SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth - Audie Myers, People's National Party councillor for the Siloah Division in St Elizabeth North Eastern, has seen the crucial Windsor Bridge and road blocked by flood water many times.But he insists that, to his...

Two litres of blood, constant pain, trouble walking, a fractured spine, gunshot wounds to the abdomen, and the possibility that the results of his injuries "are likely to be permanent", spelling uncertainty for his career, comprise the ...

Jehovah's Witnesses were not among the five major religious groups that two weeks ago gave support to the Government's COVID-19 vaccination programme; however, the millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian be...

MANDEVILLE, Manchester - Justice Minister Delroy Chuck says he is frustrated at the lengthy delay in building a new courthouse for Mandeville due to cumbersome Government procurement procedures. Chuck, who in 2019 wanted to see the ne...

CARIBBEAN Love Now has donated $5 million to Food For the Poor's (FFP) campaign to provide relief to Haiti in the aftermath of the August 17 earthquake that devastated a section of that Caribbean country. Estimates are that about 1.2 mi...

The crisis created by the novel coronavirus pandemic worsened locally yesterday as oxygen supplies fell critically low, leaving hospitals struggling to care for critically ill COVID-19 patients, some of whom have been placed in surgica...

Despite needing monetary assistance for heart surgery, record producer and philanthropist Claude "Big Stone" Sinclair decided to lend a helping hand to 72-year-old George Williams, the mentally ill man who was incarcerated for 50 years...

Veteran educator and entrepreneur Pedro Hall could easily be described as a man ahead of his time.In 2018 he began to craft the template for a group of schools that would be strictly online, catering to children across Jamaica's 14 pari...

Let's pray for brother Al MillerReverend Al Miller is a man whom I love and admire.His life in religion has been quite colourful, at times humorously controversial; and lately other notes have hit the stage that again command our attent...

A high school student under the age of 16 is now facing a dilemma after her plan to get vaccinated and return to face-to-face learning in just a few days was shot down by her father, who is anti-vaccine.The father is adamant that he won...

The local book industry is now facing several challenges, including revenue loss and waning interest among parents regarding purchasing textbooks, as the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic spreads beyond health and the economy.Ke...

For the past three months Colleen Roper struggled with not being able to bury her eldest son, 23-year-old Sanjay "Neiko" Davis. Roper had been traumatised by her inability to source the money to bury her son, and this was made worse by...

LAST week Nicola Levy had one wish - to come up with $250,000 for emergency eye surgery to restore her sight.Fifty-two-year-old Levy, a former dance instructor known to her friends as Nicky, has glaucoma which was treated in 2013. Recen...

A teacher at Rest Primary and Infant School in Milk River, Clarendon, had to seek medical attention after she was poisoned by a Cuban tree frog earlier this year."I was at work, and I went outside to assist a child who spotted a frog un...

AS Jamaica continues to go through a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths, the Government has implemented stricter protocols to keep our population safe. Though many of us may not agree with the measures, we are all meant to adhere to the...

Communications and entertainment provider Flow will tomorrow stage a COVID-19 vaccination blitz for its staff as it continues giving support to the national vaccination programme.The blitz is being staged in partnership with the Private...

THE number of adults aged 30-79 years with hypertension has increased from 650 million to 1.28 billion in the last 30 years, according to the first comprehensive global analysis of trends in hypertension prevalence, detection, treatment...

INFLATION is referred to as "the thief in the night". But what is inflation and how does it impact your life?Inflation is the rate at which prices increase in an economy over time. It robs your money of the purchasing power. Therefore, ...

FALLS are a major threat to the elderly and can reduce their ability to remain independent. One out of five falls causes a severe injury such as laceration, broken bones or a head injury. With the percentage of elderly people increasing...

COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be safe, effective and life-saving. Like all vaccines, they do not fully protect everyone who is vaccinated, and we do not yet know how well they can prevent people from transmitting the virus to others....

GEORGIA, United States (The Conversation) - As the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 surges across the US, almost one in five Americans continue to resist getting shots that are widely available, safe and effective - particularly for preventi...

THERE is no doubt that the novel coronavirus pandemic has been a challenge for many, but managers at Sandals Montego Bay are ensuring they are fit to take on this challenge - literally.The managers have embarked on a fitness journey tha...

ALLIGATOR POND, Manchester - Although plans are afoot for a massive beach development to be funded by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) in this community on Jamaica's southern coast, there is still concern that the long-standing issue ...

Hurricane Ida is looking eerily like a dangerous sequel to 2005's Hurricane Katrina - the costliest storm in American history. But there's a few still-to-come twists that could make Ida nastier in some ways, but not quite as horrific in...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) - The Trinidad and Tobago Government yesterday outlined a two-tier system of education for secondary school children as it expressed disappointment that only 25 per cent of students had been vaccinated ahea...

NEW ORLEANS, United States (AP) - Forecasters warned residents along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast to rush preparations ahead of an intensifying Hurricane Ida, which is expected to bring winds as high as 130 mph (209 kph), life-thre...

'Tis not a year or two shows us a man,They are all but stomachs,And we are all but food,They eat us hungrily,And when they are full,They belch us.- ShakespeareIN spite of that vivid description of men by women, so many females still alw...

MINISTER of Education Fayval Williams yesterday announced that high school students will only return to face-to-face classes when their school achieves a 65 per cent vaccination rate or higher. Until then, all schools will begin classes...

WITH the start of the new school year just over a week away, the Jamaica Observer yesterday quizzed parents to find out how ready they are for back-to-school.Observer Staff Reporter Jason Cross and Photographer Naphtali Junior engaged J...

He's a 22-year-old university student who is fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus. However, despite the many warnings to continue practising safety and prevention measures, such as mask-wearing, amid the ongoing COVID-19 cris...

THE island is set to have another series of vaccination blitz activities this weekend, as part of efforts to get 65 per cent of the population inoculated against COVID-19 by March 2022.In a news release last night the Ministry of Health...

THE agriculture sector has been dealt a "big blow" following the passage of tropical storms Grace and Ida less than two weeks apart.Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Floyd Green told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that the southern ...

Name: Michael Nugent Age: 48 years old Length of career: 26+ years Route: Half-Way-Tree to Papine

THOUGH some Jamaicans are in support of Prime Minister Andrew Holness's measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, they are predicting gloom should he extend the no-movement days further.Holness, on August 19, designated s...

As Jamaica continued to experience the effects of Tropical Storm Ida yesterday, a system that developed from a tropical wave to a tropical depression and then a tropical storm, all in one day, Jamaica Observer photographers Naphtali Jun...

NEW ORLEANS, United States (AP) - Hurricane Ida struck Cuba yesterday as a rapidly intensifying storm that could speed across warm Gulf waters and slam into Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday, the US National Hurricane Center...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AP) - By promising to strike the extremists who killed 13 Americans and dozens of Afghans, President Joe Biden now confronts the reality of finding and targeting them in an unstable country without US mili...

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) - The man convicted of shooting dead Robert F Kennedy in a 1968 assassination that rocked the United States was granted parole yesterday.Sirhan Sirhan, now 77, had tried on 15 previous occasions to be re...

A number of primary school educators are angry over a delay in payment for summer school work under the Ministry of Education's Recover Smarter - National School Learning and Intervention Plan.The Jamaica Observer was told that the tea...

TRUCK drivers contracted to the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) ceased work yesterday and threatened to stay off the job if the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development does not address long-running grouses they have about sala...

Following Wednesday's shock treatment by some 300 public sector nurses who stayed off the job, throwing operations at several hospitals into disarray, health authorities said most resumed duties yesterday.On Wednesday morning, which ma...

HEAVY and persistent rain lashed southern parishes yesterday, triggering landslides, roadblocks and damage to roads caused by flooding.The rain, which came just over a week after Tropical Storm Grace left an estimated $171 million in in...

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland - Instead of the expected complaints about lost sales, some vendors at the Savanna-la-Mar market said yesterday that they were happy for the recent no-movement days. The three-day lockdown, they told the Jam...

More than 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered so far in what the Government is touting as a major triumph against vaccine hesitancy that had initially greeted this leg of its management of the novel coronavirus pa...

Not even the clothes that a young couple had on their backs were spared the floodwaters that rushed into their home on Queensborough Avenue in New Haven, St Andrew, as heavy rain associated with Tropical Storm Grace pelted the island on...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AP) - US Capitol police officers who were attacked and beaten during the Capitol riot filed a lawsuit yesterday against former President Donald Trump, his allies and members of far-right extremist groups, ...

Today is the 239th day of 2021. There are 126 days left in the yearTODAY'S HIGHLIGHT2004: Armed with knives, Eritrean deportees hijacked a plane that left Libya carrying about 80 fellow Eritreans and forced it to land in the Sudanese ca...

OCHO RIOS, St Ann - The Internal Affairs Commission of the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) has moved to quash the latest dispute between two comrades within the party - Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern Lisa Hanna a...

MAY PEN, Clarendon - More than 2,800 individuals were inoculated in Clarendon over the recent four-day blitz at the Denbigh Primary School vaccination site. According to Dr Kathleen Woods Ramsingh, the parish's acting assistant medical ...

NATIONAL Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) Executive Director Audley Gordon says there is no intention to increase the number of staff members working from home.Gordon told the Jamaica Observer that a number of staff members have...