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Wednesday, March 29, 2017  — Brian Bonitto Jamaica Observer SCORES of entertainment fraternity members, family and former colleagues filled Tent City Seventh-day Adventist Church in Portmore, St Catherine last Sunday to pay respect to singer Edi Fitzroy. Edi's casket The cover of Edi Fitzroy’s funeral programme. (Photos: Steve James) Desi Young, president of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians, who read one of the lessons, said Fitzroy made a positive impact and was well respected. “He got a good farewell. It was well-attended by members of the entertainment fraternity,” he told the  Jamaica Observer . In addition to Young, remembrances and lessons were given by television personality Suzie Q, Fitzroy’s former  Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC)  colleagues Tony Patel and Winston Williams; deejays Major Mackerel and Merciless. Percussionist Bongo Herman and Thriller U offered musical tributes. (From left) Entertainers Little Lennie, Dillinge...

 Published: Mar 29, 2017 8:48 p.m. ET Negotiations between New York real-estate developer Kushner Cos. and a large Chinese company over a planned $7.5 billion tower in Manhattan collapsed amid an outcry over possible conflicts of interest involving the Trump administration. Anbang Insurance Group Co., which has close political and family ties to the Chinese government, began pursuing a possible investment of as much as $1.25 billion in the project at 666 Fifth Ave. last July, according to people familiar with the discussions. Read:   Ivanka Trump takes official, unpaid position in White House But Anbang began backing away from the deal in recent weeks as it became a lightning rod for critics of the Trump administration who have said President Donald Trump and some of his top advisers haven’t taken sufficient steps to avoid possible conflicts between their government roles and their former businesses. Jared Kushner, a senior White House official and Trump’s son-i...

Monday, March 27, 2017 | 5:54 PM   KINGSTON, Jamaica — TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice has ranked Jamaica number 12 on the “World’s Best Destinations" list and number one in the Caribbean. The awards rank Jamaica among destinations such as Bali, London, Paris and Rome. Visitors enjoying the Dunn’s River Falls in St Ann. (Photo: UDC) A news release from the Jamaica Tourist Board explained that the award winners were determined using an algorithm that took into account the quantity and quality of reviews and ratings for hotels, restaurants and attractions in destinations worldwide, gathered over a 12-month period, as well as traveller booking interest on TripAdvisor. “Jamaica is honoured to have been recognised as one of the top destinations in the world by the TripAdvisor community, not to mention the number one in the Caribbean,” said Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett. “Our hospitality offerings and especially our warm-hearted people, make each vacation unforgettab...

BY TANESHA MUNDLE Staff reporter mundlet@jamaicaobserver.com  Monday, March 27, 2017   Former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in her final address as president of the People’s National Party (PNP) yesterday urged the party to continue its mission of being the voice for the poor and voiceless. “The PNP has always spoken out for the poor and the voiceless and that must remain our cause and our purpose,” the decorated politician told thousands of cheering supporters in an emotional speech inside the National Arena in St Andrew. Former People’s National Party President Portia Simpson Miller  (left) embraces Member of Parliament Lisa Hanna at the  National Arena yesterday. (Bryan Cummings) “Now, more than ever, Jamaica needs a strong, vibrant and united party to defend people’s interest. We must be the eyes, ears and voice of the people,” she said. “We must embrace the foundation’s mission, principles and ethics, and we must create programmes to enhanc...

Diana Ross, compiled by Rula Brown

Sunday, March 26, 2017  Researchers have developed a mathematical formula based on the rhythmic movement of a sperm’s head and tail, which significantly reduces the complexities of understanding and predicting how sperm make the difficult journey towards fertilising an egg. Researchers at the Universities of York, Birmingham, Oxford, and Kyoto University, Japan, found that the sperm’s tail creates a characteristic rhythm that pushes the sperm forward, but also pulls the head backwards and sideways in a coordinated fashion. Successful fertility relies on how a sperm moves through fluid, but capturing details of this movement is a complicated issue. The team aims to use these new findings to understand how larger groups of sperm behave and interact, a task that would be impossible using modern observational techniques. The work could provide new insights into treating male infertility. Dr Hermes Gadêlha, from the University of York’s Department of Mathematics, said: “In o...

By Howard Campbell Observer senior writer  Sunday, March 26, 2017     A play based on the life and music of Jacob Miller is among the events that will mark Inner Circle’s 50th anniversary next year. The band’s co-founder Ian Lewis told the  Jamaica Observer  that the play opens in May at the Little Theatre in Kingston when Miller, who died in March 1980, would have turned 68. Inner Circle The play will have two dates, followed the next day by a free concert at Emancipation Park, headlined by Inner Circle. “We are blessed to be out there still actively touring. Once yuh working like dat, it keep di creative juices flowing,” he said. Lewis, a bass player, co-founded Inner Circle in 1968 with his older brother Roger on rhythm guitar, Stephen “Cat” Coore on guitar, and keyboardist Michael “Ibo” Cooper. They reaped from a purple patch during the 1970s when Miller led them on classics like  Tenement Yard, Forward Ever, Backward Never,  an...

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), a top House Republican, said Friday morning that he would vote against the GOP’s  Obamacare   replacement bill, known as “Trumpcare.” Frelinghuysen’s opposition is significant not only because Republican leadership can only afford to lose 21 or 22 votes, but also because he is the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Committee chairpersons typically vote in line with the House leadership – and indeed set the party line and help pull recalcitrant members on board.  “Seven years after enactment of Obamacare, I wanted to support legislation that made positive changes to rescue healthcare in America,” Frelinghuysen said   in a statement . “Unfortunately, the legislation before the House today is currently unacceptable as it would place significant new costs and barriers to care on my constituents in New Jersey,” he continued.  “In addition to the loss of Medicaid coverage for so many people in my Medicaid...

Federal authorities plan to ban laptops, tablets and other electronic devices from the cabins of certain international flights to the United States, multiple news outlets reported on Monday. The Department of Homeland Security is expected to officially announce the travel rules on Tuesday. However, the scope and the motivation for them is currently unclear.  Reuters reported  that an unspecified terrorist threat prompted the rules, which will affect about a dozen airlines.  CBS News  said the rules are a response to overseas intelligence rather than a specific threat. According to CNN , the restrictions will apply to flights coming from some North African and Middle Eastern countries. A tweet from Royal Jordanian airlines created confusion on Monday about the previously unheard-of security measure.  The company said that starting March 21, passengers could no longer bring cameras, DVD players and electronic games with their carry-on i...

Monday, March 20, 2017     BATH, Westmoreland — The Westmoreland police were busy up to late last evening probing Saturday night’s gun attack at a cookshop here which left four men dead and an entire community in mourning. The deceased have been identified as 68-year-old tyre repairman Glendon Nanan; 54-year-old ‘Duco man’ Carl Banhan; 24-year-old labourer Timothy Bernard; and 19-year-old Dimario McIntosh, who is unemployed — all of Bath district, Westmoreland. Reports are that about 9:00 pm the four were at a cookshop in their normally peaceful community when four men, travelling on two motorcycles, rode onto the scene. The two pillions, who were armed with handguns, dismounted the motorcycles and pelted the occupants of the cook shop with bullets. Banhan, residents say, had just arrived at the cookshop, which served as his watering hole, when the attackers struck. He was the first to be cut down in a hail of bullets. He died on his way to hospital, while the othe...

Reuters By Daniel Trotta and Scott Malone 3/14/17 NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) - Snow began blanketing northeastern United States on Tuesday as a winter storm packing blizzard conditions rolled into the region, prompting public officials to ask people to stay home while airlines grounded flights and schools canceled classes. The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of eight states including New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut, with forecasts calling for up to 2 feet of snow by early Wednesday, with temperatures 15 to 30 degrees below normal for this time of year. Some 50 million people along the Eastern Seaboard were under storm or blizzard warnings and watches. “If you must go out, do so for as limited time period as possible ... but the  best thing to do is stay in ,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday. Above-ground subway service will be suspended at 4 a.m. local time as transit officials in the New York metro are...

Friday, March 10, 2017   — Alicia Sutherland Jamaica Observer     MANDEVILLE, Manchester — The police are theorising that the shooting incident in Christiana, Manchester, on Wednesday, which left two men dead, was a contract killing. Members of the public photographed at a crime scene. (File Photo) Head of the Manchester Police Division, Superintendent Wayne Cameron, said yesterday that the evidence suggests that only one of the men was the target. The deceased men, 32-year-old salesman Garfield Morgan and taxi operator Dinval White, 37, were shot dead in Mollison, just outside of the town. Speaking at yesterday’s meeting of the Manchester Municipal Corporation, Superintendent Cameron said that Morgan may have been involved in selling items on the “black market” and was the target. Cameron said that nine-and-a-half cases of “bootleg” white rum and “several” cartons of cigarettes of various brands, some of which the police are not familiar with, were removed...

Devon Dunkley Friday, March 10, 2017 by  Alan Lewin ST JAMES, Jamaica - Former Seba United goalkeeper Devon Dunkley popularly known as Kid Harris was among four people shot and killed on William Street in Montego Bay on Thursday (March 9). The others have been identified only by their aliases: they are Blackka a carpenter said to be in his 50's, Raphael from Albion Lane who is a former life guard and Gabriel. According to reports shortly after 10:00 pm the four men were among a group of people watching television when they were pounced upon by men who opened gunfire on them. The alleged gunmen reportedly escaped in a waiting motor car. A strong detachment of police is now on the scene.

 BY KIMONE FRANCIS Observer staff reporter francisk@jamaicaobserver.com  Thursday, March 09, 2017   A large crowd gathered yesterday outside Harmon Barracks at Mobile Reserve, family members among them, awaiting the release of just over 30 Jamaicans who were deported from the United Kingdom. A woman attempts to block Television Jamaica’s Krista  Campbell from interviewing her relative who was yesterday deported from the United Kingdom. Laffihama Morgan is interviewed by  journalists while feeding his son Raheem. Morgan  Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Area 4, Devon Watkis, told journalists at a press briefing on the compound that 32 Jamaicans, including six women, were sent back on a chartered flight. He said a woman, who was identified by the UK press only as ‘Sophia’, who had been separated from her three children since October, was not among those deported because of “litigating” issues. The deportees arrived in the island ...

BY RACQUEL PORTER Observer staff reporter porterr@jamaicaobserver.com  Thursday, March 09, 2017 SHERELL Smith-Walker was left a disappointed woman yesterday. It was International Women’s Day and Smith-Walker was upbeat earlier in the day, expecting a big turnout for a planned march to protest violence against women. Burger King employees protest outside Emancipation  Park in Kingston yesterday against violence against women. (Photo: Karl McLarty) But Smith-Walker, coordinator for St Andrew leg of Jamaica Against Violence/Mad House Charity, found it hard to hide her disappointment when she saw the small group which turned up to protest the rising incidence of violence against women. The group marched from Mandela Park to Emancipation Park in observance of International Women’s Day. “…It is sad. Jamaicans don’t believe in this [as] they only talk because their neighbour’s child got raped. It is like a nine-day wonder and that is crazy. We need to move away from that,...

Tuesday, March 07, 2017 JamaicaObserver    Jermaine Turner, the man charged with the brutal quadruple murder of three teenaged boys and a man in Monymusk Housing Scheme, Clarendon in April 2015 was yesterday found guilty on all counts. Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn told the  Jamaica Observer  that during the trial Turner, who was represented by George Clue and Michael Shorter, raised the defence of alibi, saying that he was elsewhere on the night of the murders. However, he failed to convince the jury which deliberated for 42 minutes before returning with a unanimous verdict in the Circuit Court for the parish of Clarendon where Justice Dale Palmer started hearing the case on February 15, 2017. The victims (from left) Alex Turner, Ricardo Briscoe, Raymond Gibbons and Marquis Hamilton. The heartless murders of 14-year-old Raymond Givans, a student of Vere Technical High School; Ricardo Briscoe, also 14 years old, of Garvey Maceo ...

President   Donald Trump   has accused former President  Barack Obama   of “wire tapping” Trump Tower before the 2016 presidential election. Trump made the claims in a series of tweets that he posted early Saturday morning, although he offered no evidence to back his allegations up. “Terrible!” Trump wrote at 6.35 a.m. E.T. “Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is  McCarthyism !” more

BY BALFORD HENRY & HORACE HINES  Friday, March 03, 2017     Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has disclosed that operations at Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay are to be reduced by 90 per cent over the next three to four weeks. In a statement to the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives, which was meeting last night at Gordon House, Tufton said that while the problems at the hospital have reoccurred over the years, they were at a stage that requires attention. Tufton’s statement came as the crisis at the hospital deepened yesterday after a third of the nursing staff reported sick and failed to turn up for work. Cornwall Regional Hospital The  Jamaica Observer  was unable to establish the full complement of the nursing staff at the western region’s only tertiary hospital, but Tufton told this newspaper that all efforts are being made to manage the treatment of patients with the available medical personnel...

 Published: Mar 2, 2017 10:58 p.m. ET The Trump administration says Attorney General Jeff Sessions was acting as a then-U.S. senator when he talked to Russia’s ambassador at an event during last year’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, but Sessions paid for convention travel expenses out of his own political funds and he spoke about Donald Trump’s campaign at the event, according to a person at the event and campaign-finance records. Jeff  Sessions Sessions made comments related to Trump’s presidential campaign at a Heritage Foundation event during the Republican convention in July, when he met with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, according to a person at the event in Cleveland. Sessions on Thursday said he would recuse himself from involvement in any probe related to the 2016 presidential campaign, following disclosures that he met with the Russian ambassador during the convention, and later in his Senate office in Washington. –– ADVERTISEMENT –– ...

Thursday, March 02, 2017 Gleaner DETECTIVES assigned to the police’s Fugitive Apprehension Team yesterday arrested a man who has been on the run from law enforcement in the United States of America. He is 61-year-old Desmond Campbell, otherwise called ‘Leon’, of York Drive, Spanish Town in St Catherine and Thornton District, St Elizabeth. Campbell, the police said yesterday, was a part of a drug-trafficking ring, based in Jamaica, which illegally shipped marijuana to the US and other countries between August 2004 and October 2009. Campbell, the police said, was subsequently held in the United States in 2010 and pleaded guilty to two counts of international conspiracy to distribute marijuana in the United States, and three counts of conspiracy to import marijuana into the United States. Campbell was to appear in court for sentencing but fled to Jamaica and was consequently declared a fugitive. A warrant of arrest, under the Extradition Act of 1991, was subsequently issued for...