Fiona devastated Puerto Rico. Now it’s headed for Canada.

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Puerto Rico continues to recover from Hurricane Fiona; Italy could shift right in snap elections.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

Hurricane Fiona is still wreaking havoc

Pedro Portal/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

• Nearly 1 million homes and businesses in Puerto Rico were still in the dark Friday, five days after Hurricane Fiona made landfall there. [Reuters / Ivelisse Rivera]
• Power shortages have forced grocery stores and pharmacies to close and are threatening the lives of people needing medical care. [NBC News / Daniella Silva and Nicole Acevedo]
• Emergency crews are working through equipment setbacks to restore power and running water to hundreds of thousands of people. [CNN / Aya Elamroussi and Alaa Elassar]
• Puerto Rico could become more resilient to future storms by using billions in FEMA funding to make infrastructure repairs, updating its power grid, and investing in renewable energy. [Vox / Benji Jones]
• Fiona is expected to bring hurricane-force winds, heavy rain, and flooding to eastern Canada late Friday and into the weekend. It could become one of the strongest storms ever recorded. [AccuWeather / Nicole LoBiondo]

📍 If you read just one story

Read one thing: Vox’s Umair Irfan explains why Puerto Rico’s blackouts are a warning for US power grids under climate change. [Vox / Umair Irfan]

Weekend elections could swing Italy to the right

• Italy could see its first far-right leader since World War II when voters head to the polls Sunday. [Associated Press / Frances D’Emilio and Colleen Barry]
• Giorgia Meloni, head of the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, could replace outgoing prime minister Mario Draghi. Meloni has run on a pro-Christian, anti-immigrant platform. [Washington Post / Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli]
• EU leaders are concerned a Meloni victory could further push the bloc toward populism with right-wing parties leading Hungary and Poland. [Reuters / Michel Rose, Andreas Rinke, and Krisztina Than]
• The vote comes as Italians face surging energy costs and inflation fueled by the war in Ukraine. [Al Jazeera / Virginia Pietromarchi]

Alabama canceled the execution of a death row inmate late Thursday, citing concerns the process couldn’t be completed by midnight. [CNN / Tina Burnside and Dakin Andone]

• Friday, Russia began holding sham elections in occupied parts of Ukraine to drum up support for adding the captured territory to the Russian Federation. [NPR / Kat Lonsdorf and Claire Harbage]
• Federal prosecutors appear unlikely to charge Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) over his alleged involvement in sex trafficking crimes. [Politico / Josh Gerstein and Matt Dixon]
• Hilary Mantel, the author of the award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, died after suffering a stroke Thursday. She was 70. [BBC]

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“It’s not just the electrical grid — it’s also the sewers, it’s also the streets, highways, bridges, schools. Almost every area of the government infrastructure is needing renovation.”

[University of Puerto Rico economist José Caraballo-Cueto on PR recovery / Axios]

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