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June 25, 2018
Lionel Rookwood/Photographer Sherilla Gordon (right), marketing officer at the Gleaner Company (Media) Limited shows these three persons how to enter the STAR Spot The Ball Competition while in Half-Way Tree, St Andrew, last Friday. The RJRGLEANER Communications Group publication is offering its readers a chance to win a grand prize of a five-day, four-night stay for two, including airfare, at the all-inclusive Breezes Resort and Spa Bahamas, as well as weekly prizes. All readers have to do is to look out for the football photo published in The Star on Thursdays and Fridays, mark an X where they think the football should be in the photo, complete the entry form, and send in their entries. Weekly prizes includes 32-inch television sets and various cash prizes before the grand prize draw. The competition will run for four weeks, with readers encouraged to enter as many times as they wish.

Minister of National Security, Dr Horace Chang, is reporting a 69 per cent reduction in the murder toll in the St Catherine North Police Division up to June 19, as a result of the state of public emergency (SOE) declared in the area.

Chang was delivering the main address at the National Housing Trust (NHT)/Social Development Commission (SDC) St Catherine Leadership Council meeting on June 21, at Twickenham Park in St Catherine.

"North St Catherine had in the first 12 weeks (of this year) some 49 homicides, with at least five murders per week. With the introduction of the SOE, we are down to about one per week," he said.

Minister of Transport and Mining, Robert Montague, is appealing to all road users to exercise extra care on the roads.

In a televised message to the public for Road Safety Awareness Month, which is observed during June, the minister said that a new outlook is needed to fuel a change in behaviour.

"We urge you to join the road safety train now. Let us chart a new course as we seek to ensure that as a nation we are able to achieve the milestone of having less than 300 road fatalities this year," he said, referencing the target set by the National Road Safety Council.

He said it is important for all Jamaicans to take responsibility for their part in safety on the country's road network.

Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Audley Shaw, says he will be moving to ensure that Jamaica is not left behind in the growing global medical cannabis industry.

He noted that while Jamaica has only decriminalised the use of up to two ounces of marijuana and issued a few licences for production and processing, the product is now legal in Canada, and 31 states in the United States have been producing and using it for medicinal and recreational purposes.

Shaw said that the country needs to move quickly to take advantage of opportunities in the growing of cannabis and manufacture of products.

The Heart foundation of Jamaica (HFJ) is seeking to increase the number of persons receiving training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Speaking at a recently held JIS 'Think Tank', training coordinator at the Heart Foundation, Alonzo Mothersill, noted that 3,280 persons participated in CPR training in 2017, an increase of 307 over the previous year.

He said the foundation is currently on track to surpass that number for 2018, having trained more than 1,200 persons since the beginning of the year.

The number of Jamaicans being denied entry into Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) continues to decline.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Kamina Johnson Smith, said that 289 Jamaicans were refused entry by the twin-island republic in 2017, a reduction from the 416 persons in 2016.

"According to the Passport Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA), 63 Jamaican nationals were denied entry (to Trinidad) in the first quarter of 2018, and while we can't predict what will happen by the end of the year, certainly, if this trend continues, then the reduction continues," she said.