Government Senator Dr Elon Thompson has accused some persons online of carrying out what he described as a “digital mobbing” of Speaker of the House of Representatives Juliet Holness in the wake of the kerfuffle over the removal of the mace by Opposition MP Angela Brown-Burke and her subsequent suspension from the sitting by the presiding officer.

Petrojam is strongly dismissing as false a message circulating via WhatsApp and social media platforms warning of a fuel shortage.

Over strong objections by prosecutors and the police, a judge has offered popular St Ann-based attorney Debby-Ann Samuels a multimillion-dollar bail package with strict conditions.

Former Public Defender Arlene Harrison has welcomed Wednesday’s landmark Constitutional Court ruling on the controversial Bengal mining permit, describing it as a pivotal moment in the protection of Jamaicans’ environmental rights.

The cessation of flights by United States budget carrier, Spirit Airlines, is not expected to have a major impact on Jamaica, according to Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.

A 53-year-old mason has been arrested and charged following the seizure of a firearm and ammunition during a police operation in St Andrew on Friday night.

Jamaica will receive new direct flights from Canada after Porter Airlines announced expanded service to Montego Bay for the 2026 to 2027 winter season.

Police in Manchester are probing a double murder following the fatal shooting of a man and a woman in Farm district in the south of the parish on Saturday morning.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining is targeting the recovery of the yam industry with a $100 million investment. Portfolio minster Floyd Green said the support is part of a broader strategic response to the agricultural industry, following the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa. He was speaking on Tuesday during the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) Recovery and Investment Forum held at the ministry’s playing field at Hope Gardens in St Andrew.

After two intense days, more than 30,000 grade six students across the island are breathing a collective sigh of relief after completing the 2026 Primary Exit Profile (PEP), the outcome of which will determine their high-school placements. On Wednesday, they sat papers in mathematics and language arts, and on Thursday, they did the ability test. On Thursday, the poundiing rain drenching the lush vegetation did not put a damper on the energies of the students at Red Hills Primary in rural St Andrew as they waited for their rides home after completing the final paper.

WESTERN BUREAU: Stephen Price, vice-president and general manager of FLOW Jamaica, is endorsing the proposed establishment of the National Regulatory Reform Authority (NaRRA), arguing that Jamaica must urgently remove bureaucratic bottlenecks, which are slowing critical infrastructure rollout.

WESTERN BUREAU: National Security and Peace Minister Dr Horace Changs says body cameras are being dangerously overestimated as a cure-all for Jamaica’s deep-rooted policing challenges. “Bring me one research paper, just one, that shows cameras, by themselves, solve the problem,” said Chang, while speaking at a pipeline project in Montego Bay, St James, on Wednesday. “There are many other issues. Cameras don’t stop crime.”

Tributes flooded the airwaves on Thursday as stunned colleagues, listeners, and relatives saluted broadcaster Daniel ‘DT’ Thompson, who passed away after falling ill earlier this week. For 28 years, the St Elizabeth native’s smooth, rich, and velvety baritone was a constant for listeners of Radio Jamaica 94 FM. Through the decades, he worked across every time slot on the station and had his own show.

Before the sun broke through the morning mist last Sunday, the roadway flanked by farmlands in New Forest was already alive. More than 120 runners and walkers – students, teachers, and corporate teams – gathered at New Forest High School (NFHS) for the institution’s second annual 5K Run/Walk, an event with a mission far beyond fitness. The funds raised will establish a staff welfare fund, a direct response to the growing pressures facing educators and ancillary workers within the institution.

The family of seven-month-old Anna-Olivia Gardener has expressed relief and joy after the child, who is affected by Trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome), was given a new start date of May 11 to begin early stimulation. In January, Anna-Olivia had been assigned a December 2027 start date for treatment at the Kingston-based, government-run Early Stimulation Programme (ESP), an almost two-year wait. Early stimulation of the brain is a critical part of development for infants affected in the way Anna-Olivia is.

WESTERN BUREAU: Attorneys representing Adam Stewart have welcomed last week’s Supreme Court ruling striking out an application by executors of the estate of Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, arguing that the decision removes a key obstacle to the transfer of shares to the hotelier’s son. “This judgment is significant. Butch Stewart died over five years ago. In his uncontested will, he left a majority interest in the ATL Group to Adam,” said Conrad George, partner at Hart Muirhead Fatta.

When Member of Parliament for St Andrew South Western Dr Angela Brown Burke hoisted the mace from “under the table” while the committee of the whole House examined the controversial National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) bill on Tuesday, there was a predictable outcome – chaos ensued.

WESTERN BUREAU: Despite still feeling the impact of Hurricane Melissa, which devastated Jamaica last October, the 2026 sitting of the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations started smoothly across western Jamaica yesterday, with students, parents, and teachers expressing confidence and relief. Dominic Robinson, the 12-year-old head boy at Chetwood Memorial Primary School in St James, told The Gleaner that he felt confident about his chances of passing, despite feeling nervous about the examinations hours earlier.

A domestic dispute between a father and a son turned deadly in a quiet farming community in Mountainside, St Elizabeth, on Tuesday afternoon. Dead is Gary Allwood, a 53-year-old farmer, who was reportedly stabbed multiple times inside his home by his 19-year-old son, said to be mentally challenged. The teenager is now in police custody as investigations continue. Reports are that some time after 1 p.m., an argument developed between the two at their residence after the father reportedly instructed his son to take some prescribed medication.

Focused on revenue recovery, the Jamaica Customs Agency (JCA) has launched an audit of the last three years to assess breaches by the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) involving misuse of its tax-exempt status to import goods for private companies. JCA Acting CEO Kirk Benjamin told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday that if the probe uncovers fraudulent activities, the agency would extend its investigations to the last seven years.

WESTERN BUREAU: A Caymanian government official is urging Caribbean countries to provide stronger support to regulatory bodies, saying that underinvestment in these institutions could undermine the region’s development ambitions. Speaking at the 20th Organisation of Caribbean Utility Regulators (OCCUR) Conference in Trelawny, Rolston Anglin, the minister of finance and economic development, education and training in the Cayman Islands, said governments must deepen their engagement with regulators and recognise their critical economic role.

WESTERN BUREAU: Andrew Wheatley, minister without portfolio with responsibility for science, technology, and special projects, has warned that the Caribbean’s energy transition and digital transformation has moved “from aspirational to urgent” and is calling on regional regulators to act with greater foresight and collaboration.

Arguing that Jamaica’s education system was gradually collapsing, Opposition Spokesman on Education Damion Crawford on Tuesday announced that he has taken the Government to court to defend the constitutional rights of children at the pre-primary and primary levels.

After experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of primary school students will tomorrow sit the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations just six months after the catastrophic Category 5 Hurricane Melissa brought another abrupt pause to their primary school education. PEP is Jamaica’s national assessment system which is used to place students in secondary schools.

The image of his house being submerged in floodwaters still plagues 79-year-old Leebert Campbell, even haunting him in his dreams. His home – located on Gibson Close, off Ward Avenue in Mandeville, Manchester – was one of three that were swamped when Hurricane Melissa unleashed up to 40 inches of rainfall on the island six months ago.

WESTERN BUREAU: Seventy-year-old Parotte fisherman Basil Bennett said he stood in stunned disbelief and watched his home collapse under the brutal force of Hurricane Melissa’s Category 5 winds as it ripped through St Elizabeth last October. “It wasn’t pretty, but I lived it out,” Bennett said, reflecting on the moment his decades-built dwelling gave way to the storm’s intensity. He recalled that as the approaching hurricane strengthened, normal life quickly turned into survival.

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness is expected today to respond to mounting concerns over the proposed National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) bill, a sweeping piece of legislation that has drawn criticism from civil society groups, a government lawmaker, and the parliamentary Opposition. At Gordon House, Holness faces three main options: push the bill through unchanged, agree to amendments, or refer it to a joint select committee for further review.

WESTERN BUREAU: Six months after the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, residents of the small coastal community of Parottee in St Elizabeth say their most urgent needs are the restoration of electricity and access to water, as recovery continues at a slow pace. “We have a big issue here with water and light, but water is our main issue, and water is life,” said Sandra Linton-Jones, a 62-year-old fish vendor who sells at the Black River Fish Market.

The Board and members of Peace and Love in Society (PALS) Jamaica is mourning the death of 13-year-old Kland Doyle, a Seaforth High School student fatally stabbed last week following a long-standing dispute with a schoolmate that families on both sides say could have been resolved. “We are equally troubled by the viral footage of a violent assault at Jamaica College,” stated PALS, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting peaceful conflict resolution and respectful communication in schools and communities across Jamaica.

Two St Catherine men, who had spent more than 15 years behind bars for the killing of a mother of five in Central Village, were on Friday freed after the Court of Appeal quashed their murder convictions. The men, Kimarley Fortella and Kestner Murray, had been in custody since November 2010 and were convicted in 2014 for the murder of 35-year-old Corrine Johnson, otherwise called ‘Debby’. Johnson was shot and killed at her home in Central Village on January 14, 2010.

The Government’s push to provide free cervical cancer screening for women and raise awareness during April is showing results, with some clinics reporting that they have exceeded their screening targets. The South East Regional Health Authority (SEHRA), in a release promoting the service, said cancer of the cervix is one of the most common cancers among Jamaican women. Most cases are associated with the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), which is sexually transmitted through skin-to-skin contact.

A 61-year-old Colombian national was gunned down in a brazen attack at Kensington Court in New Kingston on Friday night, in what investigators believe may be linked to transnational organised criminal activity. The deceased has been identified as Julian Lopez. The killing, which occurred at about 9:40 p.m., has intensified concerns about a recent flare-up of violent incidents in the commercial hub, even as security forces maintain that the latest case appears isolated from other recent murders in the area.

During four days on a cardboard bed in the Half-Way Tree lock-up –in a 31-year-old case that has lingered in the system since 1995 – Courtney Anderson was introduced to the rats that patrol the cells, biting and searching for scraps from those behind bars. Fixing his mind on surviving cell life until he was bailed, he said he was unprepared for the nightly rodent patrol.

Rising fuel prices amid the US-Israel war against Iran are now threatening school attendance, with transportation emerging as the primary concern for administrators across the island. Several school leaders say they are bracing for increased absenteeism, as some parents – particularly in rural communities – consider sending children to school only a few days per week instead of daily as transport costs increase. Others warn that a return to online learning, similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, could become necessary if petrol prices continue to rise.

Penile cancer, a rare but serious disease often linked to the human papillomavirus (HPV), is leaving some Jamaican men facing devastating consequences, including the loss of their penis and the end of their ability to father children. Consultant urologist Dr Elon Thompson told The Sunday Gleaner that while penile cancer is not as common as prostate cancer in men or cervical cancer in women, local cases have been recorded, with some requiring complete surgical removal of the organ.