Benitez, 61, has been to Puerto Rico eight times since Hurricane Maria. She has painted houses, sealed roofs and cleared land for farming, dipping into her savings to help fund her efforts.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Puerto Rico's Senate has ordered government agencies to explain why tens of thousands of people in rural areas remain without power or appropriate shelter as anger grows ...

Today, Puerto Rico’s rural coastal communities have to compete for space and resources against tourism development, gentrification, urbanization, industry and conservation. Often these uses are ...

Perhaps nowhere is the problem as prominent as on Puerto Rico’s south coast, a rural, economically struggling region far from the capital of San Juan and major tourist destinations. Here, coal ash — ...

In Puerto Rico, the Christmas "parranda" – in which musicians show up unannounced to play at homes – has been on the decline. A group of young people is keeping it alive in one mountain town.

Waiting for the lights to come back in many parts of Puerto Rico has been a nerve wracking experience for nearly half a million people who are still without power. To put that in perspective, U.S ...

The Caribbean island’s cuisine combines African, Indigenous and Spanish influences to create dishes of distinction.

“People are getting very discouraged,” says Thompson. “Puerto Rico is a modern economy, built to rely on electricity to power essentials of life, and to operate with running water and proper shelter.

Although the effort to rebuild Puerto Rico has made progress, the island is still confronting questions of status, economics, and emigration that Hurricane Maria helped expose.

“You build trust by listening to people, helping them feel they’re respected and valued.” The relationship-driven methodology that has benefited rural residents of Puerto Rico could strategically be ...

In Puerto Rico, Rural Residents Wait for Accountability, Cleanup of Toxic Coal Ash. ... she bought a dream house in Salinas on Puerto Rico’s south coast, near the town where she was born.