Lead Stories

Edmond Bartlett, minister of tourism. FILE
December 9, 2025 by Janet Silvera

Closed hotels set timelines for reopening after hurricane

Western Bureau: The powerful Category 5 Hurricane Melissa battered Hanover, Westmoreland, Trelawny, St Elizabeth, and sections of St James, forcing temporary hotel closures and displacing hundreds of…
News
December 9, 2025 by Karen Madden

Tertiary schools back in session after Melissa

Despite a threat from disgruntled students at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, to stage a sit in, the St Andrew-located institution resumed classes on Monday. Like other tertiary…
Former Prime Minister P. J. Patterson speaking with The Gleaner at his St Andrew home on Tuesday.
December 9, 2025 by Erica Virtue

Patterson urges Jamaica, Jamaicans to rebuild with resilience for the future

Amid scenes and images of the widespread devastation to the island’s southwestern coastal parishes following the passage of the record-breaking Category 5 Hurricane Melissa, former Prime Minister PJ…
Laura Littlebear, vice president, Greater Good Charities.
December 9, 2025 by Janet Silvera

Bees of hope

When Hurricane Melissa flattened crops and stripped Jamaica’s hillsides bare, few thought about the smallest victims – the bees. But for Laura Littlebear of Greater Good Charities, saving these…
Pearnel Charles Jr, minister of labour and social security, addresses a special press briefing on the recovery from Hurricane Melissa at Jamaica House in St Andrew yesterday.
December 9, 2025 by Edmond Campbell

Relief angst

Almost a week after Hurricane Melissa delivered a catastrophic blow to sections of southern and western Jamaica, the Government reported yesterday that there are still 25 marooned communities. As the…
Persons gather outside the Naing Wholesale on Main Street in Lucea, Hanover, on Sunday to connect to a Starlink access point to get in touch with family and loved ones as the mobile networks remained non-functional across the parish.
December 9, 2025 by Jovan Johnson

Lucea residents battle isolation as networks remain down

On Sunday, in Lucea, Hanover, residents gathered in small groups outside shops and supermarkets, heads bowed to phones with fading bars, hoping for a message that would tell them family and friends…
Keith Wellington, ISSA president and principal of the St Elizabeth Technical High School.
December 9, 2025 by Albert Ferguson

Not again!

WESTERN BUREAU: Principal of St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS), Keith Wellington, says the emotional toll of yet another disruption on students cannot be overlooked, especially for those…
Workmen trying to restore vehicular or pedestrian access stop to assess the situation.
December 9, 2025 by Karen Madden

Raging Yallahs River carves new path, leaving communities cut off

Vehicular and pedestrian access between St Thomas and St Andrew has been severed after the four-lane Yallahs River Bridge, located at the border of the two parishes, was washed away during the passage…
Despie Pinnock a resident of Farm, Westmoreland, recounts her experience during the passage of Hurricane Melissa at the shelter at Belmont Academy in Westmoreland.
December 9, 2025 by Kimone Francis

Survivors speak out as Melissa wipes out Westmoreland communities

Where vibrant communities once stood in Westmoreland, Hurricane Melissa has left behind a skeletal, unrecognisable landscape. The Category 5 storm stripped the parish of its landmarks and claimed…