PIAC News ✔️

[ad_1] A government that fails to provide a plausible estimate of deaths from a disaster engenders little confidence in its ability to help the survivors. That’s the predicament Puerto Ricans find themselves in after their government put the official death toll from Hurricane Maria at 64 people . More than seven months after the hurricane devastated the island, neither Puerto Rico’s government nor the federal government has released an updated figure. News organizations and independent researchers have attempted to fill the void by calculating death counts on their own. “Time after humiliating time, Puerto Ricans have been sent that familiar message about their relative worth and ultimate disposability,” author Naomi Klein writes in her new book , The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists . “Nothing has done more to confirm this status than the fact than no level of government has seen fit to count the dead in any kind of credible way, as if lost Puer...

[ad_1] Puerto Ricans clashed with police in the streets of San Juan after protests against austerity measures took a violent turn Tuesday. The demonstration was in protest of proposed cuts to retirement benefits and looser labor laws, as well as school closures and slow hurricane recovery efforts. One woman, Adria Bermudez,  told The Associated Press that she was marching to protest the increase of the undergraduate cost per credit from $57 to $115, then to an eventual $157 over five years. She also called for government officials and legislators to reduce their salaries instead of implementing more austerity measures. “The measures are aimed at the middle class and low middle class,” she said. “The rich don’t suffer.” The protests reportedly became violent after hundreds of young protesters tried to enter the Hato Rey neighborhood, San Juan’s banking center. There, according to Bloomberg , helmeted police officers wearing gas masks formed lines to block them from advancing. When...

[ad_1] N.Y.U., which received $264,850, led a public campaign to take in students from Puerto Rico and enrolled about 70 students . Students were required to pay tuition to their home universities in Puerto Rico, and had virtually all costs covered while attending N.Y.U. The students are expected to leave when the semester ends. “We are very sensitive to concerns that the universities in Puerto Rico have about skimming students who were important to their own academic mission,” said John Beckman, a spokesman for the university. Grand Canyon University, which received about $239,000, would not say how many affected students were enrolled. A Liberty University official said the school did not count out the number of students who benefited from its $200,000 award, but officials said the university financially supported students, mainly from Florida, in a number of ways after the hurricane. Southern New Hampshire said it had more than 11,000 students from the affected states, about 50 of w...