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A resident of Christ Church, Barbados, has received a combined $28,000 in fines after pleading guilty to illegal weapons and ammunition charges stemming from a 2022 search of his home. Ryan Timothy Andrews, a 44-year-old man living in the Sayers Court neighborhood, entered guilty pleas to two counts during a recent session of the Continuous Assizes at the No. 3 Supreme Court: unlawful possession of an unregistered Jericho 941 Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol, and possession of 11 rounds of unlicensed ammunition, offenses that date back to September 4, 2022.

During the sentencing hearing, Justice Carlisle Greaves handed down structured penalties for each count. For the unlicensed firearm, the judge ordered an immediate fine of $17,000, with a strict fallback sentence of seven years and seven months of prison time if the penalty is not paid. For the 11 rounds of ammunition, Greaves imposed a $1,000 fine per bullet, totaling $11,000, which Andrews must pay within six months. A seven-year prison sentence will be triggered if this portion of the fine goes unpaid.

Acting Senior State Counsel Anastacia McMeo-Boyce led the prosecution for the state, while defense attorney Shadia Simpson represented Andrews throughout the court proceedings.

Court documents and testimony detailed the sequence of events that led to Andrews’s arrest. When law enforcement officers executed a signed search warrant at his residential property, they first asked Andrews if he had any prohibited items on the premises. His first admission was small amounts of marijuana, a separate disclosure that did not result in additional charges in this case. As search operations continued, officers pressed Andrews again for any other illegal items, at which point he acknowledged he was holding an unregistered gun.

Andrews cooperated with officers, guiding them to the weapon’s location: he explained he had moved the gun from an upstairs storage box to a shelf inside an open wardrobe on the ground floor bedroom. Following his directions, law enforcement recovered a black semi-automatic pistol with an inserted ammunition magazine.

When asked to explain how he came to possess the unregistered weapon, Andrews told investigators that a third party had approached him seeking a cash loan. Per their informal agreement, the individual left the firearm with Andrews as collateral against the borrowed money, effectively pawning the weapon to him. No additional information about the unnamed person who pawned the gun has been released by authorities.

After being informed of the weapons charges, Andrews was taken into custody and transported to the District ‘E’ Police Station for processing.

On Tuesday, frontline workers at Grantley Adams International Airport Inc. (GAIA Inc.) took to the picket line, turning a months-long simmering wage dispute into open public demonstration. The action, organized by the workers’ representative body the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), comes after nearly five months of unreturned communications from airport management over a proposed 20% wage increase for the 2025–2027 period.

Under the quiet observation of local law enforcement, a group of airport employees walked off their posts to voice their long-held frustration, calling on management to immediately address their compensation demands. Union leadership has emphasized that the protest is not a spontaneous, unplanned outburst, but a direct response to GAIA management’s persistent refusal to return to collective bargaining.

NUPW President Kimberly Agard told reporters that the union has been seeking formal negotiations with GAIA’s leadership since December of last year. Despite repeated outreach to schedule a bargaining session and discuss the union’s formal compensation proposal, Agard said the union has not received a single formal reply or counteroffer from management.

“Since last December, the NUPW has shared its formal position with GAIA management, and to this day, we have not gotten any kind of response,” Agard stated. “This delay is not on our end—we have continuously reached out to lock in a date to return to the bargaining table, but every proposed date gets pushed back. Our members are fed up. They show up and work hard every day, they deserve better compensation, and this protest is just their way of making that frustration heard.”

Union officials clarified that the decision to stage a public protest was not made lightly. Industrial Relations Officer Lisa Allicock explained that the NUPW intentionally narrowed its bargaining priorities to speed progress on the issue that matters most to workers: immediate wage relief. The union set aside non-wage contractual disagreements to focus exclusively on reaching a resolution for the 20% salary increase proposal covering 2025 to 2027, and has only been waiting for management to engage in good faith.

“There were a range of outstanding items on the table, but we recognized that wages are the most pressing concern for our members right now, so we decided to pause discussions on everything else,” Allicock said. “We’ve narrowed our focus to bring salary negotiations to a close as quickly as possible, and we’re just waiting for GAIA management to respond to our position.”

Agard pushed back against any claims that the demonstration was premature or uncoordinated, noting that the NUPW operates on a core principle of “responsible representation”—but that responsibility must extend to both sides of the bargaining table. She pointed out that airport workers are facing the same widespread cost of living pressures that are impacting households across Barbados, and their anxiety over stagnant wages is entirely justified.

“This isn’t a random, unplanned action,” Agard stressed. “We’ve given management more than enough time to review our proposal and come back to the table. Our members aren’t against working—they just want fair pay for the work they do, and this protest shows how fed up they are with how management has treated their request and their representatives.”

As of Tuesday, union leaders have not disclosed details of their next steps if management continues to refuse to negotiate. While the NUPW has not yet called for a full, formal work stoppage that would disrupt airport operations, representatives confirmed that all possible actions remain on the table, depending on GAIA management’s response in the coming days.

“We remain committed to responsible representation, and labor organizing follows strategic planning—we’re not going to announce our next moves publicly right now,” Agard said. “We will hold further consultations with our members, and whatever direction they want us to go is what we will follow.”

Barbados TODAY has reached out to GAIA communications specialist Sharleen Brown to request a comment from management on the protest and ongoing wage dispute, and is awaiting a response as of the publication of this report.

As The St. Michael School nears its 98th year of operation, a generous donation from two successful former students is shining a light on the critical gap in classroom technology and the power of alumni giving to transform educational experiences for current learners.

Entrepreneurs Ashley Hope and Damien Pinder, co-directors of the multi-media enterprise PinderHope Enterprises Ltd., have gifted three state-of-the-art high-definition 4K televisions to the Barbados-based secondary school, where they first studied more than two decades ago. The pair stepped forward to fill a pressing need after learning about the institution’s ongoing technology shortages while working on a separate alumni-led campus project.

Pinder explained that the pair were struck by how little progress had been made on integrating educational technology into classrooms since their own time as students. “Two decades ago, EduTech was already a major buzzword, framed as the future of classroom learning,” he noted. “When we found out that core teaching spaces still lacked even basic connected 4K displays, we knew we had to act.”

School leadership says the donation has already resolved a long-standing logistical and pedagogical challenge the institution has faced for years. Before the new televisions were installed, the school only had a limited number of portable projectors available for classroom use, meaning teachers had to reserve equipment weeks in advance and only those who booked first got access. Now, with fixed 4K screens placed in key specialist rooms, educators no longer have to plan around equipment shortages, and can integrate digital visual learning into their daily lessons seamlessly.

Tanya Harding, the school’s principal who actually taught Hope and Pinder integrated science 20 years ago, emphasized that the upgrade has benefited both instructors and students. “Having a permanently placed screen in these rooms removes all the uncertainty around accessing technology for lessons,” Harding said. “This directly addresses a gap we’ve been working to close for a long time.”

Susan Alleyne-Forde, head of the school’s Fine Arts Department, echoed that praise, noting the new televisions have already reshaped teaching in her department. “We can now stream live demonstrations, play educational videos, and display high-resolution reference materials directly in the classroom, so every single student has a clear view of what we’re covering,” she explained. “It feels like we finally have the modern classroom technology we’ve been wanting for decades – it’s a game-changer.”

Beyond the immediate impact on teaching at The St. Michael School, Hope and Pinder say their donation is meant to serve as a call to action for other alumni of the institution to give back in whatever way they can. Hope emphasized that contributing to one’s alma mater doesn’t require large financial gifts to make a difference. “The school has so many needs, and we’re hoping this example encourages other graduates who are in a position to help to step forward,” he said.

Pinder expanded on that message, noting that any form of contribution counts. “Giving back doesn’t always have to be monetary,” he said. “Whether you can share your time, your professional skills, or material resources, every contribution adds up to make a real difference for current students.”

As the school prepares to mark its 98th anniversary, the donation is being held up as a model of how graduate engagement can strengthen the institution and open new opportunities for the next generation of learners.