In their world, nothing is safe or certain, and it is always wise to have a suitcase packed and ready for relocation. To be otherwise could be deadly. This is life for some 326 Jamaicans in the island’s witness protection programme – the majority...
With witness intimidation still a major concern dogging the justice system, the country shelled out more than $758 million on its witness protection programme between April 2016 and March 2021, with the bulk of the spend recently being on gang...
The best are smooth and amicable, cordial and easy, while the worst are inflamed with raw resentment, lies, and sometimes, even hatred. Yet Jamaicans are increasingly filing for divorce – a record 4,381 last year alone – as fingers point to COVID-...
The feat is not for the impatient or claustrophobic, and at peak hours, it involves long waits, pushing, shoving, and the deadly COVID-19 disease lurking inches from those who dare. For many Jamaican commuters, however, there is little choice –...
The police have now zeroed in on reports that lottery scammers have taken a foothold in the used-car industry to launder their ill-gotten gains. Sources say they especially have their eyes set on Mandeville in Manchester, which has seen a...
The final six minutes were the most excruciating for Kelly-Ann Tulloch on Wednesday night. For the past two weeks, she had not slept, as images of gunfights and bombs exploding on her son in Ukraine burned deep in her mind. Finally, her prayers...
An autopsy has returned inconclusive into the death of a newborn girl allegedly buried by her 13-year-old mother and grandmother in St Thomas, an eastern parish in which half the persons most wanted by police are suspected sex offenders. At least...
The criminal underworld hidden beneath the busy St Andrew North Police Division is a maze of wealth, bloodshed, and extortion – a melting pot of business owners, organised criminals, and their hybrids. Beneath the eye, investigators say a man...
There is a drastic increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19-positive patients at the Bustamante Hospital for Children (BHC) in St Andrew, with a record of 29 admissions since numbers skyrocketed at the start of the year, putting a strain on the...
They are tasked with taking care of households and their occupants, but for many Jamaican housekeepers, the homes they serve are increasingly becoming perilous dens of sexual abuse and maltreatment, especially since the onset of the coronavirus...
Olympic Way is home to the first baby born at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital on Christmas Day, after mother Denesha Simmonds delivered a bouncing boy shortly after 1:00 yesterday morning. Thabang Jordine, at roughly seven pounds, entered the world...
Christmas for the past 22 years has been less than merry for Odean Brown, a customer care representative at the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) who has been fighting to keep her leg after a motor vehicle accident in Trelawny in 1999. This year...
Tomorrow, the Cabinet will discuss Jamaica’s plans to address the new omicron variant of COVID-19 that now has the world on high alert, triggering travel bans, and which the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared to be “of concern”, Health...
At least two hundred and seventy-two of the persons charged for serious crimes in the last decade have committed the same offence while out on bail. To make matters worse, sexual intercourse with a minor, rape, and grievous sexual assault top the...
Each stranger Joseph Donaldson passes in public could be his brother’s killer. That’s just how he feels two years after the tragic murder of Mikkel Donaldson, a Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) driver who was gunned down while on night duties...
Bland reports of the 374 crash deaths since January shroud any true reflection of Toniesha Newman-Hudson’s ordeal since losing her teenage daughter Rayana Anderson following a motor vehicle accident. Beyond the numbers, the mother battles pangs of...
He has been out 17 months now, but 74-year-old George Williams, a schizophrenic who spent more than 50 years in prison without a trial, continues a life of incarceration and poverty. These days, the illusions of his mind, coupled with the rickety...
At 23, Sherika* says she has been raped by five different men on different occasions. And that number of offences would be higher if repeated encounters with her biological father – the first to defile her at nine years old – are counted. Now, she...
With Jamaica being among six Latin American and Caribbean countries yet to break the 20 per cent vaccination barrier, there are fears that the island could miss the World Health Organisation target for countries to vaccinate at least 40 per cent of...
The National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) may not be prepared to call it, but researchers at the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) are standing behind a study that suggests alcoholism is on the rise locally and that the pressures of COVID-19 are...
If you get the feeling more Jamaicans have been dying in recent years, you may be on to something. But while records for the last decade have reflected an overall increase in local morbidity numbers, the unpredictability of the looming COVID-19...
More people are turning to alcohol and drugs to cope with the onslaught of the coronavirus, but with the pandemic decimating most face-to-face interactions, it may not be long in coming before local researchers know just how hard Jamaicans are...
Car thieves are running rampant in Portmore in St Catherine, and homes, malls, and make-do parking spots outside the Portmore Tax Office on Braeton Parkway seem to be their preferred hunting grounds. It is a worrying reality that has forced police...
There is a dark side of the Sunshine City that often goes unseen – a side woven by egregious criminals bent on turning the municipality into a bloodfest. For some 300,000 Jamaicans facing the challenges of COVID-19, the dormitory coastal...
With the local health sector on crisis footing as a spiralling rate of infections slam under-resourced hospitals, the health ministry on Friday suspended elective surgeries and other crucial medical procedures in public facilities as it went into...
