Hurricane Fiona heads toward Bermuda, US advises citizens to defer travel

AFP

Hurricane Fiona churned toward Bermuda as a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday as Puerto Rico struggled to restore power and water after receving a crushing blow.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Fiona was expected to approach Bermuda, a British territory of some 64,000 people, late on Thursday.

In Washington, the State Department advised Americans to reconsider travel to Bermuda and authorized family members of US government personnel to leave.

“US citizens in Bermuda wishing to depart the island should depart now, ahead of Hurricane Fiona’s arrival,” it said in a travel advisory.

Fiona was upgraded overnight to a Category 4 hurricane, the second highest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

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The NHC said the storm was packing maximum winds of 130 miles per hour (210 kilometers per hour) as it headed north toward Bermuda at around eight miles per hour.

“On the forecast track, the center of Fiona will continue to move away from the Turks and Caicos today, approach Bermuda late on Thursday and approach Atlantic Canada late Friday,” the NHC said.

“A storm surge will cause elevated water levels along the coast of Bermuda,” it said. “Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves.”

Fiona has left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean and killed four people in Puerto Rico, according to a US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official quoted by The Washington Post.

One death was reported in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe and another in the Dominican Republic.

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FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell is in Puerto Rico and toured flood damaged areas with the governor of the US territory, Pedro Pierluisi.

Will not stop

FEMA said it was sending hundreds of additional personnel to Puerto Rico to help with relief efforts on the island, which suffered widespread power outages.

Pierluisi said the storm had caused catastrophic damage on the island of three million people, with some areas receiving more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain.

US President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Puerto Rico, which is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria five years ago.

LUMA, the Puerto Rico power company, said more than 2,000 utility workers were assessing damage and working to restore electricity to hundreds of thousands of customers.

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“LUMA and all our partners will not stop until every customer is restored and the entire grid is reenergized,” its public safety manager Abner Gomez said in a statement.

The storm also left around hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico without drinking water as a result of power outages and flooded rivers, officials said.

In the Dominican Republic, President Luis Abinader declared three eastern provinces to be disaster zones: La Altagracia — home to the popular resort of Punta Cana — El Seibo and Hato Mayor.

After years of financial woes and recession, Puerto Rico in 2017 declared the largest bankruptcy ever by a local US administration.

Later that year, the double hit from hurricanes Irma and Maria added to the misery, devastating the electrical grid on the island — which has suffered from major infrastructure problems for years.

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The grid was privatized in June 2021 in an effort to resolve the problem of blackouts, but the issue has persisted, and the entire island lost power earlier this year.

White House says Cuba policy unchanged despite sanctioned fuel shipment

The White House said Monday that it has not changed its policy toward Cuba, despite allowing a sanctioned Russian oil tanker to deliver fuel to the island on humanitarian grounds.

U.S. officials emphasized that the decision was made as an exception and does not signal a broader shift in policy.

The administration added that similar decisions would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, depending on humanitarian considerations.

The clarification comes amid ongoing restrictions related to U.S. sanctions policy, which continue to limit trade and financial flows involving Cuba.

Spain to grant citizenship to Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López

The Spanish government is expected to grant citizenship this Tuesday to Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lópezthrough an extraordinary procedure known as “carta de naturaleza.”

The decision will be approved by royal decree, an exceptional legal mechanism used in special cases that require expedited resolution due to specific circumstances.

López has been living in Madrid since 2020, after leaving Venezuela following a prolonged political and legal conflict with the government of Nicolás Maduro.

According to government sources, López currently does not have a valid Venezuelan passport and faces difficulties in having his nationality fully recognized in his home country.

As a result, he applied for Spanish citizenship via a fast-track process at the end of 2025, after previously attempting to obtain it through regular procedures.

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The Spanish government justified the move based on López’s international relevance and foreign policy considerations.

López is the leader of the Voluntad Popular party and co-founder of the World Liberty Congress, an initiative launched in 2022 alongside figures such as Garry Kasparov and Masih Alinejad.

ICE to remain at airports amid DHS shutdown, Homan says

The U.S. “border czar,” Tom Homan, said Sunday that agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will remain deployed at airports until operations return to “100% normal,” as the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues.

“We will maintain ICE presence until airports feel they are fully back to normal operations,” Homan said during an interview on Face the Nation on CBS.

Homan justified the deployment on security grounds, noting that the measure was ordered by President Donald Trumpamid widespread absenteeism among agents of the Transportation Security Administration, who have gone without pay for over six weeks due to the DHS shutdown.

According to acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill, at least 460 TSA agents have resigned during the shutdown, while daily absenteeism has averaged 11%, exceeding 50% at some airports.

Homan warned that if TSA staffing levels do not recover after the shutdown, ICE agents will continue filling the gap. “ICE is there to support our TSA brothers and sisters. We will remain as long as needed to ensure airport security,” he said.

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The DHS shutdown reached 44 days on Sunday, making it the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The impasse stems from disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over ICE funding.

A recent bipartisan Senate proposal to fund DHS without including ICE failed after being blocked by House Republicans, who insist on full funding for the agency.

Amid the deadlock, Trump signed an executive order directing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to immediately pay TSA agents to address what he called an “emergency situation” and restore order at airports, with payments expected to begin Monday.