Puerto Rico

Victoria Micieli, director and scientist at the Center for Parasitological and Vector Studies of the national scientific research institute CONICET, classifies different species of mosquitoes at a laboratory in La Plata, in Argentina's Buenos Aires Province, on Tuesday.

Here's what to know about dengue, as Puerto Rico declares a public health emergency

1:59pm March 27, 2024

by Joe Hernandez

Most people with dengue will show no signs of infection or experience only mild symptoms, but in rare cases infections can become severe and potentially fatal.

A pedestrian walks past the international airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday. Gang members exchanged gunfire with police and soldiers around the airport in the latest of a series of attacks on government sites.

World News

Haiti's prime minister is stranded abroad as gangs threaten 'civil war'

6:18pm March 06, 2024

Haiti's embattled prime minister is in neighboring Puerto Rico, still unable to return to Port-au-Prince, as calls for him to resign grow louder by the day.

Queue Listen Now

"I remember any time I traveled to Mexico and other countries in the continent, I felt like, 'I'm Latina, but I'm not exactly like the people here,' Arocena tells NPR. "When I came to Puerto Rico, it was like, 'okay, now I understand.' "

How Daymé Arocena left Cuba and found a freeing new sound in Afro-Caribbean pop

6:17am March 01, 2024

by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento

The Cuban jazz artist says she's never felt welcome in Latin pop. That is, until she came to Puerto Rico to record her new album, Alkemi, which expands her sound into R&B, bossa nova and neo-soul.

Music & Culture

21 Days of Musica Latina: Puerto Rico

2:29pm October 06, 2023

Every weekday through Hispanic Heritage Month, World Cafe dives into the music of a different country in Latin America.

View of a damaged classroom in a school in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, on Oct. 2, 2017, after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island. Maria set off a years-long stretch of interrupted schooling for Puerto Rico's children.

In the 6th-largest U.S. district, natural disasters have disrupted schooling for years

4:58pm August 16, 2023

by Kavitha Cardoza

Puerto Rico, the nation's sixth-largest school district, is in crisis. It's both uniquely vulnerable to natural disasters and unusually ill-equipped to help children recover from them.

Carol Buckley works to coax Mundi into the transport cage that will carry her from the Puerto Rico zoo to Buckley's elephant refuge in Georgia. Buckley, an expert on elephants in captivity, arrived on the island two weeks ahead of the May 12 flight so she'd have time to earn the elephant's trust.

Puerto Rico lost its only elephant — and cracked open a well of emotions

6:01pm June 07, 2023

by Adrian Florido

Mundi the African elephant was the pride of Puerto Rico's only zoo. But her fate became entangled in the island's recent struggles with natural disasters and a debilitating debt crisis.

Queue Listen Now

Hertz has apologized and rewritten company policy after a Puerto Rican man was denied a rental car despite showing his valid U.S. driver's license.

National

Yes, Puerto Rican licenses are valid in the U.S., Hertz reminds its employees

5:01am May 26, 2023

by Becky Sullivan

A Puerto Rican man was denied a car rental at a Hertz location at the New Orleans airport where employees apparently believed his driver's license was from outside the U.S. Hertz has since apologized.

Daddy Yankee retired last year after a career spanning more than 30 years. In that time, reggaeton has become one of the most profitable genres in the music industry.

Daddy Yankee's 'Gasolina' is the National Recording Registry's first reggaeton song

6:59pm April 13, 2023

by Vanessa Romo

On Wednesday, the mega-hit single became the first reggaeton song to be inducted into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress.

Lateef Dowdell watches the sunrise from what remains of land once belonging to his uncle Gil Alexander, who was the last active Black farmer in the community of Nicodemus, Kan., Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021.

Politics & Government

Black farmers worry new approach on "race neutral" lending leaves them in the shadows

5:00am February 26, 2023

by Ximena Bustillo

White farmers' suits blocked a USDA program and led to a race neutral approach.

An Anolis cristatellus lizard stands on a gate in Rincon, Puerto Rico, on Nov. 22, 2018.

Science

Forest lizards have genetically morphed to survive life in the city, researchers say

1:03pm January 10, 2023

by The Associated Press

The Puerto Rican crested anole has sprouted special scales to better cling to smooth surfaces like walls and windows and grown larger limbs to sprint across open areas, scientists say.