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KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica’s national audit watchdog has raised serious red flags over how the country’s top emergency management agency handles public and donated disaster relief funding, including a major post-hurricane recovery program.

The Auditor General’s Department (AGD) released a damning audit report Tuesday, which was formally presented to Jamaica’s parliament, calling out widespread systemic failures at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), the government body tasked with leading national emergency response and recovery operations. The probe centered specifically on ODPEM’s stewardship of resources allocated to the Hurricane Melissa Relief Initiative, alongside broader oversight of the National Disaster Fund and the government’s Restoration of Owner or Occupant Family Shelters (ROOFS) shelter recovery program.

According to the report, ODPEM has demonstrated significant shortcomings across three core operational areas: financial management, institutional governance, and program accountability. One of the most notable gaps uncovered is the extreme lack of transparency around how Hurricane Melissa relief resources have been deployed. As of the audit cutoff date of February 23, 2026, just 1.8 percent of total cash donations earmarked for relief efforts had been spent — a mere $26.2 million out of the $1.44 billion received.

Auditors also found insufficient regulatory controls for donations processed through a partnering financial services institution. Key documentation gaps include the absence of a formal written agreement outlining terms for retained funds, and incomplete financial reconciliation records that make it impossible to fully track how all donations have been managed.

For the ROOFS Program, which relied on emergency procurement rules to speed up delivery of shelter materials, the audit identified multiple critical gaps in operational oversight. ODPEM failed to carry out required due diligence on participating suppliers, did not complete formal verification that ordered materials were delivered, lacked proper supporting documentation for payments, and failed to maintain complete records of project completion. These failures mean regulators have no guarantee that $167.3 million worth of program materials were used fully and for their intended purpose, the report concluded.

Beyond the specific program findings, the audit also assessed whether ODPEM’s internal control systems are robust enough to prevent, identify, and address fraud, waste, and misuse of public and donated disaster resources. The report confirmed that significant unaddressed gaps also remain in the ongoing oversight of the broader National Disaster Fund, raising questions about the agency’s ability to responsibly manage disaster resources at a systemic level.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — In a pointed address to Jamaica’s House of Representatives during Tuesday’s annual Sectoral Debate, opposition trade spokesperson Anthony Hylton launched a sharp critique of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration’s economic approach, accusing the government of fixating on headline fiscal indicators while ignoring the growing financial strain facing ordinary Jamaican households.

Hylton, who serves as the Opposition Spokesman on Trade, Industry and Global Logistics, argued that the JLP administration has grown complacent in celebrating macroeconomic wins that do little to improve daily life for most citizens. The government has repeatedly highlighted its achievements in fiscal discipline, macroeconomic stability, and growth in the country’s Net International Reserves — benchmarks that Hylton acknowledges hold genuine importance as foundational pillars for national economic health.

But these abstract numbers do not tell the full story of Jamaica’s economic reality, Hylton emphasized. “The Jamaican people are not living inside spreadsheets,” he said, outlining the gap between government reporting and on-the-ground experience: working families across the country are navigating persistent spikes in food and energy costs, stagnant wages that fail to keep up with the rising cost of living, and shrinking pathways to upward economic mobility.

The opposition spokesperson added that even young professional Jamaicans, a core demographic for long-term national growth, are increasingly questioning whether the country can offer them a stable, rewarding future. Too many households, he noted, are barely clinging to financial stability from one month to the next, rather than building long-term prosperity.

For Hylton, the central question facing Jamaica’s legislative body is not whether the government can balance its books — it is whether the country’s economic strategy is delivering tangible, felt prosperity to everyday people. In one of the most memorable lines of his address, he argued: “Jamaicans cannot eat fiscal credibility. They cannot pay mortgages with macroeconomic statistics. And they cannot build businesses from press releases.”

Beyond criticizing the current administration’s approach, Hylton pushed for a transformative shift in economic policy, arguing that Jamaicans deserve far more than just basic stability management. What the country needs, he insisted, is a bold, comprehensive national growth strategy designed to build long-term economic resilience, expand access to opportunity, boost domestic productivity, and deliver shared, sustainable prosperity for all segments of society.

Hylton pointed to a host of inherent advantages Jamaica already holds to support strong growth: a strategic geographic position along the world’s busiest shipping corridors, a skilled English-speaking workforce positioned for global trade and investment, close proximity to some of the world’s largest consumer markets, globally influential cultural brands, a population of driven entrepreneurs, and vast untapped economic potential across multiple sectors. Yet he stressed that inherent advantages are useless without intentional, targeted planning. “Potential without strategy is merely an unrealized opportunity,” he said.

Hylton framed this gap as the core failure of the national budget the government introduced in March, and positioned the push for a actionable growth strategy as the defining challenge facing the sitting administration and the entire House of Representatives in the coming term.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A provocative social media post from former U.S. President Donald Trump has ignited a fresh diplomatic firestorm between the United States and Venezuela, landing just as the former commander-in-chief traveled to China for a high-profile, high-stakes diplomatic summit. On Tuesday, Trump shared a custom map graphic on his personal Truth Social platform that showed the South American nation with a small U.S. flag inset and labeled the territory “51st State.”

The inflammatory post came one full day after Venezuelan interim leader Delcy Rodriguez publicly pushed back against growing speculation about U.S. annexation, stressing that her country had “never” entertained the idea of becoming an American state. The conversation around this provocative claim emerged in the wake of the capture of deposed former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces earlier this year.

The rhetoric around the issue began building on Monday, when Trump appeared on Fox News and openly confirmed that he was weighing the possibility of adding Venezuela as a new U.S. state. This comment marked a continuation of months of public boasting from Trump about his administration’s influence over the oil-rich South American country.

Since Rodriguez stepped into the role of interim president, her administration has overseen a marked thaw in once-frosty U.S.-Venezuela relations. Her government has passed a series of economic reforms that have reopened Venezuela’s lucrative mining and petroleum sectors to international investment, with U.S. companies positioned as the primary beneficiaries of the new policies.

Amid the shifting diplomatic and economic landscape, Venezuela’s domestic political sphere remains fractured. Opposition groups have repeatedly demanded that Rodriguez schedule a national general election to solidify democratic legitimacy. When pressed on the timeline for a new vote during a May 1 press appearance, Rodriguez offered no clarity, saying only that she “didn’t know” when the election would take place, only that it would happen “sometime.”

The post has drawn quick criticism from political analysts across the Americas, who warn that inflammatory rhetoric of this kind risks undermining the fragile progress that has been made on normalizing relations between Washington and Caracas in recent months.

Less than 18 months after taking office to lead a promised overhaul of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Commissioner Marty Makary has stepped down from his role, wrapping up a tenure marked by cross-cutting criticism and escalating political friction that culminated in his exit Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed the departure to reporters in Washington, confirming long-running rumors that a leadership change at the powerful regulatory agency was imminent. Describing Makary as a “terrific guy” and “hard worker respected by all,” Trump pushed back against speculation that he had dismissed the FDA chief, noting Makary had submitted a formal resignation via text message that Trump later shared on his Truth Social platform. Kyle Diamantas, a former top food safety official at the agency, will step into the role as acting commissioner immediately, the president announced.

A practicing surgeon and one-time Fox News contributor, Makary first rose to national prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic as a vocal contrarian who pushed back against mainstream public health guidelines and institutional medical consensus. When he was tapped to lead the FDA 13 months prior, he campaigned on a platform of sweeping regulatory reform. But his time in office left few stakeholders satisfied, drawing backlash from industry leaders, political activists on both sides of key policy debates, and established public health experts alike.

The final point of friction came over the Trump administration’s push to authorize the sale of fruit-flavored vapes, a policy Makary openly opposed over well-documented concerns that flavored e-cigarettes drive youth nicotine addiction. The administration moved forward with the policy despite Makary’s resistance, and the outgoing commissioner faced mounting pressure from the White House to sign off on the rule in recent weeks.

Other flashpoints galvanized criticism across the political and ideological spectrum. Anti-abortion conservatives who have spent years targeting the abortion pill mifepristone—first approved by the FDA 25 years ago—slammed Makary for dragging his feet on completing a long-promised regulatory review of the drug. Major pharmaceutical industry executives faulted his efforts to restructure the FDA’s drug approval process, arguing the changes created unnecessary delays and bureaucratic confusion instead of streamlining oversight. Public health leaders, meanwhile, accused Makary of pandering to anti-vaccine activists after the agency released an unsubstantiated memo linking COVID-19 vaccines to excess deaths, a claim that ran counter to decades of peer-reviewed research on vaccine safety.

Makary’s exit marks the latest high-profile shakeup at the Department of Health and Human Services, which is currently led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic who has overseen a wave of departures from traditional public health leadership roles across HHS’ major agencies. Recent months have seen vacancies at the top of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of the Surgeon General, as Kennedy has pushed to replace veteran public health officials with allies aligned with his anti-vaccine and deregulatory agenda.

Peter Lurie, president of the nonpartisan food and health watchdog Center for Science in the Public Interest, framed Makary’s departure as another symptom of institutional decay at the top of HHS. “This is just more chaos at a beleaguered, battered Department of Health and Human Services,” Lurie said. “When you don’t have a CDC Director, an FDA Commissioner, or a Surgeon General, the obvious question is: Why do you have this HHS Secretary? Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is the cause of much of the chaos that has resulted in these job vacancies. HHS is rotting from the head.”