WESTERN BUREAU: Despite currently enjoying a 38 per cent decline in major crimes, there remains heightened concern in St Elizabeth about an uptick in murders, according to Superintendent Coleridge Minto, the police commander for the parish. 

There was a quiet authority in the way Fione Collins addressed the room — less a ceremonial overview, more a reflection shaped by lived experience at the frontlines of care. As the 2025-2026 LASCO/Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) Nurse of the Year, Collins used the International Nurses Day press briefing, held on Tuesday at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, not just to look back, but to challenge how Jamaica — and the wider world — understands and supports its nurses.

WESTERN BUREAU:  Michael Troupe, the leader of the People’s National Party’s (PNP) minority in the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC), on Thursday angered his colleagues on the opposite side when he blamed recent police killings in his Granville division on Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness' 'meet a judge or meet your maker' utterance in 2025.

The Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information has hit back after Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon was taken to task on Wednesday over comments she had made regarding delays in the approval process for a perimeter fence at Naggo Head Primary School in Portmore.

Jamaica, with the help of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has completed the draft for a 10-year National Agricultural Development Plan, Grow Forward, that will now seek feedback from stakeholders before finalisation.

A vicious daylight attempted robbery in Half-Way Tree, St Andrew, on Friday afternoon left an elderly man dead and triggered major traffic congestion across sections of the Corporate Area as police launched a probe into the brazen attack.

Jamaicans with United States (US) citizenship who owe outstanding child support payments are being encouraged to urgently rectify their status or risk having their US passports cancelled, leaving them unable to travel.

There was a quiet authority in the way Fione Collins addressed the room — less a ceremonial overview, more a reflection shaped by lived experience at the frontlines of care. As the 2025-2026 LASCO/Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) Nurse of the Year, Collins used the International Nurses Day press briefing, held on Tuesday at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, not just to look back, but to challenge how Jamaica — and the wider world — understands and supports its nurses.

Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Alando Terrelonge, says the Government looks forward to working with the new US ambassador. 

Western Bureau: With some 20 persons still being housed in the four shelters that are still open in Hanover, there are now concerns over whether they will be properly settled ahead of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, which is looming on the horizon. 

WESTERN BUREAU: Dr Francine Phillips-Kelly, the medical officer of health for St  James, says the parish’s health department is paying keen attention to the cruise ship piers in both Montego Bay and Falmouth, in Trelawny, as it takes steps to prevent the spread of the deadly hantavirus disease in western Jamaica. 

Five residents of Salt Spring have been recognised by Project STAR as community champions, honoured for their consistent volunteerism, leadership and commitment to community development.

As global fertiliser and oil prices climb in the wake of the Strait of Hormuz closure amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, Jamaica’s Ministry of Agriculture says it is rolling out a comprehensive strategy to lessen the potential fallout on the country’s agriculture and fisheries sectors.

St John’s, Antigua: Jamaica’s move to tighten regulations on Airbnb and other short-term rental operators is gaining wider Caribbean backing, with regional hoteliers now demanding equal taxation across the accommodation sector while also pushing back against new commission practices by Booking.com that they say could drain millions from the region.

Persons residing in Jamaica shelled out almost J$500 million on OnlyFans last year, more than any other English-s Speaking Caribbean country. This is according web activity tracker OnlyGuider, which reviewed the subscription-only social media platform famous for facilitating the sharing of adult content.

Business executive Alpha Smith was yesterday found guilty of assault occasioning grievious bodily harm, bringing to an end a four-year court case arising from an incident involving a United States citizen.

WESTERN BUREAU: Black River Mayor Richard Solomon says St Elizabeth remains dangerously unprepared for the Atlantic hurricane season, which begins in another two weeks, with more than half of its emergency shelters left unusable after Hurricane Melissa’s destruction last year.

Western Bureau: Residents of Woodsville, in Hanover, who have been operating with a makeshift bridge they created following the collapse of the 100-year-old Woodsville bridge four years ago, are making yet another plea to the authorities to replace the bridge immediately. They say  the one they created from logs and trees has become structurally unsafe, following recent rains.

WESTERN BUREAU: Malaika, Mahari and Mikalli Foster, known in gospel music circles as the Foster Triplets, have been awarded the keys to the city of Worcester, in Massachusetts, for their ongoing ‘We Will Rise’ benefit initiative, which is raising funds to assist families in Westmoreland, who were displaced by Hurricane Melissa.

When the next academic year begins in September 2026, Jamaican Justin Brown will be one of 10 international students starting a Master of Management in Analytics postgraduate programme at McGill University in Canada.

The Portmore Municipal Council has sharply rebuked Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon, the minister of education, skills, youth and information, accusing her of misleading the public with claims that bureaucracy caused an 18‑month delay in building approvals for a perimeter fence at Naggo Head Primary School in St Catherine.

A 13-year-old Excelsior High School student remains in a coma at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) after she was stabbed while trying to intervene in a violent domestic dispute in Bayshore Park in the vicinity of Harbour View, St Andrew, on Saturday night.

Wayne Chai Chong said the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) board he led for about a year from December 2022 had identified corrective steps for a litany of problems later flagged by the Auditor General’s Department (AuGD) in a performance audit. However, he said very little was done by the management to implement the recommendations.

Period poverty in Jamaica is to be addressed by the government, according to Health Minister Christopher Tufton, who made the announcement during his Sectoral debate in parliament on Tuesday. Period poverty is one of 10 areas that will get attention under the government’s new initiative, the half-a-billion dollar Social Determinants of Health CARE Fund, the minister disclosed.

Four months after Category 5 Hurricane Melissa left a path of destruction, particularly across southern and western Jamaica, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) had spent only $26 million, or 1.8 per cent of the $1.44 billion in cash donation to assist Jamaicans devastated by the storm.

WESTERN BUREAU: Former colonels Meredith Rowe and Ferron Williams, who plan to contest the upcoming Accompong Maroon leadership elections, have raised concerns about the process, which is being managed by the incumbent chief, Richard Currie, who is seeking re-election. The men are arguing that the electoral process is unfair and flawed.

Amid ongoing complaints about the state of infrastructure in the health sector, the Government will, this year, be pumping $1 billion into the establishment of its Health Infrastructure Maintenance Fund (HIMF), through which a range of initiatives are to be established this year with the aim of addressing ongoing concerns about the rundown state of facilities in the health sector as well as tackle the social factors that play a role in determining the poor state of health of large segments of the Jamaican population.

Among the delights of life that bring people together while aligning cultures is food, and Chef Claudia Parkinson knows that only too well. For the last eight years, the St Mary native has been feeding the family and guests of three British high commissioners to Jamaica, serving Asif Ahmad and Judith Slater, and now Alicia Herbert.

Vice-Admiral Antonette Wemyss-Gorman, chief of defence staff of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), released her first memoir, Life, Duty & Command, on Sunday on Amazon. Within 24 hours of its release, the memoir earned a place on Amazon’s Best Seller list in the Jamaica, Caribbean & West Indies History category.

Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said Jamaicans should begin seeing improvements in the health sector in the coming months as the Government makes progress in addressing the shortage of specialist nurses in the sector, which worsened when the country ended its medical cooperation with Cuba.

The European Union (EU) is seeking to rebrand its relationship with Jamaica, signalling a shift away from traditional donor-recipient dynamics to a partnership of potential amid a crumbling global order.

With a little over a month to go before the 11th Biennial Diaspora Conference takes place in Jamaica, efforts are being ramped up to generate interest and get more people in the diaspora to register for the event.

Businessman and author Dwight Clacken has been ordered to discontinue the publication of the offending material contained in the book No Justice in Jamaica after the High Court found it contained defamatory statements about his former business partner, Michael Causwell Sr, and his son, Michael Causwell Jr.