For many students, science can seem intimidating — a subject of complex formulas, unfamiliar terms and difficult ideas. For Donnell Dunkley, however, it represents something quite different: curiosity, discovery and opportunity. 

Efforts to expand Jamaica’s avocado (pear) industry gathered momentum last week as stakeholders in Clarendon launched a festival intended to spur rural development and exports.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Tanisha Ellison, Jamaica’s security attaché at the embassy in Washington, DC, has become the first Jamaican to graduate from the Inter-American Defense College (IADC). She joined 63 senior officials from across the Americas at a ceremony held at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) on June 12.

Western Bureau Matthew Samuda, minister of water, climate change and the environment, has described backyard pit latrines in high water-table communities as among the greatest environmental risks to Jamaica’s groundwater supply.

Western Bureau: Tiana Shantae Dinham, Jamaica’s 2026 Rhodes Scholar from Maryland in Hanover, was honoured at a civic ceremony in Bustamante Square in Lucea on Friday. Family, friends, and members of the wider community gathered to celebrate her success.

The Supreme Court has shut the door on a fresh bid for bail by Constable Marlando Rowe, ruling that he cannot relitigate bail decisions that have already been challenged even up to the Privy Council, Jamaica’s final appellate court. The Clarendon lawman was among six persons charged in a multimillion-dollar smishing scam involving an elderly bank customer in 2024, after US$5,500 (about J$840,000) was transferred from the complainant's account to his.

Jamaicans Sir Patrick Vernon and Dame Beverley Lindsay are among the honourees on King Charles’ 2026 birthday list. Vernon, who currently serves on the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council for United Kingdom (UK) South, was honoured for his contribution to racial equity, health equity and to social justice. Lindsay was honoured for her service to the West Midlands and to charity.

The Government’s announcement that it will be exploring the possibility of imposing a social media ban for children age 16 and under is being applauded by child advocates and education professionals, who say it would be a vital step in protecting young people from harmful online content and behaviour.

Kingston and Washington are expected to begin talks on an agreement first pitched by a senior Jamaican government official that could see the island accepting up to 10,000 non-Jamaicans being deported from the United States. A document from the United States Embassy in Kingston, seen by The Gleaner, outlines the operational framework for the proposed Third-Country Nationals (TCN) agreement, which has triggered controversy in several countries that have entered into similar arrangements with Washington.

Two St Ann homeowners have lost their bid for a larger payout after the Supreme Court upheld a $12-million compensation award for property acquired by the Government to facilitate the construction of Phase 2A of the Highway 2000 project.

WESTERN BUREAU: The St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC) last Thursday opened Montego Bay’s first automated car park, the first facility of its type in western Jamaica, allowing motorists who traverse the western city a location where they can park their vehicles using a modernised technological system.

The planned $58-million refurbishment of the Cross Keys Full Service Health Clinic in Manchester under the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ Operation Refresh programme has been hit by funding challenges, delaying completion and disrupting activities at the community centre where services are currently being provided.

Two members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) lost their lives, while three others were left nursing injuries following separate incidents across the island over the weekend. The incidents, which occurred in different parishes, have cast a pall over the force as investigations continue.

WESTERN BUREAU: A call has been made for Jamaicans at home and abroad to unite as a global community, speak out against injustices taking place internationally, and help strengthen their homeland. Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the suffragan bishop of Dover and Bishop in Canterbury of the Church of England, made the appeal while delivering the keynote sermon during a service held yesterday at Calvary Baptist Church in Montego Bay, St James, marking the start of this week's 11th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference.

Your relationships are key to your resilience and your progress at work. Thriving at your job becomes so much easier, and long-lasting, when you do it in the context of community. I am not speaking so much about your friends or accountability partners. I am speaking about relationships at work. 

You are at the eve of your miracle. That is why things are getting extremely rough. Don’t give up now, please. Push on! You are about to break forth. Yes, most divinely appointed projects, dreams, visions and lives go through stages of extreme frustration. At times, it will seem as if that project will never be achieved.

Social protections as a gospel imperative ought to inform the praxis of Christian theology. We must weep and cry out for those who continue to suffer in a system that finds itself returning $770 million of the $1 billion (set aside for the Government’s Solidarity Programme) for debt reduction.

A partnership between New Broughton Primary School and the Cross Keys Branch Library in Manchester is producing encouraging results in improving children’s reading levels. The modest library building is tucked away from the town square on the road leading to New Broughton. Although traditionally associated with reading and research, the facility has evolved into a multi-purpose community resource centre, functioning as a computer café, homework centre, and a research and printing hub.

When a rare but deadly rodent-borne virus struck passengers on a cruise ship and seemed to be spreading, there were no treatments for those who fell ill and no vaccines to protect others. That was the case even though it wasn’t a novel germ that the world had never seen before, like the virus that caused the coronavirus pandemic.

Across Jamaica, service stations are increasingly serving as social gathering spots and informal taxi hubs, attracting crowds far beyond their intended purpose and raising concerns about public safety. As people congregate to socialise, await transportation or conduct business amid fuel pumps and heavy vehicular traffic, safety advocates warn that the combination of large crowds, moving vehicles and flammable fuels creates risks with potentially serious consequences.

A motorist who fled the scene of a deadly accident in Ocho Rios, St Ann, on Saturday morning was handed over to the police hours later. Reports are that the motorist was driving along Main Street about 6:10 a.m., when he lost control of the white 2014 Toyota Mark X, which ran across the roadway, mounted the sidewalk and mowed down a pedestrian before slamming into a utility pole.

A grieving family is demanding answers and the release of a post-mortem report following the death of their relative, 62-year-old Michael Neita, at Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, St James, on May 25. Neita, a tour bus operator from Tucker, Irwin in St James, was reportedly sitting on a chair in the hospital’s waiting area from May 24, when he went there complaining of abdominal pains, up to his death the following day.

WESTERN BUREAU: La Sonja Harrison, the president-elect of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), is urging teachers to prepare themselves for renewed opposition to the proposed Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill, which she has described as “an ever-present danger”. 

With fraudulent social media accounts increasingly advertising homes and even purporting to offer National Housing Trust (NHT) houses for sale, members of the public are being urged to verify agents and property listings before parting with money or personal information.

Councillors at Thursday's general meeting of the St Catherine Municipal Corporation renewed calls for the construction of a new municipal building, arguing that the current facility is no longer suitable for effective governance and poses serious health risks.

WESTERN BUREAU: Andrea Purkiss, the opposition spokesman on tourism, is accusing the Government of presiding over a decline in Jamaica’s cruise tourism sector, arguing that the island is losing market share while competing Caribbean destinations enjoy record growth in passenger arrivals.

Residents of Cross Keys and more than a dozen surrounding districts are celebrating the return of their post office to the rural Manchester town after a temporary relocation to Knockpatrick left many struggling with increased travel costs and inconvenience. The facility has a long history in Cross Keys. It originally occupied a prominent position in the centre of the town square, a location that offered sweeping views of sections of Clarendon and nearby cays on clear days. 

WESTERN BUREAU: LaSonja Harrison, the president-elect of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), on Thursday expressed disappointment with the current state of some of the schools in western Jamaica, which were impacted by Hurricane Melissa. "When I go around to the schools in the west, we still have colleagues who, when rainfall comes, are getting wet all over again, and education is expected to take place in those settings,” she said, while addressing the JTA’s St James Parish Association Annual General Meeting in Montego Bay.

Director General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) Dr Wayne Henry is suggesting that flexible, hybrid, and remote-work arrangements could help to manage fuel price shocks, reduce pressure on imports, and strengthen Jamaica’s economic resilience by reducing commuting activity and lowering fuel demand.

Residents of Retirement, in St James, wept openly yesterday morning as they angrily rubbished the police claim that four men who were shot and killed in an operation in the community had engaged them in a shootout.

A senior Government official has made an urgent appeal for a restart of the drawn out constitutional reform process that would remove the British Monarch as Jamaica’s head of state and urged lawmakers on the Opposition side to nudge their leader back to the negotiating table.

When the FIFA World Cup kicks off later today in Mexico, many Jamaicans in the Diaspora will be seated in front of their television sets watching the games rather than attending matches. The main reason, they say, is the high price of tickets. Allan Cunningham told The Gleaner that he would love to attend some of the matches being played in South Florida, where he lives, but the price of tickets makes that an impossibility.

Seven men were fatally shot in separate police operations across St Catherine, St Andrew and Clarendon on Tuesday, while a policeman was injured and at least five firearms were reportedly seized, in what appeared to be one of the deadliest days involving the security forces so far in 2026. The bloodiest incident unfolded shortly after 1:40 p.m. in the Bog Walk Gorge area of St Catherine, where police reported that officers came under attack and engaged armed men in a shootout. 

A performance audit has unmasked severe structural and financial challenges at the National Water Commission (NWC), revealing that the utility provider is buckling under a staggering $33-billion debt while failing to execute critical water and sewerage infrastructure upgrades.

NEW YORK: As the Caribbean communities across several states celebrate Caribbean Heritage Month, a number of planned events have been spread across the United States for June. But absent for the second straight year is a proclamation from the Trump Administration to herald the month.