Nation & World Glance
Powerless: Puerto Rico faces weeks without electricity
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The sky was darkening Thursday afternoon as 10-year-old Sarah Jimenez laid out three plastic buckets on her grandmother’s patio in hopes of capturing rainwater.
“We can use it to at least flush the toilets,” she told her grandmother.
A day after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, flooding towns, crushing homes and killing at least two people, millions of people on the island faced the dispiriting prospect of weeks and perhaps months without electricity. The storm knocked out the entire grid across the U.S. territory of 3.4 million, leaving many without power to light their homes, cook, pump water or run fans, air conditioners or refrigerators.
As a result, Jimenez and others hunted for gas canisters for cooking, collected rainwater or steeled themselves mentally for the hardships to come in the tropical heat. Some contemplated leaving the island.
“You cannot live here without power,” said Hector Llanos, a 78-year-old retired New York police officer who planned to leave Saturday for the U.S. mainland to live there temporarily.
Despair rises for relatives of the missing in Mexico quake
MEXICO CITY — As painstaking attempts to reach survivors in quakeravaged buildings across Mexico City stretched into a third day Thursday, desperation mounted among loved ones who earlier had high hopes for quick rescues and some complained they were being kept in the dark about search efforts.
And what many had clung to as the unlikely triumph of life over death was revealed to be a case of some very high-profile misinformation: A top navy official announced there were no missing children at a collapsed Mexico City school where the purported plight of a girl trapped alive in the rubble had captivated people across the nation and abroad.
President Enrique Pena Nieto’s office raised the death toll from Tuesday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake to 273, including 137 in the capital. In a statement, it said there were also 73 deaths in Morelos state, 43 in Puebla, 13 in the State of Mexico, six in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca.
More than 2,000 were injured and more than 50 people rescued in Mexico City alone, including two women and a man pulled alive from the wreckage of a building in the city’s center Wednesday night.
Still, frustration was growing as the rescue effort stretched into Day 3.
Canadian retailers see potential NAFTA change as threat
TORONTO — Canadian retailers fear their survival is at stake if a change to the North American Free Trade Agreement that is being pushed by Washington leads to online U.S. retailers being able to sell their goods into Canada free of tax and duty.
The U.S. wants to greatly raise Canada’s price threshold for imposing customs duties and taxes on a range of consumer goods as part of the renegotiation of the trade treaty started by President Donald Trump
It’s a relatively little-noticed aspect of negotiations to recast the trade treaty, which enter a third round this week in Ottawa, but it’s hugely important to Canadian store owners who fear it will drive more customers to larger U.S.-based online competitors.
Trump to look at even stricter cap on refugees
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is considering a further reduction in the number of refugees allowed into the United States as the administration works to re-shape American immigration policy, officials say.
Trump has already slashed refugee admissions once since taking office. Now he faces a decision on how many to admit in the next budget year.
As is often the case with the Trump administration, Cabinet officials are divided as they weigh the costs and potential security risks associated with the program.
The Department of Homeland Security has been pushing for a reduction beyond the 50,000 maximumentry mark set by Trump earlier this year as part of his travel ban executive orders — a number that is already the lowest in modern American history. In a proposal submitted late last week, the department called for a reduction to 40,000 refugees in the next budget year starting Oct. 1, citing concerns about its workload and ability to adequately vet those seeking entry.
The State Department, which oversees the program, has formally recommended that the number be kept at 50,000, according to Trump administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations. Agencies had been given until the close of business Wednesday to submit formal recommendations for consideration.
State Department officials would have been inclined to set their recommendation higher, several of the people said, but were taking their cues from the president’s executive order and felt that 50,000 was the highest number that would be palatable to him.
Trump has until Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year, to determine how many refugees to admit under the Refugee Act of 1980. He is expected to consider the issue over the weekend, after he finishes up at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, one White House official said.
Facebook to release Russia ads to Congress amid pressure
NEW YORK — Facebook will provide the contents of 3,000 ads bought by a Russian agency to congressional investigators, bowing to pressure that it be more forthcoming with information that could shed light on possible interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The social media giant also said it will make political advertising on its platform more “transparent.” It will require ads to disclose who paid for them and what other ads they are running at the same time. That’s key, because political ads on social media may look different depending on who they’re targeted at, a tactic designed to improve their effectiveness.
The moves Thursday come amid growing pressure on the social network from members of Congress, who pushed Facebook to release the ads. Facebook has already handed over the ads to the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is “actively working” with the U.S. government in its ongoing Russia investigations. Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post and live video on Thursday that he has directed his team to provide the ads, created by fake accounts linked to Russia, to Congress.
Facebook’s transparency measures are also important. Currently, there’s no way for outsiders to track political ads or for recipients to tell who is sponsoring such messages.
The company will hire 250 more people in the next year to work on “election integrity,” Zuckerberg said.
On last day of summer, snow falling in the Sierra Nevada
TRUCKEE, Calif. — Snow fell in the Sierra Nevada on the last day of summer, giving the towering mountain range shared by California and Nevada a wintry look in September and making travel hazardous.
Sixteen vehicles crashed on Interstate 80 as snow and hail fell Thursday, killing a man driving a pickup truck and causing minor injuries to a few other people, said California Highway Patrol Officer Chris Nave.
Snow dusted peaks in Yosemite National Park, briefly closing Tioga Pass road, the soaring eastern entry to the park that typically doesn’t become impassable until mid-November. Park rangers urged drivers to remain cautious after the road reopened.
Fog and clouds along the route covered most of the mountain peaks and steam rose from lakes in some areas, prompting drivers to stop frequently to take photos.
Snow also fell in Mammoth Lakes on Thursday evening, creating slick roads and giving the popular ski resort town more or a winter look than one reflecting the last day of summer.
Several inches (centimeters) of snow were expected at elevations of at least 6,000 feet (1,830 meters) in the northern Sierra, said National Weather Service forecaster Hanna Chandler in Sacramento.
“The last days of summer,” the Placer County Sheriff’s Office wryly tweeted in a post showing snow falling on patrol vehicles at its Lake Tahoe station.