WESTERN BUREAU: With motorcyclists being the leading category of fatalities among the nearly 500 deaths on the nation’s roads last year, the police are gearing up for an islandwide clampdown on illegal motorcycles as the new Road Traffic...
With all the boxes ticked to be selected in 2018, Karen Blake* headed to a recruitment drive being held by the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in the resort town of Negril in the western end of the island. This was her dream job. There was no plan B. But...
Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, Velma Campbell Robinson‘s world was suddenly turned on its head, and the independence she once took for granted became a painful memory, after she woke up one morning unable to see. It all...
With two weeks to go before Christmas Day, 256 wards in children’s homes and places of safety in western Jamaica are hoping that Jamaicans will open their hearts and extend the kindness and cheer of the festive season to them and make their wishes...
Roughly 25 mainly international firms have expressed interest in participating in the bidding process to manage the island’s solid waste under a proposed public-private partnership (PPP) programme, which will see Jamaica embracing industry best...
For more than a decade, he lived among them, earned their trust, and did odd jobs on their properties. Now, residents in the middle-class community of Dunbar Pen in Norwood, St James, are reeling from the fact that the American man they all knew as...
A United States-based woman’s desire to build her dream home in Jamaica is being threatened by ongoing disputes between property owners at the Negril Estate in Westmoreland and the developer, Reading Holdings Limited. Enticed by the promise of...
Organised criminality continues to spread across Jamaica, as the gang culture extends its tentacles far and wide, even as law enforcement has been at pains to keep it under control. Last week’s much-publicised land scam in Clifton, St Catherine is...
The Montego Bay-based St James High School was once considered a den of lawlessness, where future gangsters and young criminal minds passed the time. The wanton disregard for authority in the many inner-city communities surrounding the tourist...
Former Police Commissioner Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin believes the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) should assume responsibility for all persons detained in criminal investigations or awaiting trial, and the police relieved of duties to...
Five months after an elderly woman and her grandchild were washed into Montego River by floodwaters in Montego Bay, St James, residents of Westgreen in the town are anxious about the expected increased rainfall over the next few days. The middle-...
The Supreme Court has quashed the National Environment and Planning Agency’s (NEPA) decision to grant an environmental licence for the construction of a sewage plant at a National Housing Trust (NHT) scheme in Industry Cove, Hanover. Despite...
Mount Salem in St James was the scene of yet another murder on Thursday, five years after a zone of special operations (ZOSO) declared in a section of the community ushered in relative peace. But as residents admit gains have been made, they fear...
It’s a welcome new experience for users of the public thoroughfare in the city of Montego Bay, St James, following an intense multi-agency initiative to restore law and order in the popular tourist resort. The brainchild of Senior Superintendent of...
With little or no disposable income from his monthly salary after meeting his obligations, senior teacher Bancroft Mullings* has spent the past four summers working as a labourer on farms in the United States to shore up his earnings. A specialist...
If current sentiment among People’s National Party (PNP) diehard supporters in Trelawny Northern is anything to go by, communication specialist, business owner and university lecturer Suzette Brown could be a shoo-in as the party’s new standard-...
The family of Taneka Gardner, whose throat was slashed during a religious ritual at a Montego Bay-based church last October, has engaged an attorney to represent their interest in regard to the delayed payout from her life insurance policy to her...
Frustrated by the daily struggles to make ends meet and the uncertainties that surround the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) bill, Castella Bennett*, a literary specialist with more than 18 years of experience, is now preparing to leave the island...
After more than three decades as an educator in Jamaica, former Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Owen Speid is now working in the United States. Like many of his colleagues who ditched local classrooms for more lucrative opportunities...
Movement for Justice, a United Kingdom-based immigration action group, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to assist a man who was deported to Jamaica in May, despite ongoing mental health issues and having been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia....
Ten months after Taneka Gardner’s throat-slashing murder at a Montego Bay-based church, her relatives are still in the dark on the details of her life insurance policy, from which they are anticipating a payout. Her sister, Shelana Gardner, who is...
With memories of unfulfilled commitments by bauxite-alumina firms in search of red gold over the years, residents in proximity to fresh areas being eyed for mining in St Elizabeth are seeking assurances from the operators of the JISCO Alpart plant...
The local transmission of Jamaica’s third case of the monkeypox virus has increased the fear among members of the LGBTQ+ community, in particular men who have sex with men, that there could be a severe backlash on the local gay community if action...
Even as properties along Negril’s famed Seven-Mile Beach anticipate healthy visitor arrivals during the summer period, tourist harassment remains a concern despite several mitigation measures over the years to curtail solicitation and illicit...
Several Jamaicans who have used chemicals to lighten their skin are now caught in a quandary as some medical practitioners are flatly refusing to treat them – regardless of their health concern – because of the heightened risk of developing life-...
