Wild Card-Puerto Rico

It has been more than seven months since hurricane Irma and Maria ravished Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico's Senate is closing in on government agencies to explain why tens of thousands of people still lack basic necessities such as power or appropriate shelter. Nearly seven months after Hurricane Maria an island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico due to an increasingly unstable power grid. Officials originally stated that it could take 24 to 36 hours to fully restore power to nearly 1.4 million customers which faced an obvious backlash. Main news outlets only gave attention to the current island-wide blackout that's going on right now but before the current power outage, several large power outages hit Puerto Rico in recent months.

Since then the power outages have created major traffic across the island forcing dozens of businesses with no generators to temporarily close and interrupted classes and work. Since then the island's international airport has switched to a backup generator and no cancellations or delays were immediately reported. CBS news correspondent David Begnaud has been reporting on the island's devastation for quite some time and tweeted out the island's priority list

Begnaud reports that the main hospital in San Juan has decided to run on a generator instead of the power grid since the hurricane because the generator was more reliable. Power company spokeswoman Yohari Molina told The Associated Press that crews were investigating what caused the blackout, saying she had no other details.

Angel Figueroa, president of a union that represents power company workers in Puerto Rico, said it appears that a failure on the main line caused the island's entire electrical grid to shut down to protect itself.

(Revisiting Puerto Rico)

The standoff caught the attention of top Puerto Rico government officials and ended several hours later after the power company promised it would keep crews in Las Piedras until service is fully restored. Justo Gonzalez, the company' executive sub-director, said in a statement that he is committed to restoring power to everyone but that blocking crews would only delay those efforts.

"People are not doing well," Las Piedras Mayor Miguel Lopez told The Associated Press, noting that there are many elderly people in his town. "They are suffering."

The mayors of rural towns across Puerto Rico recently complained that they remain largely forgotten, prompting the island's Senate president on Monday to order agencies such as the power company as well as Puerto Rico's department of transportation and housing authority to submit a restoration plan and a timetable to meet the mayors' needs.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing federal power restoration efforts on the island, has said they expect to restore power to everyone by late May. Some 40,000 power customers still remain without normal electrical service as a result of the hurricane.

The new blackout occurred as Puerto Rico legislators debate a bill that would privatize the island's power company, which is $14 billion in debt and relies on infrastructure nearly three times older than the industry average.Many remain wary of that timetable, including federal legislators who have requested that the agency's mission is extended as they note that the Atlantic hurricane seasons starts June 1.

10- Freedom of Information Act

Recently THV11 reported about a former Jacksonville police officer facing charges for allegedly stealing drugs from confined evidence. Allegations are now being raised about one of the department's K-9s and a recent shakedown of employees. Two weeks ago Arkansas's highest court ruled that Geoffrey Herweg could not serve as Jacksonville's acting police chief any longer. Herweg has been in question for nearly a year due to a prior conviction. Since then officers have been coming forth left and right with information that could be vital to freeing several inmates due to procedural wrongdoing. The recent investigation of the Jacksonville force is thanks to none other than City Councilwoman Tara Smith.

She is the councilwoman responsible for suing Jacksonville over Herweg who was found to have a criminal record. Smith is now saying that a former Jacksonville office came to her with concern about an officer and his K-9. All of this is happening days after Smith suit was decided and Herweg was forced to step down as acting police chief. Jacksonville has no shortage of drama currently as the former chief of police Sipes now the spokesperson for the Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police has issued a "vote of no confidence against the City's Mayor, Gary Fletcher, and City Attorney, Robert Bamburg who is also acting police director at the moment.

This vote of no confidence comes after the City Attorney turned police chief sent out an email saying changes were going to be made in the department. Sipes feels as though residents should be concerned because officers are being transferred to other departments without the proper training which he thinks could jeopardize future cases. In the current environment that we are in [with] the incidents that have occurred across the nation, he pulled the [school resource officers] out to put two in that are inexperienced, and don't want to be SROs,” Sipes said. “It takes a special person to be a school resource officer."

Out of 80 positions at JPD, only 55 are filled, and Sipes expects more departures because of the transfers.

Both Sipes and Smith say they don't believe this situation would be unfolding if the mayor had appointed an officer instead of the city attorney to lead the police force.

"A good leader is going to admit when he makes a mistake. We don't have that," Sipes said. "We don't have a leader that can admit that mistakes were made and try to correct those mistakes. Try to heal rather than seek retaliation."

Via: http://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/jacksonville-councilwoman-alleges-k-9-officer-worked-without-certification/91-532634877

9- College Media

Is it a crime to steal an item that is sold for free? Spokane Falls Community College and Tennessee Tech University seem to think so, and in this case, I agree with them. Currently, Campus police at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville are looking for suspects who reportedly stole around 800 copies of the campus newspaper, The Oracle. The Oracle's managing editor, Marcelo Gonzalez said he believes the newspapers were stolen due to a front-page story regarding two student government senators who leaked a document to The Oracle in February.

“I don’t see any other reason why the papers would be taken,” Gonzalez said. “It definitely feels like retaliation.” Around 3000 total copies of the March 20 issue were published and the 800 copies that were stolen are worth $400 to $500. Personally, it wouldn't make too much sense to me to even steal 800 newspapers from The Oracle due to there being 2,200 copies still available. If anything the two people that committed the crime has caused a minor inconvenience to the campus, and now the campus police are taking action. Vanessa Curry the paper faculty adviser said she is setting up a meeting between the student editors and the campus police chief to check on the open investigation.

Curry had this to say on the situation, “There’s nothing else in that paper that’s controversial,” she said. “That’s not to say that I think the SGA itself is involved … but I think it has to do with that story.”

Students attending Spokane Falls Community College have found them selfs in a similar situation. On Mar. 12 former Editor-in-Chief Chandler Pedersen found several newspapers that were damaged. Pedersen responded in kind by reporting the incident to campus police but no action was taken. On Apr.2 the new Editor-in-Chief Magdalena Clough found 200 newspapers missing; after replacing the missing papers they went missing once again the next day. Clough responded in kind by filing a report with campus security and on Apr. 5 filed a police report. Pedersen and Clough recently published a front-page article about sexual harassment allegations against the acting University President Darren Pitcher who resigned on February 26.

The Communicator's current paper editor Jason Nix believes the controversy over the past University President is the reason papers are missing. So far four hundred issues have disappeared representing one-third of The Communicator's total print order. The paper may be free for students but the actual loss amounts to $191 according to Nix.

Original Story