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...

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 fo...

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.

A business development liaison officer has been appointed by the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) to spur investment in the Jamaican tourism industry from the diaspora. Appointed to the post is Vance Carter, a former vice-consul at the Jamaican Consulate in Miami. He will serve as business development officer with responsibility for the Jamaican diaspora in the United States (US). Carter took up his position on August 17.

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 ...

People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding has embraced democratic socialism, the political philosophy championed by former PNP leader and Prime Minister Michael Manley in the 1970s, declaring that changing times are creating renewed interest in the ideology. Golding, addressing the PNP’s Greendale Divisional Conference on Thursday night, said the philosophy was gaining traction even in the United States (US), where, he argued, there was growing recognition of the need for governmen...

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.

Civil engineering dreams for Paul Thomas Watson were moulded as a teenage labourer on construction sites, working alongside his father. Now, days away from beginning his degree at the University of Technology (UTech), Watson fondly harkened back to his adolescence, when summer vacations exposed him to the fundamentals of building. His namesake father, a high school science educator who took on part-time contractor jobs to make ends meet, would bring Watson and his elder brother, Paul Lincoln,...

WESTERN BUREAU: Attorney-at-law Helene Coley Nicholson, president of Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship Jamaica, is encouraging educators to prioritise interpersonal interaction with students to develop their critical-thinking skills, rather than relying on artificial intelligence (AI), which she says may risk degrading a child’s cognitive development.

A former Rubis Energy Jamaica driver is fighting to be reinstated after claiming that he was forced to sign a resignation letter following allegations that he was involved in the theft of gas from company trucks. Aduke Walker, 48, who has worked with Rubis since 2023 and has received multiple awards, including two ‘Driver of the Year ’ awards, is insisting that he did not voluntarily resign on June 16 but was pressured into doing so. Asked why he complied and resigned if he was innocent, Walk...

WESTERN BUREAU: Travellers trying to get between Jamaica and Florida in the United States are facing airfares exceeding US$3,000, sold-out flights, and limited alternatives as a severe summer squeeze on airline seats takes hold. The crunch, particularly acute during July and August, has made getting to South Florida – normally less than two hours by air from Jamaica – an expensive and, in some cases, near-impossible exercise.

WESTERN BUREAU: Young Jamaicans are being challenged to look beyond Red Light, Yellow Light, Pepper Light hype and use the Internet to find scholarships, learn skills, and pursue opportunities capable of changing their lives. Clive Harris, group technical manager at Rainforest Caribbean, issued the challenge to scholarship recipients recently, arguing that today’s young people have access to a powerful resource that was not readily available to him while growing up.

As he enters his second year of law school at The University of the West Indies, Mona, 20-year-old Jaleel Smith is feeling more at ease after being awarded a scholarship that covers more than 50 per cent of his tuition fees. “It will allow me to go about the university life without being as anxious as first year was; dealing with student loans, dealing with the fact that my parents would have to go in further short-term death to deal with things, so (I now have) that peace of mind to be able ...

WESTERN BUREAU: Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon has dismissed concerns that there is a need to remove what some have labelled ‘political influence’ from school boards. According to Morris Dixon, the key issue should be the qualifications and experience of board members and chairpersons. “I wouldn’t call it that [political influence]. I am ambivalent to a certain extent in terms of who nominates the chair on the board. I think the key thing is the qualification of the persons a...

WESTERN BUREAU: Before Beverley Feare could prepare her students for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, she first had to find them. Hurricane Melissa had torn through the communities served by Maud McLeod High School in eastern Westmoreland, damaging the school, displacing families, and cutting communication with students at a critical point in their preparation for the examinations.

WESTERN BUREAU: Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon is urging teachers who observe substandard work, or little to no work at all, being done at their schools, which are undergoing repairs following Hurricane Melissa, to report it at once to the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth, and Information.

WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President La Sonja Harrison says she cannot change, declaring that she will continue to challenge the status quo and ask uncomfortable questions on behalf of teachers, even as she acknowledges that her outspoken approach has come at a cost. “I can’t change who I am. I really try not to be a hypocrite, I am a disruptor of the status quo,” Harrison said while addressing the eighth session of the 62nd JTA Conference, which was also attended by ...

Jamaica-born and Florida-based businessman Ricky Wade has expanded his holdings of McDonald’s franchises. Wade told The Gleaner that his company has acquired an additional five franchises in central and western Florida, bringing his total holdings to 33 McDonald’s stores. Additionally, his daughter, Devon-Ashley Wade, has also acquired her own McDonald’s franchise in Delray Beach, Florida. The younger Wade acquired her franchise store on June 15, and one month later, the family business close...

An upper St Andrew medical doctor has pleaded guilty to her involvement in an elaborate mortgage loan and real estate scheme used to defraud several Jamaican banks of approximately $600 million, court officials have disclosed. Chloe Douett, 30, who resides in Cherry Gardens, was convicted in the St Catherine Circuit Court on July 24 on an eight-count indictment, which includes seven crimes related to the fraud scheme and one linked to her licensed firearm, the Court Administration Division (C...

Nine men from Cooper’s Pen, Trelawny, who claim that they were rounded up by the police and kept in custody for hours during last week’s controversial demolition exercise in the community, have filed a lawsuit against the Government for breaches of their constitutional rights. The lawsuit, which was filed in the Supreme Court yesterday by the law firm Donnovan Collins & Company, seeks damages for false imprisonment and assault.

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...

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 fo...

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.

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.

People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding has embraced democratic socialism, the political philosophy championed by former PNP leader and Prime Minister Michael Manley in the 1970s, declaring that changing times are creating renewed interest in the ideology. Golding, addressing the PNP’s Greendale Divisional Conference on Thursday night, said the philosophy was gaining traction even in the United States (US), where, he argued, there was growing recognition of the need for governmen...

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.

Civil engineering dreams for Paul Thomas Watson were moulded as a teenage labourer on construction sites, working alongside his father. Now, days away from beginning his degree at the University of Technology (UTech), Watson fondly harkened back to his adolescence, when summer vacations exposed him to the fundamentals of building. His namesake father, a high school science educator who took on part-time contractor jobs to make ends meet, would bring Watson and his elder brother, Paul Lincoln,...

WESTERN BUREAU: Nurse practitioner Tackaya Brown-Lawrence, who heads the St James Child and Adolescent Wellness Centre, says mental-health stigma remains a major barrier preventing children and adolescents from getting the care they need, and that health workers cannot simply wait for families to recognise mental-health problems and seek help.

WESTERN BUREAU: Attorney-at-law Helene Coley Nicholson, president of Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship Jamaica, is encouraging educators to prioritise interpersonal interaction with students to develop their critical-thinking skills, rather than relying on artificial intelligence (AI), which she says may risk degrading a child’s cognitive development.

Kemoy Blake, the technical drawing teacher at Winston Jones High School in Manchester, is used to his students achieving high passes in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination. But in his eight years at the school, this was the first time all his students scored grade ones in the subject area, with some earning distinctions. “I am extremely proud and grateful. For me as a teacher, it is a very ... moment,” he told The Gleaner, failing to find the right word. “I will...

WESTERN BUREAU: Travellers trying to get between Jamaica and Florida in the United States are facing airfares exceeding US$3,000, sold-out flights, and limited alternatives as a severe summer squeeze on airline seats takes hold. The crunch, particularly acute during July and August, has made getting to South Florida – normally less than two hours by air from Jamaica – an expensive and, in some cases, near-impossible exercise.

WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President La Sonja Harrison says the association is waiting patiently to see the revised Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill before they are tabled, following assurances from Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon that the Government has accepted and acted on several of the teachers’ concerns. Morris Dixon said the Government’s legal teams are now finalising the amendments after she personally reviewed the JTA’s submission.

WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President La Sonja Harrison says the association is waiting patiently to see the revised Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill before they are tabled, following assurances from Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon that the Government has accepted and acted on several of the teachers’ concerns. Morris Dixon said the Government’s legal teams are now finalising the amendments after she personally reviewed the JTA’s submission.

WESTERN BUREAU: Ahead of the start of the September school term, Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon is urging school administrators to ensure that students obey stipulated dress and grooming guidelines, while also imploring parents to encourage their children to follow the rules set by their schools.

WESTERN BUREAU: Ahead of the start of the September school term, Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon is urging school administrators to ensure that students obey stipulated dress and grooming guidelines, while also imploring parents to encourage their children to follow the rules set by their schools.

WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President La Sonja Harrison says she cannot change, declaring that she will continue to challenge the status quo and ask uncomfortable questions on behalf of teachers, even as she acknowledges that her outspoken approach has come at a cost. “I can’t change who I am. I really try not to be a hypocrite, I am a disruptor of the status quo,” Harrison said while addressing the eighth session of the 62nd JTA Conference, which was also attended by ...

Paul Buchanan has launched a new legal challenge to the September 2025 election result in St Andrew West Central, filing a constitutional motion seeking to have the poll declared void and a fresh election ordered after Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness retained the seat. The claim, filed in the Supreme Court on Friday, lists Buchanan as the first claimant and Everton Sands, an outdoor agent and driver, as the second claimant. The director of elections and the attorney general are named as defe...

Students preparing for next year’s Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) examinations will be able to take up to four subjects under the newest qualification, the Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEC). Following a successful pilot of the CTEC mathematics in this year’s May-June examinations, three additional core subjects –English language, English literature, and integrated science – will be offered next year. The programme is expected to expand to nine subjects during the 2027-2028...

Cattle farmers in Colbeck, St Catherine, are living in fear as thieves repeatedly enter the community under the cover of darkness, steal their animals and slaughter them in nearby bushes in what the police suspect could be part of an illicit ‘meat for guns’ trade. The latest attacks have left small farmers counting losses in the millions of dollars and accusing the thieves of becoming increasingly bold and sophisticated in their operations.

Governor General Sir Patrick Allen has appointed Dr Brian Langrin as governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), succeeding Richard Byles, whose seven-year term ends today. The appointment follows a selection process formalised in April 2026 through a four-member search committee convened by Finance Minister Fayval Williams, which assessed a field of local and international candidates. Langrin takes over at a time of uncertainty, with the central bank maintaining a tight grip on inflation through...

Loud cheers, competitive energy and vibrant musical performances filled the air last Friday as the Manchester Division southern zone summer camp ended with an action-packed sports day and talent concert which, according to zone commander Inspector Seanene Steers, “was a transformative week for 70 local youth”. According to Steers, the week-long camp provided “young people from across the division with a dynamic blend of practical life skills, personal development, and community connection”.

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.

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 ...

People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding has embraced democratic socialism, the political philosophy championed by former PNP leader and Prime Minister Michael Manley in the 1970s, declaring that changing times are creating renewed interest in the ideology. Golding, addressing the PNP’s Greendale Divisional Conference on Thursday night, said the philosophy was gaining traction even in the United States (US), where, he argued, there was growing recognition of the need for governmen...

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.

Civil engineering dreams for Paul Thomas Watson were moulded as a teenage labourer on construction sites, working alongside his father. Now, days away from beginning his degree at the University of Technology (UTech), Watson fondly harkened back to his adolescence, when summer vacations exposed him to the fundamentals of building. His namesake father, a high school science educator who took on part-time contractor jobs to make ends meet, would bring Watson and his elder brother, Paul Lincoln,...

WESTERN BUREAU: Nurse practitioner Tackaya Brown-Lawrence, who heads the St James Child and Adolescent Wellness Centre, says mental-health stigma remains a major barrier preventing children and adolescents from getting the care they need, and that health workers cannot simply wait for families to recognise mental-health problems and seek help.

WESTERN BUREAU: La Sonja Harrison, the newly reinstalled president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), wants the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth, and Information to say whether the $18 billion allotted for post-Hurricane Melissa repairs to affected schools is sufficient, especially for schools in western Jamaica, which took a battering from the Category 5 hurricane.

Kemoy Blake, the technical drawing teacher at Winston Jones High School in Manchester, is used to his students achieving high passes in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination. But in his eight years at the school, this was the first time all his students scored grade ones in the subject area, with some earning distinctions. “I am extremely proud and grateful. For me as a teacher, it is a very ... moment,” he told The Gleaner, failing to find the right word. “I will...

WESTERN BUREAU: Nadine Simmonds-Lewis, the regional nutritionist at the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), said a review by the entity has found that pregnant women who received nutrition counselling were more than twice as likely to show positive changes in their haemoglobin levels, and as a result, she is calling for more nutrition intervention.

As he enters his second year of law school at The University of the West Indies, Mona, 20-year-old Jaleel Smith is feeling more at ease after being awarded a scholarship that covers more than 50 per cent of his tuition fees. “It will allow me to go about the university life without being as anxious as first year was; dealing with student loans, dealing with the fact that my parents would have to go in further short-term death to deal with things, so (I now have) that peace of mind to be able ...

WESTERN BUREAU: Before Beverley Feare could prepare her students for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, she first had to find them. Hurricane Melissa had torn through the communities served by Maud McLeod High School in eastern Westmoreland, damaging the school, displacing families, and cutting communication with students at a critical point in their preparation for the examinations.

WESTERN BUREAU: Ahead of the start of the September school term, Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon is urging school administrators to ensure that students obey stipulated dress and grooming guidelines, while also imploring parents to encourage their children to follow the rules set by their schools.

WESTERN BUREAU: Before Beverley Feare could prepare her students for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, she first had to find them. Hurricane Melissa had torn through the communities served by Maud McLeod High School in eastern Westmoreland, damaging the school, displacing families, and cutting communication with students at a critical point in their preparation for the examinations.

WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President La Sonja Harrison says she cannot change, declaring that she will continue to challenge the status quo and ask uncomfortable questions on behalf of teachers, even as she acknowledges that her outspoken approach has come at a cost. “I can’t change who I am. I really try not to be a hypocrite, I am a disruptor of the status quo,” Harrison said while addressing the eighth session of the 62nd JTA Conference, which was also attended by ...

WESTERN BUREAU: Unresolved issues surrounding their uniform allowance and a graduate policy for educators pursuing further studies were among the main concerns raised by delegates on Tuesday as the Jamaica Teachers’ Association rejected the Government’s wage offer. The rejection was confirmed on Tuesday after delegates voted at the JTA’s 62nd annual conference at the Ocean Coral Spring Resort in Trelawny. Of the 213 delegates, 155 voted against the offer while 54 supported it. There was one s...

WESTERN BUREAU: Cancer survivor Dr Beverley Wright, the regional cancer programme coordinator, has described the introduction of the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) in western Jamaica as a “game changer” in the fight against colorectal cancer, which has emerged as the third most common cancer in the island.

Jamaica’s economy contracted 2.9 per cent in the April to June quarter, but the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) has shortened its projected recovery timeline to two years, from three. “Given the pace of recovery so far, the current expected timeline for attaining pre-Melissa output levels is now within one and a half to two years of the event, that is, as early as the April to June quarter of 2027,” PIOJ Director General Dr Wayne Henry said at the organisation’s quarterly media briefing ...

Central Village, St Catherine man charged for allegedly shooting at the police  Jamaica Gleaner