Power back on for most of Puerto Rico
BAYAMÓN, Puerto Rico -- Power was restored Wednesday to nearly all electrical customers across Puerto Rico after a sweeping blackout plunged the U.S. territory into darkness on New Year's Eve.
By Wednesday afternoon, power was back up for 98% of Puerto Rico's 1.47 million utility customers, said Luma Energy, the private company overseeing transmission and distribution of power in the archipelago.
Still, the company warned that customers could still see temporary outages in the coming days. It said full restoration across the island could take up to two days.
"Given the fragile nature of the grid, we will need to manage available generation to customer demand, which will likely require rotating temporary outages," Juan Saca, president of Luma Energy, said in a statement.
The lights went off in Puerto Rico at 5:30 a.m Tuesday. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the outage, but Luma Energy said a preliminary review pointed to a failure in an underground electric line in the south of the territory.
Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón, who is set to take office Thursday, warned that customers might experience interruptions in the coming days, with power plants not yet operating at maximum capacity.
"These days, I urge you to be moderate with your energy consumption to help reduce load shifting, so that more people can have access to electricity and the system can start up without any major setbacks," González Colón said on X.
Man shoved on tracks, injured in NYC
NEW YORK -- A man was shoved onto subway tracks ahead of an oncoming train and critically injured Tuesday afternoon, police said.
The 45-year-old man was taken to a hospital in critical condition, and police said they took a person of interest into custody shortly after they arrived around 1:30 p.m. Authorities did not release the names of that person or the man who was injured.
The incident happened at a station under Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.
While being pushed onto the tracks occurs rarely compared to the millions of rides each day, a push last March killed a person in East Harlem.
In New York, personal safety in the subway is generally comparable to safety in the city as a whole. But life-threatening crimes such as stabbings and shoves spread alarm about the trains, which carried more than 1 billion riders in 2024.
"Crime is not surging in the subway system," Mayor Eric Adams said at a wide-ranging news conference Tuesday morning, before the shove at the 18th Street station on the No. 1 line. "We have some high profile incidents and we're really disturbed about it."
But he said subway crime overall is low.
Trump planning to attend Carter funeral
PALM BEACH, Fla. -- President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he's planning to attend the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.
Asked about it as he walked into a New Year's Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump responded, "I'll be there." Pressed on whether he'd spoken to members of Carter's family, Trump said he'd rather not say.
Funeral services honoring Carter, who died Sunday at 100, will be held Jan. 4-9 in Georgia and Washington.
Trump was a frequent critic of Carter on the campaign trail ahead of November's election, using the rising inflation rates of the 1970s to compare President Joe Biden to Carter and his administration.
But after Carter's death, the president-elect wrote on Truth Social that the nation "owed him a debt of gratitude."
"While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for," Trump wrote of Carter. "He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect."
Fireworks explosion kills 3 in Hawaii
HONOLULU -- A New Year's Eve fireworks explosion in a Honolulu-area neighborhood killed at least three people and critically injured 20 others, authorities said.
The accident occurred just before midnight outside a home, the Honolulu Fire Department said in a statement.
Two people were declared dead at the scene, and the other 20 victims were transported to hospitals, according to Honolulu Emergency Medical Services.
"I've been in EMS over 30 years and this is probably one of the worst calls I've ever been on as far as the immense tragedy and amount of patients and severity of the injuries," Honolulu Emergency Services Department Director Dr. Jim Ireland said early Wednesday in a news conference.
A statement from Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi put the death toll at three and said more than 20 people were injured critically.
Officials reported four other serious fireworks injuries unrelated to the blast.
The fire department said it was investigating the cause of the blast and had no details about how the accident occurred. It said there was no fire at the home. The victims were not immediately identified.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports