Outraged over constant blackouts and increases in the price of electricity, over 4,000 protesters marched in San Juan, Puerto Rico, calling for an end to the contract the local government signed with LUMA Energy that privatized part of the island’s electrical grid.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Fed up with rolling blackouts and the rising price of electricity, Puerto Ricans continue to hit the streets in protest against the Puerto Rican government’s contract with LUMA Energy while calling for the resignation of Gov. Pedro Pierluisi and the end of the Financial Oversight and Management Board of Puerto Rico (FOMBPR).

As Puerto Rico moves toward its stated goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, there are still gigantic leaps that need to be taken if it plans to reach that target date, though it is becoming increasingly unlikely that such monumental steps will be taken.

On Wednesday Gov. Pedro Pierluisi announced that Genera PR will officially take over the remains of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and finish privatizing electrical generation on the archipelago.

Puerto Rico announced Sunday that it plans to privatize electricity generation, a first for a U.S. territory facing chronic power outages as it struggles to rebuild a crumbling electric grid.

The recent image of a car stuck in a massive pothole in Humacao, Puerto Rico makes a fine metaphor for the state of Puerto Rico today and the role played by the pro-statehood Gov. Pedro Pierluisi and his New Progressive Party in the deterioration of the island.

Senior editor Hector Luis Alamo gives a review of some of the most interesting and important things he saw, read, and heard over the past week.

Debt restructuring efforts for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s $9 billion debt have come to a new standstill after almost six years of negotiation. Multiple failed attempts to exit bankruptcy have led nowhere.

Almost $9 billion in bad debt and a half-century of high electricity prices hang in the balance in Puerto Rico.

On the same day it was set to expire, the Puerto Rico Public-Private Alliances granted LUMA Energy an extension of its provisional contract that will only end once the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s debt restructuring is completed.

Three days before LUMA Energy’s contract is set to expire, the Public-Private Partnerships Authority requested authorization to extend LUMA’s provisional contract until the debt restructuring process for the publicly owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is finalized.

Teachers and electrical workers in Puerto Rico are calling for protests outside schools on November 30, the day that LUMA Energy’s contract is set to expire, in hopes that the government cancels the company’s impending 15-year contract.

The U.S. government announced Tuesday that it will provide Puerto Rico with temporary electric generation via barges to help in restoring the island’s storm-devastated power grid and ease repeated widespread outages.

Puerto Rican legislators from New York and local activist groups joined forces on Thursday to repudiate the Puerto Rican government’s contract with LUMA Energy and ask Gov. Pedro Pierluisi not to grant the company control over the archipelago’s electrical system for the next 15 years.

Protesters arrested last Wednesday in the Puerto Rican capital and later released without charges were surprised when police officers gave them a manual on how they should protest.

Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau announced Thursday that it will investigate how a private company has handled complaints about electric bills after Hurricane Fiona knocked power out to the entire island.

The Government of Mexico plans to file a second lawsuit against U.S. companies it alleges are responsible for the flow of illegal weapons into the country, Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard announced last Wednesday.

President Joe Biden visited Puerto Rico on Monday to announce new hurricane relief projects, two weeks after Hurricane Fiona battered the archipelago. Tens of thousands remain without power, and even more worry that aid promised by Biden will be too little too late.

Preliminary evaluations show Hurricane Fiona damaged 50 percent of transmission lines and distribution feeders across Puerto Rico as hundreds of thousands remain without power or water service almost two weeks after the storm hit, officials said Thursday.

As fuel in Puerto Rico grows scarcer after Hurricane Fiona, an oil tanker loaded with much-needed diesel fuel is treading water off the coast of Puerto Rico, unable to dock because a 1920 law, known as the Jones Act, requires ships to be U.S.-owned if they want to load or unload.

Since Hurricane Fiona swept over Puerto Rico on Sunday, residents along the southern coast have seen little state or federal aid in their communities, forcing them to survive mostly on their own.