The White House on Thursday waived an act that was preventing foreign ships from delivering supplies to Puerto Rico, more than a week after Hurricane Maria devastated the US territory [...] The Jones Act requires goods sent between US ports to be carried on ships built, owned and operated by the US. But lawmakers said it slowed the delivery of much-needed aid to Puerto Rico, where millions of Americans do not have electricity, adequate access to clean drinking water or a reliable fuel supply. 

Rapper Pitbull has been praised after sending his private plane to hurricane-hit Puerto Rico to transport cancer patients to the US mainland. [...] The Miami-born star - real name Armando Perez - told the New York Daily News he was "just doing [his] part."

In a few weeks, 14 members of the Felix Mantilla Little League will board a plane that will cross an ocean and land in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Most of the kids, ages 9 and 10, have never been out of Milwaukee. In Puerto Rico, they will play baseball games against age-group peers. [...] But baseball is not the most important part of the trip. The kids, mostly from low-income families, will visit historic Old San Juan, the Arecibo Observatory and the El Yunque rainforest and will tour the Puerto Rico Sports Hall of Fame.

In an earlier post, I speculated that preventing a Zika virus epidemic would rally transnational diaspora organizations. Since then, concern has grown among U.S.- and Canadian-based diasporans, especially those with roots in Brazil, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and other Latin American countries. Caribbean American and global media are featuring stories and public service announcements on the outbreak, but so far, I have observed no major non-governmental diasporan response.

You might not be able to snag Hamilton tickets, but you can catch the play’s Pulitzer Prize-winning creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, on last night’s episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight. The playwright joined comedian and host John Oliver to ask the US congress to do something about Puerto Rico’s crippling $70 billion debt crisis.