A taxi-dri­ver who suf­fered a seizure as he was dri­ving along Scott Bushe Street in Wood­brook yes­ter­day, had to be hos­pi­talised af­ter he col­lid­ed with five cars and in­jured the front seat pas­sen­ger.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has called on the pub­lic to go be­yond rou­tine greet­ings and ask, “How are things at home?” as part of ef­forts to de­tect un­re­solved con­flict and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

Pres­i­dent of the Pri­vate Phar­ma­cy Re­tail Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (PPR­BA) Glen­wayne Su­chit says some cit­i­zens can­not af­ford med­ica­tion from pri­vate phar­ma­cies be­cause of a mo­nop­oly that ex­pand­ed af­ter the COVID-19 pe­ri­od, which has led to un­fair pric­ing, re­strict­ed sup­ply and the col­lapse of dozens of small phar­ma­cies.

Ja­maica will re­ceive up to US$6.7 bil­lion over three years from five in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to sup­port re­cov­ery and re­con­struc­tion af­ter Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa. The pack­age was con­firmed af­ter a re­quest from Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness and will in­volve CAF – De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank Group, the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, and the World Bank Group.

The Min­istry of Health will ex­pand com­mu­ni­ty-based HIV test­ing and in­crease ac­cess to self-test­ing next year as it push­es to strength­en re­ten­tion in care and roll out a na­tion­al an­ti-stig­ma cam­paign.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe urged the pub­lic to ask deep­er ques­tions when check­ing in on oth­ers, say­ing a sim­ple “How are you do­ing?” is of­ten not enough to re­veal dis­tress or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. He en­cour­aged peo­ple to fol­low up with, “How are things at home?” to help un­cov­er con­flict that may oth­er­wise go un­seen.

WIGUT pres­i­dent Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad has as­sured staff that the long-await­ed back pay owed to UWI St Au­gus­tine em­ploy­ees is now in its fi­nal stages of ap­proval, telling mem­bers, “It had to come. It was a le­gal agree­ment.”

Eco­nom­ic progress can­not be achieved with­out the ac­tive part­ner­ship of the pri­vate sec­tor, said Ava Ma­habir-Dass, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism. She was ad­dress­ing the Cou­va Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) dur­ing the Cham­ber’s an­nu­al Christ­mas func­tion on Fri­day at its ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex in Cou­va.

The au­thor­i­ty to grant Firearm Users’ Li­cences (FULs) must re­main with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, as any at­tempt to shift this statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty could cre­ate chaos, in­ef­fi­cien­cies and added bu­reau­cra­cy.

For­mer act­ing CEO of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Jee­van Joseph, is keep­ing qui­et about the rea­sons be­hind his sud­den de­par­ture from the State util­i­ty, con­firm­ing on­ly that he re­signed.

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al is call­ing for full trans­paren­cy from the Gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the in­stal­la­tion of a US mil­i­tary radar sys­tem in To­ba­go.

San Juan East Side Sym­pho­ny Steel Or­ches­tra ce­ment­ed its dom­i­nance in the Sin­gle Pan Band cat­e­go­ry of Panora­ma on Sat­ur­day night, cap­tur­ing its ninth na­tion­al ti­tle and sec­ond con­sec­u­tive crown at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Per­form­ing Jumbie by Machel Mon­tano, the band de­liv­ered a tight­ly ex­e­cut­ed arrange­ment by Du­vone Stew­art, earn­ing an im­pres­sive 285 points to top a field of 25 com­peti­tors.