Headlines from Puerto Rico

If you can read Spanish, you're guaranteed to find some of the most amusing, as well as horrifying headlines, while flipping through any of the newspapers in Puerto Rico. Just last week, there were a series of bank roberries around the island. In one of the tabloids, the headline read... "Padre e Hija en un Robo Bancario" ("Father and Daughter in a Bank Robbery"). Unfortunately, bank robberies are quite common here, although there has been a significant decrease compared to 2007, according to the local papers. Fortunately, in this case, this father and daughter team got caught.

Moving on to another topic... school violence. "Él Tiró el Puño y lo Cogí Yo," ("He threw the punch and I got hit"). In this case, the victim was a woman who works at a public school as a lunch lady who was playing the role of a mediator. As is usually the case, the who's in the middle of a fight is always the one who gets hurt. Fortunately, school shootings are not common occurences here. However, you will occasionally read about cases of teacher assault and vice versa.

This past weekend, to my utter disbelief, the most ridiculous news of all appeared on the front cover of the Sunday paper. "Recaudan $316,000" ("Raised $316K), talks about the soon-to-be-former Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá (pictured above, with his wife), who is reportedly having trouble paying his legal fees. He is currently facing 24 counts of corruption charges and is in debt up to his neck. To be precise, he owes an estimated $1.6 million. So, he and his party (Partido Popular Democrático-PPD) decided to start a fundraising campaign. The amount raised to date falls short of what they expected, but the Populares remain hopeful. Why? Well, apparently, the $316K does not include online donations and those made at Banco Popular (the largest bank on the island) branches. So, for an island of just under 4 million people, I think there's just too much craziness going on here.

(Photo credits: 1st photo- Patricia Díaz Ortiz, Primera Hora and Ramón Tonito Zayas/El Nuevo Día, 2nd photo)