Today is the 124th day of 2021. There are 241 days left in the year.TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT1927: After 2 1/2 years the Hermitage Dam on the Wag Water River in eastern Jamaica is opened. It is 142ft high, 465ft wide, has a capacity of 430 mill...

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC) - The St Vincent and the Grenadines Government says it has ordered 50,000 doses of the Russia-developed Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine as nationals continue to refuse taking the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to help...

ST JOHN'S, Antigua (CMC) - Prime Minister Gaston Browne has warned of the possibility of implementing a mandatory vaccination programme in Antigua and Barbuda as he criticised persons who were encouraging others not to participate in th...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AFP) - At least 17 people died and more than 800 were wounded in clashes that broke out in Colombia during five days of protests against a proposed government tax reform, authorities said yesterday.The Office of the Co...

NEW DELHI, India (AP) - As a catastrophic surge of the coronavirus sweeps through India, the leaders of 13 Opposition parties urged the Government to launch a free vaccination drive and ensure an uninterrupted flow of oxygen to all hosp...

NORTH CAROLINA, United States (AP) - Mourners gathered yesterday for the funeral of Andrew Brown Jr, a black man shot and killed by deputies in North Carolina, with the Rev Al Sharpton issuing a powerful call for transparency and the re...

PETERSFIELD, Westmoreland - Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters in Westmoreland Central are defiant that embattled (MP) Member of Parliament George Wright remains their parliamentary representative, even as pressure mounts for him to ...

State minister in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information Robert Nesta Morgan says the 211 helpline for children suffering abuse, which will be launched later this month, Child Month, is not a duplicate of the 888-Protect (776-...

The declaration by Opposition Leader Mark Golding last Wednesday that the controversy surrounding Member of Parliament (MP) George Wright is highly politicised has been quietly welcomed by some members of the governing Jamaica Labour P...

Jamaica Observer readers were not pleased with entertainer Popcaan, whose real name is Andre Sutherland, after his Twitter rant in which he threatened to pull his Unruly Fest concert from St Thomas, complaining that police were harassin...

Jamaican Margaret Brisbane last week became the first woman and first black individual to be appointed chief information officer (CIO) and director of the information technology Department (ITD) of the Miami-Dade County, Florida.Brisban...

PROUD mom Nardialee Massey shares with COVID CAPERS the rather interesting perspective of her 14-year-old son, Mark Tulloch who wrote a memoir on his COVID-19 experience as a youngster for his English language assignment."When I read it...

MONIQUE Tello, a medical doctor, told her story to Harvard Health Publishing about her decision to get the Moderna vaccine and what a decision that was. Even after one dose, the vaccine protected her from the novel coronavirus. Here's a...

CHURCH leaders came in for strong lashing yesterday for their strident opposition to the decriminalisation of abortion while remaining mostly silent concerning men who rape and impregnate women and girls, often forcing them to abort the...

The Secret Gardens, a sorrowful monument erected in 2008 in downtown Kingston to record the names of children killed under tragic circumstancess, but which ran out of space in 2017, is to be extended for a necessary but unwanted cause -...

Today, May 3, and every year, World Press Freedom Day stands as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom and is also a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom a...

Shara McCallum, a Jamaican liberal arts professor of English, has been chosen the first black woman to serve as Penn State laureate for the 2021-22 academic year, Penn State News announced Saturday.Born to an Afro-Jamaican father and Ve...

Today is the 123rd day of 2021. There are 242days left in the year.TODAY'S HIGLIGHT1494: Columbus discovers Jamaica.OTHER EVENTS1660: Peace of Olivia is signed, ending war between Brandenburg, Poland, Austria and Sweden.1765: The first ...

Nicknamed the Men of Might, Cornwall College (CC) old boys in the United States have been showing the 'might' of their hearts and pockets as they rally in aid of their Montego Bay, Jamaica-based alma mater.Following up on a container of...

PARIS, France (AFP) - Here are some developments in the novel coronavirus crisis:More aid arrives in IndiaMore emergency medical aid from foreign donors to alleviate a dire oxygen shortage arrives in India, as COVID-19 deaths in the Sou...

Jamaican economist and diplomat Ambassador Dr Richard Bernal has accepted an invitation to become a member of the Leadership Council of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), which operates under the auspic...

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) - A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts back to Earth splashed down off Florida early yesterday in NASA's first night-time ocean landing in more than 50 years.The crew reported they were f...

TRIPOLI, Libya (AFP) - More than 600 migrants hoping to reach Europe from Libya have been stopped since Friday, the navy said, as the International Organization for Migration warned Libya was "not a safe port".Three groups of illegal mi...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) - Two rockets targeted an airbase at Iraq's Baghdad airport housing US-led coalition troops yesterday, in the second such attack in 10 days, the Iraqi army said.One of the projectiles was intercepted by the C-RAM cou...

A 10-member strong women's prayer group, headed by Jamaicans in Canada who seek help for people in dire straits, have collected emergency supplies and cash for donation to needy people in St Vincent which has been hit by the devastating...

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) - US President Joe Biden used the 10th anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden to reaffirm his decision to remove all US troops from Afghanistan."We followed bin Laden to the gates of hell - a...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) - Fighting between Afghan government forces and the Taliban has left more than 100 insurgents dead in the past 24 hours, the defence ministry said yesterday as it took control of a US military base in a restive ...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AFP) - A political storm has erupted in El Salvador as its Parliament, newly controlled by President Nayib Bukele's party, voted to dismiss the attorney general and top judges deemed hostile to the populist le...

PARIS, France - The young widow of Japan's most notorious "Don Juan" has been arrested, suspected of poisoning her fabulously wealthy 77-year-old husband.Tycoon Kosuke Nozaki, who boasted of spending US$27.5 million chasing beautiful wo...

CHILD labour remains a problem of national concern in Jamaica as 37,965 children are engaged in such activities, with the highest numbers being those under 13 years of age.Director, Child Labour, in the Ministry of Labour and Social Sec...

CHILD abuse cases in Jamaica are rising.According to Children's Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison, there was a dip in the number of child abuse reports at the start of the year, but the reports are now increasing."Last year everybody was...

NEIL Grant has a message for young people who are scratching their heads in trying to choose a career: Technology is the way to go.And who should know about the value of technology than Neil Grant, the freshly appointed chief executive ...

FORMER People's National Party (PNP) Member of Parliament for Manchester Southern Michael Stewart has said that he will not be stepping away from representational politics following his general election defeat of September 2020.Stewart,...

A number of Jamaican women, spooked by the horrific experiences of other females in recent times, are actively seeking out self-defence training, a local instructor has revealed."There is not a day that I don't receive a phone call from...

TWO defence lawyers have pointed to provisions under the Domestic Violence Act which they say allow women to "arm" themselves against violence from spouses and even would-be abusers.This comes as lawmakers waffle over allowing Jamaicans...

MEMBERS of Agape Christian Fellowship Church in Falmouth, Trelawny, remain devastated, albeit at different levels, by the vicious shooting death of 51-year-old banker Andrea Lowe Garwood during the praise and worship session at their ch...

Michael Johnson, warehouse supervisor, Salada Foods, checks to ensure that everything is ready to be loaded in a container at Salada Foods Warehouse last Thursday.The container is destined for Barbados and includes a donation to the Bar...

It was so sad to learn of the passing of former Cabinet minister, Member of Parliament, senator, diplomat, author, and firm Kingston College man, Anthony Johnson, last week.It came at the height of his daughter's efforts at fending off...

THIRTY-three students from grades eight to 11 at Meadowbrook High School have received financial relief in the form of scholarships and grants from the Meadowbrook High School (MHS) Canada and New York alumni associations.The MHS Alumni...

GLOBALLY the pandemic has seen a rise in the number of unwanted pregnancies but administrators at the Women's Centre of Jamaica Foundation (WCJF) are concerned that there is under-reporting of teen pregnancies since the onset of COVID-1...

AS many students across Jamaica sink deeper into the COVID-19-influenced education gap, a free application has been developed, catering to the needs of Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency ...

FRIENDS were aplenty for Alfred Daley during his career as a sprinter for Jamaica.Daley competed in three consecutive Summer Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980.Fast-forward to 2021 and Daley, who won go...

SHERIL Daley is protesting a decision by her former employer, a popular call centre, to fire her months after discovering that she had a criminal conviction.Daley, 36, spent five years in prison, from 2011 to 2016, for attempting to tra...

A Kingston resident has admitted that she spent almost seven days cooped up inside her house as she was crippled by fear due to recent cases of women being kidnapped and killed."I haven't opened my door in almost a week. It's like sayin...

DID you know that you could be harming your sex organ during coitus?According to one local medical expert, over the years, many Jamaicans have been harming themselves as a result of engaging in "rough sex", which is compounded by improp...

VAGINAL health is probably at the top of the women's health taboo list. Chances are that most of what you've learnt about your vaginal health has been from private research or coincidence.A very important and distinctive indicator of va...

UNITED STATES (AP) - Across America, people of colour are exposed to more air pollution than whites from industry, vehicles, construction and many other sources, a new study has found.Using government air pollution and census data, rese...

AS it turns out, we need more than an apple a day to keep the doctor away.In fact, we need approximately 400 grams of fruits and vegetables daily, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Wo...

WITH asthma being one of the major noncommunicable diseases, the Jamaica Observer reached out to consultant physician and pulmonologist Dr Althea Aquart-Stewart to debunk some of the myths and misconceptions about the lung condition ahe...

HUMANS, because we live more or less within a span of 100 years, are keen on time.Suffering for days may seem like an eternity. We become very impatient at God when we see things, such as His promises, slow in happening, not realising t...