It has been more than six months since Dr Samar Rodriguez, a London-based academic, last saw her five-year-old daughter, Tau Kleio Rodriguez-Fairplay. Tau was abducted in February from her home in the United Kingdom by her other parent, Athena...
On the brink of the new school year, Vince Williams, principal of Tulloch Primary in Bog Walk, St Catherine, is anxious as the institution is not fully prepared to welcome its students. While acknowledging that the school is in a far better state...
After years of lobbying, postal agents across Jamaica are finally being paid in line with the national minimum wage – a long-overdue development that unions see as an indictment on the Government but also as a step toward broader improvements in...
Disenchanted with what they describe as lacklustre representation from outgoing Member of Parliament (MP) Phillip Henriques of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), many voters in Clarendon North Western are now weighing whether to return to former MP...
The excited laughter of children flying kites filled the air at the St Mary Parish Library in Port Maria during a recent fun day. This lively scene in an otherwise quiet environment was part of the library’s effort to attract new visitors and...
A visibly frustrated Glenda Wright reluctantly opened the door to her two-bedroom home in Portland Cottage, Clarendon, later admitting that she thought the Sunday Gleaner team was from yet another “agency”, coming around to offer more empty...
At just 16, Tyrone Simms dropped out of high school, barely able to read. The now-39-year-old says the struggle with literacy left him deeply self-conscious, often avoiding situations that could expose his challenge. “When somebody not so efficient...
Girlie Harris, a longtime resident of Golden Valley in St Mary, says she feels a wave of fear every time she travels along certain sections of the Junction main road – especially those lacking embankments or retaining walls. Her fear intensified...
Jamaican farm workers could benefit from the United States’ immigration crackdown on illegal immigrants and undocumented labour, Colette Roberts Risden, permanent secretary in the Minister of Labour, has asserted. Roberts Risden, who is currently...
At age 25, Andrew Walters spends his Sundays managing the demanding schedule of pastoring three churches in rural Westmoreland. He acknowledges that balancing his responsibilities across the Salem Moravian circuit of churches is “really difficult...
In a small, grubby Two Miles studio, South West St Andrew Jonkonnu Group band leader Rainford Foster sifts through a pile of costumes carelessly draped over a battered sofa. Each garment, he explains, is a tribute to the resilience of his African...
Overwhelmed by more than $1.4 million in medical debt and watching her teenage son grow increasingly despondent each day, Charlotte Nembhard has made the difficult decision to offer him one of her kidneys in the hope of giving him a fighting chance...
From earthquakes to financial scandals and the hiccups of implementing a new law and restructuring public sector wages, the narratives that took centre stage in 2023 have influenced our trajectory as we step into the upcoming year. Here’s a...
About 6:30 a.m. on August 13, 2022, Linval Williams was packing goods into the trunk of his vehicle at his gate as he prepared to sell his produce in and around his community of Windsor Castle, St Mary. Without warning, his Saturday morning routine...
No Jamaican alive has ever experienced a local tsunami. The last tsunami recorded in Jamaica was 116 years ago when the 1907 earthquake struck Kingston, killing more than 1,000 people. Though rare, the threat a tsunami poses to a country with so...
An hour before her mother Heather Moyston was killed in a murder-suicide by her husband, Aimee Norman received a text message from her. As she did regularly, Moyston was inquiring about the well-being of her only child and her four grandchildren...
People seeking long-term rentals are now being targeted by scammers presenting fake contracts and giving them unauthorised tours of properties before fleeing with their deposits and leaving them in the cold, to the chagrin of the legitimate...
Local stakeholders are expressing hope in light of news out of the United States that human trials of a breast cancer vaccine are producing desirable results. Experts believe the drug could revolutionise breast cancer treatment and have a...
At 32 years old, Karen* still bears the emotional scars of being bullied throughout high school. She recalls how the repeated abuse from her peers at a prominent Corporate Area institution gnawed at her mental health to the point where she no...
Daneslee Edmondson’s neighbour in Reader’s Pen, St Thomas, made chemicals that could remove the rust from metal like no other. And Edmondson, a welder in the community, was intrigued. For years, he desired to learn the method, but his neighbour was...
Darren Lewis, assistant editor at the United Kingdom’s Daily Mirror, and press photographer Humphrey Nemal had an enlightening discovery when they travelled to Jamaica recently on a Windrush assignment. While the Jamaican diaspora in England had...
When Nicholas Phillips was a 13-year-old student of Ardenne High School, one of his classmates drew a picture and presented it to him. The drawing showed Phillips hunched in a corner in the classroom, his head on the desk as he slept, away from...
Thirteen-year-old *Sanjay Green sat on top of a water bucket under the bridge at Three Miles, Kingston, with his squeegee and a bottle filled with soapy water in hand. Periodically, his tiny frame joins the throng of older windshield wipers who...
Adrian Laing, Kishawn Henry Sr, and Artnel Williams have never met each other, but the three fathers are bonded by grief birthed by the tragic loss of their children. It is a sorrow that they say the celebrations of Father’s Day only serve to...
Five years ago, Tess Gordon* was approached by a man in Barbican, St Andrew, while running weekend errands. Spooked by his comments, the then 21-year-old said she rejected his advances. “The conversation was very creepy, he was like ‘I want to...
