It is time for the oversight board and the governor to give up the fantasy that the debt can be paid without harming Puerto Rico’s economy, pensioners, and electrical system recovery. Overly optimistic assumptions contributed to PREPA’s bankruptcy. More of the same will not solve its problems.

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.

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS — The agreement involves more than $17 billion worth of government bonds backed by a sales-and-use tax.

These debt negotiations should not put profits over people.

The hearing involves more than $17 billion worth of debt backed by sales-tax bonds that the government issued, representing nearly a third of the island’s overall bonded debt.

An agreement nearing approval as part of Puerto Rico’s debt restructuring process could block many forms of legal accountability for a key set of government officials and bankers that oversaw the creation of the debt—and stick credit unions and municipalities with the tab.

On Wednesday hundreds of people in Puerto Rico including religious leaders, economists, teachers and retirees protested a proposed increase to already high electric bills that a growing number of people in the U.S. territory are struggling to pay.

On Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Rico’s unelected fiscal control board has “sovereign immunity” and does not have to answer journalists’ requests for government documents.

With rising temperatures and the increasing threat of tropical storms due to climate change menacing Puerto Rico, many fear the islands’ access to electrical power will only worsen under privatization.

The president of Taiwan traveled today to Guatemala to shore up its last allies in the isthmus after Honduras decided to shift its support to China earlier this month. While the U.S. warns of Beijing’s growing influence in Central America, the region is not buying the Cold War framing.

A new report from progressive organizations reveals the web of lawyers, lobbyists, trade groups, and cultural institutions that vulture funds use to prey on debt-addled countries like Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico could experience a spike in its electricity bills for the next 35 years if a debt restructuring proposal is accepted by a federal bankruptcy judge in New York.

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.

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.

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.

Puerto Ricans are pushing for sustained interconnectivity between stakeholders doing the rebuilding in the islands and the diaspora and its allies advocating for long-term investment from the mainland — and these coordination efforts are largely driven by women’s networks.

As Hurricane Fiona bore down on Puerto Rico two weeks ago, the U.S.-imposed fiscal control board and the U.S.-based judge who handles the public electric utility’s debt restructuring deal forced Puerto Rican lawyers to file motions even as the archipelago was experiencing an island-wide blackout.