Weather Report #13: San Juan v. Exxon Update, a Haunting Book About How the West Threw Haiti into Chaos, and a Mafia Movie about Samurai and Gangster Rap

I'm pretty sure this is the first one of these that I have pre-scheduled instead of hitting "send" at some point on Sunday. It's a bit shorter because I'm enjoying the long weekend and I hope you are too.

Here's what you're getting this week:

1. The latest in my series for The Latino Newsletter about how Trump's immigration policies are affecting Puerto Rico.
2. Small update in San Juan v. Exxon that could lead to the fossil fuel industry having to face racketeering and antitrust charges
3. A book that explains how Haiti went from the first country in the West to free itself from the evils of slavery into a poor island nation roiled by one crisis after another.
4. A movie about one of life's great questions: what if the last samurai of he 20th century was really into Wu-Tang Clan.
5. Articles, essays, and documentaries about AI's power hungry energy usage and its effects, how idiot CEO's are ruining everything, another "they knew" moment for Big Oil, Brazil's favela government, and an interview with the man who designed one of the most famous video game logos of all time.
6. Three easygoing songs that I'm going to be playing while enjoying the long weekend

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What I Did This Week:

Here's the third article in my series about how Trump's immigration policies are affecting people in Puerto Rico:

https://thelatinonewsletter.org/p/national-student-status-puerto-rico

If you want to see my little TikTok about it, you can find it below:

San Juan v. Exxon Update

A small development in San Juan v. Exxon happened this week.

As I've talked about previously, a federal judge told the fossil fuel industry that they have to face racketeering and antitrust charges from 37 municipalities in Bayamón v. Exxon. Well, it looks like the judge in San Juan v. Exxon noticed that too because she referred all the pending motions to dismiss presented by the defendants to the same judge in the Bayamón case so he can issue a report and recommendation on them. My guess as to what will happen? He's going to issue a similar report and recommendation as he did in Bayamón v Exxon, which means some charges will be dropped but the racketeering charges will stand.

The report and recommendation needs to be issued by Aug 15, 2025. Here's hoping it comes sooner than that.

You can find the motion here.

That's it for this week's free stuff. If you want to access the media recommendations and the links, you can become a subscriber for as low as $3!