THE public will soon have access to self-administered COVID-19 test kits as the Ministry of Health is in the process of importing 150,000 of the devices to be made available free of cost.Health and Wellness Minister Christopher Tufton m...

MANDEVILLE, Manchester - Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the National Housing Trust (NHT) has 3,406 housing units and serviced lots earmarked for Manchester as part of the Government's housing target over the next five years.Speaking...

THE National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) has employed an additional 500 sweepers and has also engaged 300 private dumper and garbage trucks to assist in the nation's public cleansing drive. Minister of Local Government and ...

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Business travel to the Caribbean is bouncing back from the ravages of the novel coronavirus, one of the many reasons regional tourism players are optimistic about the future. But an industry analyst is warning th...

THE Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) says there is no evidence at this time that current COVID-19 vaccines do not protect against the Omicron variant of the virus, and has stressed that Delta remains the dominant strain in the re...

JUST under 100 hardened inmates at Metcalfe Street Juvenile Remand Centre in Kingston were officially handed a ticket out of a life of crime and delinquency yesterday through the opening of Black Diamond Recording Studio at the facility...

Ahead of the delivery of a subpoena to force its hand to deliver critical call data records and cell site details linked to recorded conversations and several confiscated handsets in the case against 33 alleged members of the Klansman G...

The United States Government yesterday donated a third tranche of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines to Jamaica, consisting of 204,750 doses, bringing the US donation to date to 617,760 doses. The US Embassy in Kingston said since the start of th...

Government Senator Kavan Gayle has lauded the claimants in the case brought against Cari-Med Group, challenging the implementation of a COVID-19 vaccination policy."I am of the agreement that matters of this nature should have been test...

Today is the 350th day of 2021. There are 15 days left in the year.TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT1773: American colonists, dressed as Indians, dump 342 chests of tea overboard from a British ship in Boston Harbor, staging a protest against British t...

More than 300 residents of Maverley, St Andrew, have a fighting chance against COVID-19 amid fears of a fourth wave and a swifter-spreading Omicron variant, following two vaccination drives by the Rotary Club of Trafalgar New Heights i...

Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the country needs to examine the manner in which public bodies are run, as failures do not only occur at the board level, but also at the staff level, and are oftentimes difficult to address due to the...

THE Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has underscored that no permits have been granted for the hosting of parties during the Christmas season. Speaking at a recent JIS think tank, head of the JCF Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Br...

MANDEVILLE, Manchester - Councillor for the Bellefield Division Mario Mitchell (People's National Party) has accused Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Manchester Central Member of Parliament Rhoda Crawford of making mischief following her comm...

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, as head of the Commonwealth, has recognised Amashika Lorne, representing Jamaica, as the 207th Commonwealth Point of Light in honour of her voluntary service creating a free children's colouring book to h...

Caribbean Community (Caricom) Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett said she anticipates that other countries will cut ties with the British monarchy, once they see it fit to do so. Barnett, who was addressing Caricom's virtual year-end r...

BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) -An Australian couple plans to shell out tens of thousands of dollars hiring a private jet to fly their stranded dog home from New Zealand in time for Christmas.Munchkin, a former Bali street dog, is stuck in N...

NEW YORK, United States (CMC) - A New York man faces a maximum of 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of New York to sexually assaulting a five-year-old child on the Caribbean island of Grenada.According t...

MANDEVILLE, Manchester - One man died on the Spur Tree Hill main road, while an elderly man was mowed down and seriously injured in Porus in two road crashes yesterday, hours after the Road Safety Unit released data showing that up to y...

Police sources have shared two theories, one of them jealousy, which could have led to the murder of 26-year-old Shantiva Griffiths on Orange Street in downtown Kingston on Monday about 6:30 pm.Griffiths was pregnant at the time she wa...

Responding to the call to equip thousands of students across the island to take advantage of the new multimodal approach to learning, Sandals Foundation and Rainforest Seafoods yesterday provided digital tablets to students at St Mary's...

Andrew Azar admits he's always had a preference for investing in real estate."I like to see the concrete. I like to walk on it," he told the Jamaica Observer on November 24, the day his latest investment - Shoppes at Southdale - had a ...

GRANGE HILL, Westmoreland - Rodale Jones has no idea how to tell his six-year-old that her grandfather is dead.Just a few days ago, 65-year-old Henry Jones had asked to see the child, whom he loved dearly, for Christmas. Like her grandf...

A detective corporal from the Major Investigations Division of the police force yesterday detailed the grim sight and horrid smell of burnt human flesh that greeted investigators who were called to the scene of a double murder allegedly...

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Monday evening's staging of the St James Municipal Corporation's (SJMC) annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony and concert saw scores of people demanding to be allowed inside the venue as health and security per...

State minister for education, youth and information Robert Morgan (left) presents a tablet to Shanelle Grandson of Lister Mair Gilby High School for the Deaf, May Pen Unit. He was participating in the handover of eight tablets to studen...

Today is the 349th day of 2021. There are 16 days left in the year.TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT1983: The People's National Party of Jamaica boycotts the country's general election, awarding the ruling Jamaica Labour Party all 60 seats of House of ...

FOR almost six decades, the remote rural community of Quick Step in the hills of St Elizabeth, at its border with Trelawny, had seen no infrastructural improvements to Quick Step Basic School.The small structure, with very limited facil...

BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth - Chief public health inspector for St Elizabeth Everod Lewis says the parish's public health department has been persistent in its fight to curtail mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue.Addressing the monthl...

THERE are currently more than 9,000 justices of the peace (JPs) serving within communities across the island.They are characterised as people of unquestionable integrity who seek to promote and protect the rights of individuals and help...

DR Julian Walters' interest in law came from an unlikely place. During her medical studies she made a date every Wednesday night at 10:00 pm to watch the popular television crime drama series Law and Order. Nothing, she recalled, could ...

MORE than 360,000 Jamaicans who are beneficiaries of the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) and the Social Pension Programme will receive a one-off $10,000 grant this month.This is being facilitated through an ...

MINISTER with responsibility for the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) Senator Matthew Samuda says a lack of adequate human resources remains a major constraint for the department."There are not enough medical practitioners to m...

MINISTER without portfolio in the Ministry of National Security, Senator Matthew Samuda says that the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has been pursuing the release of all inmates who should not be locked up in the island's pri...

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CM C) - Caribbean Community (Caricom) Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett yesterday announced the appointment of two Caribbean nationals to the executive management committee of the Guyana-based Caricom Secretariat.Ba...

KANSAS CITY, United States (AP) - Carolyn Burnett is bracing for her first Christmas without her son Chris, a beloved high school football coach whose outdoor memorial service drew a crowd of hundreds.The unvaccinated 34-year-old father...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AP) - The Air Force has discharged 27 people for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, making them what officials believe are the first service members to be removed for disobeying the mandate to get the s...

CONNECTICUT, United States (AP) - As Miss America turns 100, a major question remains unanswered: Is she still relevant?The glitzy competition, born from a 1921 Atlantic City beauty contest just a year after women were given the right t...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AP) - The Associated Press sought answers Monday from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on its use of sensitive Government databases for tracking international terrorists to investigate as many a...

Employers are relieved and encouraged that the constitutional aspect of the claim brought against Cari-Med Group by five employees in relation to the company's COVID-19 vaccination policy has not found favour with the court.However, wh...

Today is the 348 th day of 2021. There are 17 days left in the year.TODAY HIGHLIGHT1998: In the presence of US President Bill Clinton, the Palestinian Council votes to revoke a paragraph in its charter that demanded the destruction of I...

Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) Governor Richard Byles is scheduled to appear before the Standing Finance Committee of parliament for the first time under new provisions in the BOJ (Amendment) Act that gave the BOJ its independence. Under sectio...

KENTUCKY, United States (AP) - Residents of Kentucky counties where tornadoes killed several dozen people could be without heat, water or electricity in frigid temperatures for weeks or longer, state officials warned yesterday, as the t...

T he world's most powerful central banks are scheduled to meet this week amid expectations that their policy paths will diverge sharply as concerns that the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus disease will exacerbate an already un...

SCORES of senior citizens went to various vaccination sites yesterday to get their COVID-19 booster jabs, some of whom said they took it for increased protection against the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus, should it get to our...

LINSTEAD, St Catherine - Arguing that too many people are falling victim to rapists and other criminals lurking in the shadows of the transport industry, president of Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODSS), Edgeton...

A veteran police investigator assigned to the Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigations (C-TOC) Unit yesterday said the St Catherine-based Klansman gang had its tentacles in more than five parishes in the island.According to ...

THE Crown yesterday invoked its powers to haul telecommunications giant Digicel before the court in order to get critical call data records and cell site details linked to recorded conversations between alleged Klansman gangsters and se...

INDUSTRIAL Gases Limited (IGL) and its IGNITE IGL Foundation last Thursday presented five scholarships to two students of medicine and three pursuing nursing at The University of the West Indies (The UWI) Faculty of Medical Sciences.Rec...

Today will be a difficult day for Radcliffe Campbell Sr.The cop is forced to mark an anniversary he wishes did not exist. It is now a year since his 24-year-old son, Radcliffe Campbell Jr, has been missing."It is coming around to the ti...