He has been out 17 months now, but 74-year-old George Williams, a schizophrenic who spent more than 50 years in prison without a trial, continues a life of incarceration and poverty. These days, the illusions of his mind, coupled with the rickety...
At 23, Sherika* says she has been raped by five different men on different occasions. And that number of offences would be higher if repeated encounters with her biological father – the first to defile her at nine years old – are counted. Now, she...
With Jamaica being among six Latin American and Caribbean countries yet to break the 20 per cent vaccination barrier, there are fears that the island could miss the World Health Organisation target for countries to vaccinate at least 40 per cent of...
The National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) may not be prepared to call it, but researchers at the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) are standing behind a study that suggests alcoholism is on the rise locally and that the pressures of COVID-19 are...
If you get the feeling more Jamaicans have been dying in recent years, you may be on to something. But while records for the last decade have reflected an overall increase in local morbidity numbers, the unpredictability of the looming COVID-19...
More people are turning to alcohol and drugs to cope with the onslaught of the coronavirus, but with the pandemic decimating most face-to-face interactions, it may not be long in coming before local researchers know just how hard Jamaicans are...
Car thieves are running rampant in Portmore in St Catherine, and homes, malls, and make-do parking spots outside the Portmore Tax Office on Braeton Parkway seem to be their preferred hunting grounds. It is a worrying reality that has forced police...
There is a dark side of the Sunshine City that often goes unseen – a side woven by egregious criminals bent on turning the municipality into a bloodfest. For some 300,000 Jamaicans facing the challenges of COVID-19, the dormitory coastal...
With the local health sector on crisis footing as a spiralling rate of infections slam under-resourced hospitals, the health ministry on Friday suspended elective surgeries and other crucial medical procedures in public facilities as it went into...
Prime Minister Andrew Holness shot down any COVID-19 priority list for treatment and access to ventilators at a press conference Thursday, deadening calls from Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) President Patsy Edwards-Henry and several healthcare...
Nurse Annette White-Best had no qualms about taking the COVID-19 vaccine, but neither was she gung-ho about the jab. Actually, her younger sister, Nikeshia Smith-Blackwood, said the conversation hardly ever came up, even as White-Best tirelessly...
There is no room for remorse if you are a Jamaican scammer. On the best days, such feelings could jeopardise one’s loot, while on the worse, it may cause a slip-up that ends in a prison sentence or death. That’s the resolve of some scammers who...
It is a constituency rich with cultural, political and musical legacy, yet pauperised by decrepit infrastructure, overcrowding, and bloody gun feuds that outlive members of parliament (MPs) elected to its reins. There is no doubt that there...
In the most nightmarish incidents of corporal punishment, Jamaican children are tortured, burned, and maimed by their parents and guardians for the most senseless reasons. And with more than 30 broken bones, the plight of a two-year-old girl is...
Seventeen consecutive days of water leaks, all starting precisely at 11:59 p.m., with no identified end time and with consumption volumes mysteriously lower than days when there were no leaks, statements from the National Water Commission (NWC)...
Police lookouts and gun transporters. After-dark taxi operators and prostitutes. Hitmen for the island’s unrelenting gangs. These are the job descriptions of some of Jamaica’s children; those most hardened by cold nights and sweat-stained days ‘...
It remains a mystery how Rosheda Richards’* monthly bill from the National Water Commission (NWC) skyrocketed to more than $100,000 in under a month – and for new premises unoccupied at the time – but the utility company is insisting the new...
The stench of sewage permeated their yards days after Tropical Storm Elsa doused the island. Backwash, residents said, from a clogged drain outside the Seville Meadows Phase Three perimeter fence in St Catherine. It is a hard reminder of the knee-...
Hundreds of Jamaican men are deeply scarred from forced sexual encounters during childhood, usually at the hands of older women who leave trails of psychological nightmares in their wake. That is the argument from experts as the island’s multi-...
Just like the constant mutation of the coronavirus, the Jamaica Medical Doctors’ Association’s (JMDA) fight over demeaning work contracts seems a recurring issue, with ultimately one major casualty of the unending war – helpless citizens. One year...
It has been two decades of long showers, uselessly trying to scrub away the shame and guilt that torment victims, but, for Latanya Binns*, those emotions may never leave – especially as her first child came from her being heinously raped at age 17...
Except for a brief tour during which Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr and technocrats sprinkled a paltry 20 mangrove saplings along the 15-kilometre stretch, it seems little has been done to address the ‘incomplete’ Palisadoes strip that...
The trip is not for the faint of heart. Smuggled migrants using The Bahamas to gain entry into Florida from Jamaica risk being robbed, shot, or eaten by sharks in a’ dog-eat-dog’, every man for himself pursuit of the ‘American Dream’. The lucky...
It takes renewed resolve, serious discipline, and undying sacrifice to be a good father during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even more so, it seems, for those risking their lives on the coronavirus front line or for those entrepreneurs trying to weave a...
George Campbell can still hear his mother’s screams for help as she and his father disappeared beneath the raging Hope River in St Andrew during the passing of Hurricane Gustav in 2008. The death wails, he said, are chilling, and similar to those...
