Weather Report #8: Puerto Rico's New 'Religious Freedom' Law, an ACLU Class Action Against Student Visa Revocation, a National Blackout, the Best Book Ever on Gaming, and the Best Movie of 2025 So Far

Hi, dear reader. If you've been paying to the news at all, you know that there was an archipelago-wide blackout in Puerto Rico on Wednesday afternoon, which is the reason this Weather Report is delayed and why I did not publish anything else this week.

Here's what's in this Weather Report:

1. A short video about the photographer behind some of the historical pictures in Bad Bunny's latest video, and a mental health podcast episode
2. Briefs on Puerto Rico's new "religious freedom" law, ACLU's class action against DHS and ICE, and the most recent archipelago-wide blackout.
3. The most important book about gaming I have ever read.
4. The best movie of 2025 so far
5. A video, a podcast, and several articles about: how to watch the best movie of 2025, cops using AI to infiltrate protest groups, what comes after nonviolent resistance in the West Bank, the biggest leftist movement in Brazil, a reading/listening list on the Zizians, and a podcast conversation with one of my new favourite writers.
6. Even more moody softboy tracks

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Here's What I Worked On This Week

Photographing Puerto Rican History

In his music video for LA MuDANZA, Bad Bunny highlighted several archival photos from when Puerto Ricans faced off against the US Navy, as well as some other historical photographs. At 9 Millones, we sat down with one of the photographers who captured history. The audio is in Spanish, but it has English subtitles.

Mental Health Podcast

Also, another episode of the mental health podcast I record and edit dropped:

Weekly Updates

Puerto Rico's New "Religious Freedom" Law

Last Sunday, Puerto Rico's Governor, Jenniffer González Colón, signed a "religious freedom" bill into law, which pretends to be about the government not limiting people's ability to practice their religion. However, it will only used to exacerbate the polycrisis currently assaulting the archipelago and be used to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people and communities of color by giving bigots the permission structure to discriminate.

I have seen some people argue that this is less about bigotry and more about pandering to Puerto Rico's rightwing religious project, which is not growing per se, but it is becoming more extreme with their beliefs. And while it definitely is about signaling to the bigots in their audience, you cannot ignore that a project that – in theory – allows government employees to not serve people whose sexual orientation they don't believe in because it "goes against their religion." While I've seen some argue that the law could be found unconstitutional if its challenged, I'm wary of ever trusting the courts to actually help people. This law could manifest in any series of ways, including something similar to what the State Department is doing by searching for "anti-Christian bias."

Not only that, but the law could also cause a public health crisis because it allows parents to claim a religious exemption to vaccinating their kids. I"m counting down the days until a parent kills their kid because they refused to vaccinate them against measles. Or maybe the next pandemic will get them before that. The former will probably come first, but the latter will happen in our lifetime.

You can find the law below:

ACLU Class Action Against Student Visa Revocation

Four American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), including Puerto Rico's, filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of "at least 112 students" who have had their F-1 student visas revoked by ICE and DHS. The lawsuit only challenges the Defendants' termination of the students' status and is seeking their visas be reinstated.

"While Defendants' reasons for these mass terminations of student status are unclear, what is clear is that these terminations — across the board — flout the applicable regulations governing student status
termination... and the regulations governing failure to maintain student
status," reads the lawsuit, filed in the District of New Hampshire.

As of April 18, over 240 colleges and universities have identified more than 1,550 international students and recent graduates who have had their legal status changed by the State Department, according to Inside Higher Ed (who have been doing phenomenal work on this beat).

I'm going to keep my eye on this and talk to the folks involved for the immigration coverage I'm going to be doing over at The Latino Newsletter.

I've uploaded the complaint to Courtlistener, and you can view the complaint here:

Collapse, One Blackout at a Time

Puerto Rico's latest archipelago-wide blackout happened on Wednesday at around 12:40pm, just as people were getting ready to celebrate their long Easter Weekend. Within 24 hours, about half of the archipelago already had power back. Witing 48, it was close to 90%. By the time this newsletter goes out, most people in Puerto Rico have their power back and have managed to salvage at least some of their vacation plan.

However, this was only the latest in a series of blackouts that have significantly eroded our quality of life over the last eight years. This was the second "archipelago-wide blackout" in less than 4 months. The other one was on New Year's Eve, ruining many people's vacation. While these giant events are the ones that make the national news, many Puerto Ricans face blackouts every week.

While we've grown accustomed to this situation and incorporated it into our daily lives, this is what collapse looks like. To quote from an article I think about all the time, "collapse is just a series of ordinary days in between extraordinary bullshit, most of it happening to someone else. That’s all it is."

I'll write more on this eventually, but that's what I've been thinking about lately. We have been sentenced to suffer and die little by little. If you want to see some of my coverage of the blackout, you can see the images I took on CNN and DW. As an aside, this was the first time I took my camera for a spin in a long time, and I've come to the realization that a lot of my pictures are devoid of people, unconsciously framed as if these places are abandoned. While this works for some shots, I really have to work on photographing more people.

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!