A massive fire ripped through a section of the business district along Hagley Park Road in St Andrew on Thursday, flattening at least three buildings in its wake. The fire reportedly started some time after 11 a.m. in the repairs section of the headquarters of Superior Honda Parts Limited, an auto parts dealer and service centre that specialises in new and used Honda vehicle components, motorcycles, and related automotive services. It subsequently spread to neighbouring auto-parts supplier and service centre Ketro Trading Company Limited.

Veteran Jamaican broadcaster Dervan Malcolm has died. Malcolm, whose broadcasting career spanned more than 30 years, died on Thursday after a brief illness. He was a popular voice on Power 106 FM, where he worked for decades in various capacities, including as a news presenter, editor, sportscaster, talk-show producer and executive producer. Malcolm was best known as the longtime host and producer of the station’s current affairs programme, ‘Both Sides of the Story’.

A fire at the Petrojam refinery on Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston was extinguished shortly after breaking out Thursday night, with no injuries reported and no disruption to the island’s fuel supplies. Petrojam General Manager Danville Walker said all employees on duty have been accounted for and confirmed that no one was injured. “First, all of our staff members are accounted for; there were no injuries to any of our staff on duty. Our employee support team is on site to provide any additional assistance,” Walker said.

The Government has signalled its intention to re-establish a cap on the public sector wage bill, extending an open invitation to trade unions to help negotiate a new fiscal rule before the next round of wage talks. The proposal, made by Minister of Finance and the Public Service Fayval Williams on Thursday, comes three years after the previous statutory anchor – which capped public-sector wages at nine per cent of GDP – was repealed to accommodate the public sector compensation restructuring.

WESTERN BUREAU: A call is being made for Jamaicans to lobby the Government to repeal and replace the Beach Control Act of 1956, which Dr Devon Taylor, president of the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM), says is robbing citizens of their rightful access to the nation’s beaches and coastlines.

The St Catherine North Police Division is recording a significant decline in murders, with Senior Superintendent of Police Hopeton Nicholson describing the trend as evidence of improving safety and security across the division. Nicholson, who heads the division, said the area has recorded a 43 per cent reduction in murders, resulting in the lowest number of killings since the division was established 30 years ago.

Seven Jamaicans have secured fully funded UK Government scholarships for the 2026 academic year, earning places in one-year master’s programmes at some of the United Kingdom’s leading universities. The cohort comprises three Chevening Scholars and four Commonwealth Scholars, representing six parishes and a diverse range of disciplines, including finance, technology law, entrepreneurship, construction economics, global health, community development, and innovation and technology management.

Jamaicans are once again being urged to conserve water as the country continues to face severe drought conditions. Matthew Samuda, minister of water, environment and climate change, said the prolonged lack of rainfall is placing increasing pressure on Jamaica’s primary water sources, making conservation essential.

Nearly a dozen high-ranking policemen and soldiers are the targets of a widening narcotics investigation linked to the seizure of cocaine from a police storage facility in January, which has drawn the attention of Jamaica’s international law-enforcement partners, sources have disclosed. According to the sources, the investigation has been expanded to determine whether law-enforcement personnel significantly under-reported the quantity of cocaine seized during an operation in western Jamaica months earlier.

When mom Kerrine Blair realised that she could do no more to influence her son’s career choice, she admitted defeat and decided to fully support him in his quest to become a pilot. The fact that she had just bought a house in Montego Bay, St James, hardly mattered then. She packed up and headed east to enable him to attend Wolmer’s Boys’ School after he got his first choice in the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations. Today, she has no regrets as her son, Mikhail Grey, is a pilot at just 19.

WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President La Sonja Harrison has described the condition of Mile Gully High School in Manchester as unacceptable, declaring that it is “not fit to carry out the business of education”. Harrison made the observation during a question-and-answer session with Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon at the recently concluded 62nd annual conference of the JTA in Trelawny.

Night-time garbage collection is being used in some sections of the island to beat the punishing heat, but workers say the approach comes with its own risks, including poor visibility, parked vehicles, and the danger of injury from improperly discarded items. National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) Executive Director Audley Gordon said the agency has adjusted collection schedules in some areas because of the heat, allowing workers to operate at night where possible.

WESTERN BUREAU: Senator Marlon Morgan is urging school administrators to exercise greater care in preparing book lists, arguing that parents are sometimes asked to purchase textbooks and workbooks that end up not being used in the classroom. Morgan, the parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Education, made the appeal while addressing a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) meeting in St Elizabeth on Sunday.

Years after retiring from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), two former district constables say they are still without their full pensions, leaving them in financial distress and demanding answers. Derrick Foster told The Gleaner he spent 36 years in the JCF working at the Pedro Plains Police Station in St Elizabeth before retiring. Two years after his retirement, he said, he received an interim payment of about $800,000, which was intended to suffice until his final pension payment.

Four of the five children abandoned at the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine have spent their entire lives at the facility, a situation Chief Executive Officer Jacqueline Ellis says is unacceptable. The latest child – a male who is one and a half years old – has remained at the hospital 11 months after being discharged. Hospital records show that four of the children – whose ages range from 10 months to two and a half years old – were left by their parents shortly after birth to be adopted. The other child was left there for “care and protection”.

More than two decades after they met in high school in Jamaica and became friends, Rene Myrie and Francine Forbes have combined their professional knowledge to create Choobi, an artificial intelligence-powered mental wellness companion.

“What is a community without a library to help the kids with assignments and things to print?” That is the question a 15-year-old St Mary student is asking as the Oracabessa Branch Library faces closure, leaving students and residents uncertain about where they will turn for books, Internet access, printing, and a place to study. The Jamaica Library Service (JLS) says the branch was temporarily closed on August 15 because of concerns about the safety and condition of the building. The closure came ahead of the August 31 expiration of its tenancy arrangement.

WESTERN BUREAU: While J.C. Hutchinson will be stepping down as the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) deputy leader in charge of Area Council Four come October, he has made it clear that he plans to remain active to help secure a fourth consecutive term for the party. In reminding party supporters that he has served as an officer of the area council for more than two decades, Hutchinson said he intends to use his retirement from the position to focus even more on helping the JLP secure victories at the municipal and parliamentary levels.

The late Cambridge professor Jason Arday was set to deliver a message of hope to Jamaican parents of autistic children before his untimely death, organisers of the Hope, Tools and Tomorrow Autism Summit have revealed.

Four of the five children abandoned at the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine have spent their entire lives at the facility, a situation Chief Executive Officer Jacqueline Ellis says is unacceptable. The latest child – a male who is one and a half years old – has remained at the hospital 11 months after being discharged. Hospital records show that four of the children – whose ages range from 10 months to two and a half years old – were left by their parents shortly after birth to be adopted. The other child was left there for “care and protection”.

Grace Baston, the lead implementer behind the Grade Seven Academy Reading initiative at Holy Trinity High School in Kingston, could not be more pleased with the latest findings from the third student-administered assessment of grade-eight students this year. Compared with the first assessment, the latest results show a 91.7 per cent improvement, while less than one per cent of students declined and 7.5 per cent remained at the same level. The findings are contained in the executive summary for the 2026 academic year.

New Falmouth Resorts Limited is facing a mounting $26.3-million tax bill on more than 260 acres of prime land, which is now at the centre of a public dispute between Coopers Pen residents and the company. Official Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) records obtained by The Gleaner reveal that the company, which acquired the land in March 2006, has failed to pay property taxes for six consecutive years since 2020, racking up more than $2 million in penalties. Tax on the land, currently valued at $390 million, amounts to $3.4 million annually.

Three passengers counting their blessings, a wrecked Mitsubishi Pajero and a dead cow were the grim remnants of a frightening late-night collision last week on the May Pen-to-Mandeville leg of the toll highway. Stray cattle had breached the fencing and wandered onto the dark roadway, where vehicles travel at speeds of up to 110 mph.

One hundred and thirty-one persons are set to receive Dr Barry Wint Memorial Scholarships this year, pushing the total number of recipients to more than 800 since the programme began in 2024. The developmental scholarships are aimed at training persons to return to the healthcare sector and help in needed areas of a period of time.

The 2026 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) English language examination success of young grades 8 and 9 students Andrelissa Brown and Tegan Brown of St Thomas Technical High School continues to demonstrate how students adjudged to be ‘slow learners’ can shine as a result of strategic interventions.

Grace Baston, the lead implementer behind the Grade Seven Academy Reading initiative at Holy Trinity High School in Kingston, could not be more pleased with the latest findings from the third student-administered assessment of grade-eight students this year. Compared with the first assessment, the latest results show a 91.7 per cent improvement, while less than one per cent of students declined and 7.5 per cent remained at the same level. The findings are contained in the executive summary for the 2026 academic year.

New Falmouth Resorts Limited is facing a mounting $26.3-million tax bill on more than 260 acres of prime land, which is now at the centre of a public dispute between Coopers Pen residents and the company. Official Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) records obtained by The Gleaner reveal that the company, which acquired the land in March 2006, has failed to pay property taxes for six consecutive years since 2020, racking up more than $2 million in penalties. Tax on the land, currently valued at $390 million, amounts to $3.4 million annually.

WESTERN BUREAU: “Where are you, Mr Prime Minister? Where are you? We need help.” It was the anguished cry from Cooper’s Pen, on Saturday morning as residents, some already homeless and others fearful that their houses could be next, returned to the streets demanding intervention and relocation in the wake of a demolition exercise that has shaken the Trelawny community. Dressed in white and armed with placards, the residents gathered along the North Coast Highway from early morning, insisting that they are no longer looking merely for temporary assistance.

A St Catherine woman has been left worrying about the fate of her grandsons after she and the family was asked to find another school for the two cousins, who administrators at Enid Bennett High School have described as among the institution’s most problematic students.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP): It’s not all about short-legged speed when 150 corgis gather for an international race celebrating the little dogs. There’s a costume parade, the “smartest nose”, and – of course – the loudest bark.

UNITED NATIONS (AP): The United States has demanded that Cuba open up to private investment, and Cuba has passed sweeping reforms to encourage just that. So Cuba’s UN ambassador says he wants to know why Washington keeps piling on sanctions that stymie the very economic opening it has sought for decades. Ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, in an interview this week with The Associated Press, directed his question to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the main architect of the Trump administration’s Cuba policy.

For students starting at a new school, the first day holds many questions: Will they see any familiar faces? Who will they sit with at lunch? Who will they play with at recess? “I’m this much nervous,” said Iman Fair-Seldon, five, holding her hands about four inches (10 centimetres) apart. Iman will start first grade next month at a new school in southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia. Despite the nerves, she said she is excited to make new friends.

WESTERN BUREAU: “Where are you, Mr Prime Minister? Where are you? We need help.” It was the anguished cry from Cooper’s Pen, on Saturday morning as residents, some already homeless and others fearful that their houses could be next, returned to the streets demanding intervention and relocation in the wake of a demolition exercise that has shaken the Trelawny community. Dressed in white and armed with placards, the residents gathered along the North Coast Highway from early morning, insisting that they are no longer looking merely for temporary assistance.

A St Catherine woman has been left worrying about the fate of her grandsons after she and the family was asked to find another school for the two cousins, who administrators at Enid Bennett High School have described as among the institution’s most problematic students.

WESTERN BUREAU: They started with mathematics. Then students wanted Spanish, English, science, information technology and social studies. Soon, four weekdays were not enough. “Miss, we’re ready,” they told their educators. Saturday was added. Then Sunday.