Good morning today is Tuesday, February 19th. I am at Gardo Vicente and this is our first

summary of New Summary in English. So, please be aware with me and let's get right to

it. There are big drought fears in Puerto Rico. According to the former EPA director Carl

Soderbergh Puerto Rico, we Rico experienced a major drought pretty soon.

He bases his comments on data that shows that 80% of the island is unusually dry and at

least 22% of the island is currently undergoing a moderate drought.

There are at least 13 municipalities who are currently rationing their water.

So this means that the population there receives water one day on one day off and

This is expected to keep

Expanding and more municipalities to start doing this pretty soon if it doesn't start a rain

The next news is that a tax on cigarettes is backfiring

a

This tax was implemented in

2017 by the current government and it made cigarettes so expensive

that it opened the door for a very profitable black market. Consumers have just been moving towards

this black market in growth. This is especially bad for the government as they were looking to

curve cigarette consumption which was obviously not done because people were moving towards a black market. But instead they were looking to raise tax revenues.

And this is also not happening because the black market pays no taxes.

And so the government's being affected. Small businesses who use to sell cigarettes

are being affected because now they're sending a lot less.

And in general the tax is just totally backfiring.

Next news is that there's a push to declare Medicaid

...