THE Heart Foundation of Jamaica (HFJ) is expressing concern about the high number of individuals suffering from high blood pressure.It has been revealed that 25 per cent or $1.4 billion of the $5.63 billion spent by the National Health ...

The National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons (NATFATIP) is reinforcing its commitment to tackle the issue of trafficking in persons.Speaking at a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) 'Think Tank' yesterday, manager of the Traffic...

The National Health Fund (NHF) is encouraging health-care students to apply for financial support under their EduCare Grant programme before the end of July.Since 2020, on an annual basis, the agency budgets $15 million for the provisi...

THE Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) is seeking the input of residents in St Mary, through an online survey, to assist with the development of the Rio Nuevo Beach facility.Rio Nuevo Beach is among 10 being developed across Jamaica by TEF ...

Today is the 202nd day of 2021. There are 163 days left in the year.TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT1873: Jesse James and his gang pull off the first train robbery in the US, taking US$3,000 from the Rock Island Express in Adair, Iowa. OTHER EVENTS15...

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Former chairman of the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA), Dr Andre Gordon is warning regulators against repeating the mistake of overregulating the budding psychedelic mushroom industry in a similar vein as the ...

Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator Aubyn Hill says the Government is working to address the inefficiencies at the National Water Commission (NWC) to improve its operations."We are in...

Dear Mr Brown,I applied for Canada's new pathway programme for permanent residence as an international student. My question is about the expiration of my existing work permit. I am wondering if I would have to leave Canada if my permit ...

MAY PEN, Clarendon - The two men charged with the murder of teacher Nattallie Dawkins, 19-year-old Eladio Goulbourne and 20-year-old Mario Headly, are to be assigned legal aid ahead of going back to court on September 13. They were both...

LIME TREE GARDEN, St Ann - At 16, Antoinette Shirley, an impressionable young girl living in Lime Tree Garden, St Ann, had two things in mind - mothering her newborn child as best as she could and finding a way to make her dreams become...

The Office of the Supervisor of Insolvency (OSI) says there are many benefits for individuals having a positive credit score.Speaking with JIS News, Deputy Supervisor of Insolvency Fayola Evans-Roberts said that there are increased oppo...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haitians held official ceremonies yesterday to honour assassinated President Jovenel Moïse while installing a new interim leader and arresting at least three police officers implicated in the killing.Design...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AFP) - Zimbabwean authorities yesterday toughened virus curbs, ordering compulsory vaccinations for civil servants and reducing the number of workers reporting for duty in a bid to stem a rise in local transmission."Al...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) - The Trinidad and Tobago Government yesterday said it has no policy in place allowing for the State-owned media "preferred or exclusive access to events" as the main Opposition United National Congress (UN...

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) - Barbados has established a travel bubble for individuals coming from select countries as it seeks to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.The authorities said that the bubble, which went into effect last...

DELAWARE, United States (AP) - This is the place where widows wailed, where mothers buckled to the tarmac in grief and where children lifted their teddy bears to see daddy carried off in a flag-covered box. This is where presidents stoo...

KANSAS, United States (AP) - Students in Wichita, Kansas, public schools can ditch the masks when classes begin. Detroit public schools will probably require them unless everyone in a room is vaccinated. In Pittsburgh, masks will likely...

LIMA, Peru (AP) - A teacher in one of the poorest communities in the Andes who had never held office is now Peru's president-elect after officials in the South American country declared him the winner of a run-off election held last mon...

NEW DELHI (AP) - India's excess deaths during the coronavirus pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official COVID-19 toll, likely making it modern India's worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on t...

Washington, DC, United States (AFP) - Thrill-seekers will soon be able to get their adrenaline kicks - and envy-inducing Instagram snaps - from the final frontier, as space tourism finally lifts off. All you'll need is a bit of patience...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AFP) - Earth's wealthiest man Jeff Bezos spent a few minutes outside the planet's atmosphere yesterday on Blue Origin's first crewed space mission - a breakthrough moment for the space tourism sector that ...

THE Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) is urging victims who have suffered abuse by clergymen to come forward with their stories and to not be afraid.The call comes in light of an uptick in such cases in recent times, and also from conce...

Media luminary Keith Brown, a founding member of the Public Relations Society of Jamaica, and managing director of Brown Ray and Associates died yesterday.The Jamaica Observer learnt last Friday that he had undergone surgery in New York...

THE World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or IBRD) has priced a catastrophe bond that will provide the Government of Jamaica with financial protection of up to US$185 million against losses from named storms ...

CHILDREN'S Advocate and the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking Diahann Gordon Harrison has made an impassioned plea to adults to respond to the call of duty and do whatever they can to positively impact the lives of children.Gordo...

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland - A family of nine, left displaced after fire destroyed their house in Lamb's River just over one week ago, is appealing for assistance to get back on their feet."We would appreciate anything. It was a six-b...

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Richard Vernon, councillor for the Montego Bay South Division which experienced flooding recently, is hoping the Government's Lengthman Programme will provide the answer to drainage woes in the area."I am really ...

THE Sandals South Coast Resort recently had the pleasure of hosting the founder and chairperson of 'Pack for a Purpose', an incredible non-profit which has been changing the face of travel across the world.In 2010, Rebecca Rothney start...

ORACABESSA, St Mary - The Government has taken on the hard task of trying to convince residents here that construction will finally begin on the proposed Oracabessa mini-stadium which was initially slated to be completed more than 10 ye...

CHILDREN'S Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison yesterday urged Jamaicans to embrace alternative methods of disciplining children following the death, Sunday, of four-year-old Nashawn Brown, who was allegedly beaten with a stick by his step...

SANDALS Resorts International yesterday thanked the Jamaica Fire Brigade for its swift actions in extinguishing a fire at the clubhouse of Sandals Golf and Country Club in Ocho Rios, St Ann.The resort said, too, that it is pleased there...

MANDEVILLE, Manchester - Newly appointed head of the Manchester police, Deputy Superintendent Lloyd Darby is optimistic that the police division will, for a second-consecutive year, record a reduction in major crimes.Speaking at the cha...

Today is the 201st day of 2021. There are 164 days left in the year.TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT1968: The first International Special Olympics Summer Games, organised by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, are held in Chicago. OTHER EVENTS1810: Bogota rises ...

MONTEGO BAY, St James - A St James pastor, his wife, and the mother of the teenage girl who accused the man of the cloth of rape will all return to court on July 23.They were remanded when they appeared in court on Monday.The 39-year-ol...

The Jamaica Cancer Society's (JCS) premire fund-raising and awareness event, Relay For Life, is going virtual this year under the theme 'Hope From Yaad'.With the staging of Relay For Life not possible in its traditional format because ...

BRADES, Montserrat (CMC) - Montserrat is marking the 26th anniversary of the explosion of the Soufrière Hills Volcano with Premier Easton Taylor-Farrell acknowledging that it "has changed our lives forever".After a long period of dorma...

TORONTO, Canada (AP) - Canada announced yesterday it will begin letting fully vaccinated US citizens into Canada on August 9, and those from the rest of the world on September 7.Officials said the 14-day quarantine requirement will be w...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) - Less than 48 hours after the "Core Group" of international diplomats called on interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph to step down and allow for designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry to form a "consensual and...

JAMAICA-based telecoms provider Digicel has found a buyer for its Pacific operations, which it has been trying to offload in order to pay off its multi-billion-dollar debt to bondholders.Australian telecoms giant Telstra Corp yesterday ...

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) - Police are investigating the deaths of two passengers and injuries to several others in a late-night collision at Little Diamond on the East Bank of Demerara on Sunday.The authorities said the dead and injured...

Minister of Labour and Social Security Karl Samuda is beaming after what he said was a successful visit to the United States (US) to meet with key stakeholders in the Overseas Employment Programme.Samuda, who has signalled his intentio...

MINISTER without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation (MEGJC), Senator Aubyn Hill last Friday congratulated the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector for its performance during the current novel coronavirus ...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AP) - US President Joe Biden tempered his assessment that social media giants are "killing people" by hosting misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines on their platforms, saying yesterday that he hoped t...

PARIS, France (AP) - A French Holocaust survivor has denounced anti-vaccination protesters comparing themselves to Jews who were persecuted by Nazi Germany during World War II. French officials and anti-racism groups joined the 94-year-...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AP) - A Florida man who breached the US Senate chamber carrying a Trump campaign flag was sentenced yesterday to eight months behind bars, the first resolution for a felony case in the Capitol insurrectio...

LONDON, England (AP) - Corks popped, beats boomed out and giddy revellers rushed onto dancefloors when England's nightclubs reopened after midnight Sunday as the country lifted remaining coronavirus restrictions after more than a year o...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY for Tuesday, July 20, 2021: You are warm, charming, generous, idealistic and sometimes shy. However, you are determined and goal-oriented. This year you will undergo a significant change - it will be noticeable. Expect to...

FOR an unbroken decade, the 'Haunted Night Tour' at the storied Rose Hall Great House in St James drew delightful shrieks from visitors and locals alike until the deadly novel coronavirus pandemic crashed the party last year, bringing t...

MINISTER of Finance and the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke says that the Government may have to take legal action to get bauxite/alumina companies to resume paying the bauxite levy, as the COVID-19 crisis subsides."You know the history ...

JAMAICA'S minimum wage is too low to ensure families can live above the poverty level, the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) has found, with a lot more Jamaicans going hungry given the deprivations caused by the novel coronavi...