Puerto Rico’s governor rejects calls for resignation over profane chats he participated in with close advisers
Demonstrators gather at Quinto Centenario Plaza to protest against governor Ricardo Rossello, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, July 17, 2019. Protesters are demanding Rossello step down for his involvement in a private chat in which he used profanities to describe an ex-New York City councilwoman and a federal control board overseeing the island's finance.
Police erected concrete barricades and shop owners covered store windows with metal sheeting or plywood as if a hurricane were coming. The multi-coloured umbrellas that form a photogenic awning over the street in front of the governor's mansion were taken down.Karla Villalon has three elementary-age children and an 81-year-old grandmother. Her kids have been uprooted twice in two years when first one school, then another, was closed by budget cuts under Rossello.
The island is mired in crises. It is struggling to emerge from a debt-driven financial failure and a more than decade-long recession. It needs federal funding to help recover from Hurricane Maria, the 2017 storm that devastated the island's electrical system and a months-long failure to provide care to the elderly and medically vulnerable.
"Puerto Ricans are so numb to politics in America and we get lies from the Trump administration," said Miranda. But the alleged corruption surrounding the governor of the US territory "is the last straw and Puerto Ricans are standing up against it."
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