Mar 25, 2019 - Politics & Policy

Trump wants advisers to find a way to cut Puerto Rico hurricane relief

Photo: Juan C. Cruz/EyeEm/Getty Images

President Trump asked advisers in February to find a way to limit hurricane relief funds for Puerto Rico because too much money has gone to the territory already, senior administration officials told the Washington Post. "He doesn’t want another single dollar going to the island," one official said, and he wants current funds to be used only to help fortify the electric grid.

The big picture: As Axios' Jonathan Swan reported in November, Trump has privately claimed, without evidence, that the island’s government is using federal disaster relief money to pay off debt. At least a third of Puerto Ricans rely heavily on food stamps following Hurricane Maria in 2017, but the local government has been cutting the program as it waits for the federal government to hand over billions in hurricane relief, per the Post.

Go deeper: Trump wants no more relief funds for Puerto Rico

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Axios
Updated 21 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Coronavirus dashboard

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 11:30 a.m. ET: 20,126,452 — Total deaths: 737,285 — Total recoveries: 12,380,410 — Map.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 11:30 a.m. ET: 5,098,452 — Total deaths: 163,533 — Total recoveries: 1,670,755 — Total tests: 62,513,174 — Map.
  3. States: State testing plans fall short of demand — National Governors Association's bipartisan leaders express concern over Trump's unemployment order.
  4. Axios-Ipsos poll: 1 in 2 has a personal connection to COVID-19.
  5. Business: Moderna reveals it may not hold patent rights for vaccine.
  6. World: New Zealand reports first local cases for 102 days — Why you should be skeptical of Russia's vaccine claims.
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Sara Fischer
2 hours ago - Economy & Business

Exclusive: Facebook cracks down on political content disguised as local news

Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

Facebook is rolling out a new policy that will prevent U.S. news publishers with "direct, meaningful ties" to political groups from claiming the news exemption within its political ads authorization process, executives tell Axios.

Why it matters: Since the 2016 election, reporters and researchers have uncovered over 1,200 instances in which political groups use websites disguised as local news outlets to push their point of view to Americans.

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Ina Fried
2 hours ago - Technology

Nationalism and authoritarianism threaten the internet's universality

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Governments around the world, prompted by nationalism, authoritarianism and other forces, are threatening the notion of a single, universal computer network — long the defining characteristic of the internet.

The big picture: Most countries want the internet and the economic and cultural benefits that come with it. Increasingly, though, they want to add their own rules — the internet with an asterisk, if you will. The question is just how many local rules you can make before the network's universality disappears.

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