Donald Trump waives shipping restrictions for storm-hit Puerto Rico

US President Donald Trump on Thursday waived shipping restrictions to help fuel and supplies reach storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, the White House said.

"Trump agreed to waive the Jones Act, which will temporarily lift shipping restrictions on Puerto Rico and enable the hurricane-ravaged island to receive necessary aid," a statement said on Twitter.
The waiver from the shipping law, which requires American-made and operated vessels to transport cargo between US ports, will only last for 10 days and goes into effect immediately, the Hill magazine reported.

"At @ricardorossello request, @POTUS has authorized the Jones Act to be waived for Puerto Rico. It will go into effect immediately," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote on Twitter, referring to Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló.

Lawmakers in Congress since Monday had been pushing for a one-year waiver from the rules in an order to help speed up deliveries of food, fuel and other critical supplies to Puerto Rico, which was battered by two hurricanes last month.

Officials estimate that the island could be without power for six months.

The administration faced fierce backlash for not immediately lifting the law for Puerto Rico, after it issued a two-week waiver for Texas and Florida after hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert said on Twitter early morning that the waiver was granted "immediately" after Rosselló had petitioned Trump for the exemption on Wednesday night.
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Puerto Rico's bankruptcy will make hurricane recovery brutal - here's why

The United States had already seen its share of disasters, from back-to-back hurricanes that devastated Texas, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands to roaring wildfires in the West.

Then, after battering the rest of the Caribbean, Hurricane Maria left the island of Puerto Rico facing a humanitarian crisis. About a dozen people died in the Sept. 21 storm and the island was plunged into darkness.

Now, some 3.4 million Puerto Ricans – which is to say, 3.4 million American citizens – are confronting life without electricity, gas, cellular service and, in many cases, a home.

After a decade of fiscal decline and a May 2017 bankruptcy, Puerto Rico has become exceptionally vulnerable to disasters like Maria. As both a policy analyst and the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, I’m concerned about how austerity-related reforms are now threatening the survival of not just my family there but everyone on the island.

Though food insecurity, poor health care and resource-starved public transit all predate the hurricane, the result of both damaging U.S. policy and deepening financial crisis, these three problems will dramatically complicate Puerto Rico’s recovery.
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Hurricane Irma heads Florida after killing 18 people in Caribbean islands

Hurricane Irma will "devastate" part of the US, authorities warned, as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century closed in on the state of Florida after lashing the Caribbean with devastating winds and rain and killing at least 18 people.

Irma was about 724 km southeast of Miami, Florida, early on Friday (local time) after saturating the northern coasts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti and pummelling the Turks and Caicos Islands, ABC News reported.

The "extremely dangerous" hurricane was downgraded from a category five to a category four early on Friday but still packed winds as strong as 240 km per hour, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said in an advisory.

Head of the US' Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Brock Long said US officials were preparing a massive response to the storm.

"Hurricane Irma continues to be a threat that is going to devastate the United States in either Florida or some of the southeastern states," he said.

Long warned that parts of Florida would be out of electricity for days, if not longer, and that more than 100,000 people may need shelter.
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Hurricane Irma wreaks havoc in Barbuda, to hit Florida in 3 days

The eye of Hurricane Irma on Wednesday crossed Barbuda with potentially catastrophic effects on this island and for the rest of the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean islands, the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) reported.

Irma of Category 5, the maximum on the Saffir-Simpson scale, crossed Barbuda at 2 am with maximum sustained winds of 295 km an hour.

At present, Irma is moving north-northwest at a speed of 24 km per hour and is located 10 km north of Barbuda and 65 km north of Antigua.

Barbuda has 545 homes with 1,645 people living, according to the 2011 census.

According to the probable trajectory pattern traced by the NHC, after crossing the Lesser Antilles, the vortex of the extremely dangerous Irma will pass near or just north of Puerto Rico by noon on Wednesday and Thursday night, Efe reports.

Once it crosses Puerto Rico, Irma will probably pass through the north of the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, northern Cuba and arrive in Florida at the end of the week.

The weather experts anticipate Irma to stay in the category of four or five in the next 48 hours.
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