Trinidadian actor Renton Learmont drowned in New York on the weekend. According to reports, Learmont, 34, who lived in Harlem, drowned while swimming off Fire Island Pines in Suffolk, New Jersey.

The prosecution is seeking an early start for the trial of Jamaat al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr, although his lawyers have asked for additional time.

Dozens of pirated CDs and cassettes featuring Celine Dion, Buju Banton, Adesh Samaroo, and FBI (Dil-E-Nadan), as well as scores of soca and chutney mixes and works by other artistes were seized yesterday by police.

Trinidad and Tobago has offered to have its Coast Guard patrol the entire Eastern Caribbean, as far as Antigua, if the United States was prepared to fund it.

West Indies cricket captain Brian Lara, deeply touched by what he saw on a trip to Grenada yesterday, is pleading with the people of the Caribbean to come together as one.

Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology Phillip Paulwell yesterday described the price gouging that has been reported during kerosene sales as "nothing short of disgraceful" and warned that if unchecked, this could lead to government intervention.

The police officer who was accused of murdering a Canadian couple at Blanchisseuse in 1994 was freed yesterday after the main witness against him-his ex-wife-confessed that police had forced her to fabricate evidence against him.

A study released yesterday appeared to blunt Jamaica's claim that most of the people deported from the United States were socialised in crime in America.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning lashed out at the scourge of terrorism and appealed for more funding to help Grenada and other Caribbean states get back on their feet, when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly yesterday in New York.

A Santa Cruz man was yesterday denied bail when he appeared before a San Fernando magistrate charged with beating a teenage girl and kidnapping a 25-year-old man.