At age 40, Andrew Gillings has given up on calling police emergency lines. He took the decision three years ago after he tried calling 119 for the first time to report that thieves were breaking into a neighbour’s car outside his gate in Pembroke...
For seven years, she lived at the Fletcher’s Land Police Station in Kingston; its barracks served as her bedroom, the two guardrooms her living and dining quarters. Seats in the reception area served as her sofa. Fate has been topsy-turvy for...
The Ministry of Education and Youth (MOEY) is seeking public buy-in on what it dubs its legacy policies, aimed at bolstering student experience across the island. But with limited sanctions against some violators, including schools that flout...
It is a matter of timing. Moving too fast or too slow could easily get them a deadly date with destiny as motor vehicles bark down the major highways across the island. The warning signs are large, clear and strategically placed along the highways...
It has been condemned and cauterised by the authorities multiple times, and on every occasion, unscrupulous persons have ripped open the ‘no-entry’ tapes, and made the abandoned premises theirs for business and pleasure. It is the abandoned Inez...
Whether to stave off police pressure or as a tactical hideout, gunmen are taking to the hills and bushes in several criminal hotspots, doubling the threat to the public and security personnel who pursue them. The practice is nothing new, but with...
‘Set-ups’, grave-diggings, vigils, and tears. The story of a rustic Spring Grove community in Porus, Manchester, stumped in grief and preparing to bury two of their own killed in motor vehicle accidents exactly two months apart. The first, 48-year...
Already faced with the perils of COVID-19 and reports that a case of the monkeypox virus has been confirmed locally, Jamaicans are again being warned about the long-standing HIV/AIDS pandemic, which researchers at the Northern Caribbean University...
An analysis of three single-use plastic bags submitted to the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) as part of a probe into the Government’s plastic ban has confirmed that the items still on the market are indeed in contravention of the law. The three...
The potency of marijuana since its decriminalisation in 2015 has reportedly increased threefold, which may give some users higher doses than they can manage, a chief researcher at the Caribbean Toxicology Unit (CARITOX) at The University of West...
On August 14, 2010, the nation awoke to a bloodbath in Tredegar Park, Spanish Town, St Catherine. Eight people, among them an 11-year-old girl, lay bloody and lifeless – the aftermath of a dozen men storming several homes in a predawn attack. The...
Used for shopping, storage, garbage and waste disposal, giving and receiving of goods, and just about anything, the popularly called scandal bag has been the go-to choice for Jamaicans for decades. Banned or not, the use of plastic ‘black scandal’...
There is a small informal community on the outskirts of Seaview Gardens in St Andrew, where residents live isolated from the rest of the area on bushy swamp lands strewn with board and concrete dwellings. Here, there are no roads. Dirt tracks,...
Defined as the illegal occupation of land and/or buildings, it is estimated that approximately 20 per cent of Jamaica’s population resides in squatter settlements. The matter of informal settlements has remained a perennial problem for decades,...
Droves of Jamaican students have relinquished their right to an education, lured away by meagre earnings they have clung to since hustling illegally during the postponement of face-to-face classes because of COVID-19 some two years ago. Some are...
So heavy was the pain after Marcia Johnson* buried her mother at the May Pen Cemetery in Kingston that it took her a while to revisit the grave. Almost three years later, the grief was manageable enough for her to make the trek. She was shocked to...
They are listed as public beaches by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), but newcomers are warned against venturing on to their sands as it could quickly end in robbery or death. These are said to be the funnels through which...
The Government yesterday sought to rectify aspects of a budget released by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) which inaccurately itemised an $8-million spend on the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge last month. The detailed budget...
As the shaken soda oozed from the half-opened cap, grade four student Shania Acorn* gasped with disappointment. To her, it was as if liquid gold was being wasted, forever lost as the carbonated beverage muddied the ground below. “That’s the best...
Two years ago this time, the municipality of Portmore, St Catherine, was battling the dreaded COVID-19, isolated behind strict quarantine lines and embroiled in an outbreak dogging one of its major economic lifelines – call centres. Under tight...
It’s a service that’s supposed to be free, but for many Jamaicans finding it difficult to locate a justice of the peace (JP) who knows them well enough to certify documents or write glowing character references, for between $150 and $1,500 on the...
In their world, nothing is safe or certain, and it is always wise to have a suitcase packed and ready for relocation. To be otherwise could be deadly. This is life for some 326 Jamaicans in the island’s witness protection programme – the majority...
With witness intimidation still a major concern dogging the justice system, the country shelled out more than $758 million on its witness protection programme between April 2016 and March 2021, with the bulk of the spend recently being on gang...
The best are smooth and amicable, cordial and easy, while the worst are inflamed with raw resentment, lies, and sometimes, even hatred. Yet Jamaicans are increasingly filing for divorce – a record 4,381 last year alone – as fingers point to COVID-...
The feat is not for the impatient or claustrophobic, and at peak hours, it involves long waits, pushing, shoving, and the deadly COVID-19 disease lurking inches from those who dare. For many Jamaican commuters, however, there is little choice –...
