Puerto Rico

Winning Florida's electoral votes this November could come down to winning the favor of a newly potent bloc: Puerto Ricans in and around Orlando.

The bill, which still needs to be approved by the Senate, would appoint a seven-person board that could restructure the territory's debts. Puerto Rico owes more than $70 billion.

"I've decided that your basic needs come before anything else," Gov. Alejandro García Padilla said, adding that he will not close hospitals in order to pay the island's debt.

Environmental activist Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera just won an award for grass-roots activism for his fight to protect a pristine section of Puerto Rico's coastline.

The measure delays payments on Puerto Rico's debt load, which is now more than $70 billion, until January 2017. Creditors say the measure violates prior agreements and the island's constitution.

The Florida senator got 71 percent of the vote in the U.S. territory's GOP primary and will earn all of its 23 delegates.

Unless Congress and the White House can agree on a funding fix for Medicaid in the U.S. territory, many worry that Puerto Rico's health care system could collapse when stopgap funding ends next year.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito is an old foe, spreading yellow fever and dengue on the islands long before Zika gained a foothold. How do you stop an insect that can breed in a teaspoonful of stale water?

So far, the U.S. territory has reported 117 Zika cases, including five pregnant women. But health officials say the real test will come when April and May rains bring more mosquitoes.

With Zika spreading in Puerto Rico, the government has forbidden stores from raising prices on mosquito repellent, window screens, larvicides and condoms.

An epidemiologist says the island has been lucky so far, but needs to stop the virus at its source — where mosquitoes breed.

Negotiations to restructure the U.S. territory's significant debt hit a speed bump Friday. As Congress considers its next step, economist Rosario Rivera explains the origins of the financial crisis.