Gabriela Carrasquillo | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

What began as an emergency response after Hurricane María turned into years of delays, mounting costs and questions about whether the rebuilt line can withstand future storms.

A report published by the U.S. Census Bureau in January on population estimates shows that Puerto Rico’s population shrank in 2025 compared with the previous year. It also marks the third consecutive year in which the loss of residents was driven primarily by deaths rather than net migration, a measure calculated by subtracting the number of people leaving from the number arriving.

The promise of socioeconomic mobility through enlistment is being eclipsed by harassment, discrimination, language barriers and the prospect of looming armed conflicts.

Decades after toxic chemicals were discovered in the Esperanza neighborhood, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the contamination no longer poses a threat on land and launched an investigation into its reach into the bay. Amid cleanup and rebuilding after the 2020 earthquakes, residents of Guánica are organizing.

Despite soaring medical costs and widespread need, the government distributes life-saving health funds through an opaque system of arbitrary decisions.

In the absence of long-term mitigation and adaptation projects from the government, many roads along Puerto Rico's coastal strip could be vulnerable to rising sea levels and increased flooding.

The Puerto Rico Energy Bureau established the minimum performance levels the company must achieve to get incentives, but not the penalties, making its oversight difficult. The Public-Private Partnerships Authority now says that LUMA will only be penalized if any investigation concludes that it failed to fulfill its responsibilities.

A University of Miami research found a carcinogenic contaminant in the blood samples of 86% of the people who participated in the study. It is also the first confirmation that the chemical substance is also in the air.

Residents of the Esperanza neighborhood in Guánica have been waiting for nine months for emergency decontamination coordinated by the EPA to kick off and for the broadening of an investigation to identify the extent of the contamination.

Even though the EPA recognized the risk posed by the consumption of fish from the bay after a  Center for Investigative Journalism’s investigation, neither the municipality nor federal or local agencies have taken measures to prevent recreational fishing and warn  the public about the risks of consuming species from this body of water.