rosa Lydia Vélez sued the Commonwealth government because of the lack of service it provided to the special education students. Since then, every administration had tried to end the lawsuit without much success.

Admitting that past administrations had ignored the plight of the special education students, the chief executive committed $85.2 million from the local Fiscal Stabilization Fund to the new effort. “This is a matter of justice for those special students whose needs had been neglected in the past,” Fortuño said. “Our objective is to bring them all the tools necessary to succeed.”

The new plan calls for the introduction of one Special Education Facilitator for each of the 1,481 schools the Department of Education operates. The creation of the new post will do away with the seven special education regional offices the Department currently operates.

“Our obligation is to guarantee a better quality of life for all,” the governor added. “That’s why we decided to attend to them directly at the school level, without any intermediary.”

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Tropical Storm Fiona is moving to the northwest at 23 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico a " The Bahamas' government says it will not consider new oil exploration or drilling applications for the vast archipelago's waters until a 'very stringent' environmental framework can be put in place.The Environment Ministry will also review existing licenses in order to safeguard the 700 islands' marine environment in the ...

O'Donnell backer makes sex charge in Delaware race - Ben Smith: O'Donnell backer makes sex charge in Delaware race September 01, 2010 Categories: 2010 O'Donnell backer makes sex charge in Delaware race A conservative firm until recently employed by the Delaware primary campaign of conservative Christine O'Donnell against Rep.

Published: Wednesday, September 01, 2010, 4:11 AM

The U.S. Department of Justice and Cuyahoga County broke off negotiations on printing English-Spanish ballots. When those negotiations resume, before any agreement is signed, it should provide that separate ballots -- English or Spanish -- be printed, and anyone requesting a ballot printed in Spanish should be required to display a birth certificate and educational documentation showing the individual to have been born in and educated in Puerto Rico, thus Sec. 4 (e) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act would be satisfied.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act must not be stretched to cover any and all who cannot read English, a stretching that appears to be the objective of the U.S. Justice Department.

Issuing a English-Spanish ballot to anyone requesting one would serve as a cover, allowing for the seining [Seine River - Search multiple engines for legal definitions] of the political waters for Hispanic votes, legal and illegal.

Spanish-language ballots should not be a permanent solution. Congress should mandate that all schools [in which U.S. citizens are educated] provide instruction in English, and 15 years after such law becomes effective, the printing of ballots in Spanish should cease.

Bill Smith, Westlake

In August, Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind began shipping 100 cargo parachutes a month to be used by the U.S. military for cargo drops in Afghanistan.

The World Boxing Organization featherweight championship fight between undefeated titlist Juan Manuel 'JuanMa' Lopez, of Caguas, Puerto Rico, and Rafael Marquez, of Mexico City has been rescheduled for Saturday, Nov.

This image provided by NASA shows Hurricane Earl taken by astronaut Douglas Wheelock aboard the International Space Station and posted Aug.

What does the U.S. DOJ for Puerto Rico, think about this? Why has our local media ignored this story which is getting lots of mention stateside? Isn't it time for our media to be more global rather than insular? I completely disagree with this editorial from The Washinton Times. -- Upfront Yankee

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Obama voting officials push ethnic grievances

The Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Board of Elections today can stare down the increasingly rogue voting rights section of the U.S. Department of Justice, which continues to play ethnic politics nationwide. The state of Georgia recently forced the department to back off from its bullying tactics, and this Buckeye county should do the same. Justice officials have threatened legal action against the county board unless it prints all its ballots in bilingual fashion. "With additional requirements for translators, community outreach, additional staffing and printing, the demand potentially would double the county's election costs," board member Rob Frost told Jennifer Rubin of the Weekly Standard. "The Justice attorneys said they were authorized to sue the county. ..."

The Justice Department's position is wrongheaded on several levels. First, the department bases its demand on Section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act, which is meant to ensure ballot access for Puerto Rican natives who never learned English. Nothing in 4(e) requires that every ballot in a jurisdiction be printed in Spanish - but only that those Puerto Rican voters not be denied the right to vote due to an inability "to read, write, understand or interpret any matter in the English language." There's no reason to find the county noncompliant if most of its ballots are English-only, as long as its Spanish speakers have access to Spanish ballots upon request.

Second, as a purely practical matter, forcing Cuyahoga to print all its ballots in Spanish is overkill. According to Mr. Frost, Justice officials say only 6,334 people of Puerto Rican heritage in the county have limited English proficiency, and it's unclear how many of them are registered to vote. In a county of nearly a million registered voters, why burden all those ballots with Spanish when just one-half of 1 percent of voters need such special help?

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First Published: 22:52 IST Last Updated: 22:55 IST The Jammu and Kashmir Bank has forwarded a list of three candidates to the Reserve Bank of India for the appointment of chairmanship of the bank after resignation by Haseeb Drabu.

A boy takes cover from a wave caused by the approaching of the Hurricane Earl in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, Monday, Aug.

Cleveland: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame kicked off its annual celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month with three outstanding Latino performers on Aug.

August 30: Tourists wade in the water along the beach in the Condado neighborhood under cloudy skies caused by the approaching Hurricane Earl in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The Coast Guard Sector San Juan Captain of the Port, Capt. Eduardo Pino, reopened at 10 a.m. Tuesday and set Port Condition X-RAY for the ports of San Juan, Ponce, Guayanilla and Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

AT 1100 PM AST...0300 UTC...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE EARL WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 19.9 NORTH...LONGITUDE 65.8 WEST.