The Dangriga Police Department have arrested Dencil Leroy Alvarez, 24, a bank teller of #1134 Benguche Area, and Alexander Palacio, Jr., 31, unemployed, a resident of #1325 Lakeland Area, in connection with obtaining property by deception and abetment of the crime of obtaining property by deception.

Despite the protests of Hon. Carlos Perdomo, the Minister of Defense and Immigration, to us last week that the rumors of him leaving his post as area representative for Caribbean Shores is not true, a Caribbean Shores convention seems to be materializing with the United Democratic Party.

Dean Boyce and BCB Holdings file suit... The Barrow administration has recently signed into law the Eighth Amendment to the Belize Constitution, which, it has said, would put the 2011 re-nationalization of Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) beyond legal dispute.

Doctors puzzled; blame “chemical in the air”... “I felt something jump on top of me and hold my breath like if they did not want me to live.” – St. Edmund Campion student, 14. About seventy parents of children in the Standard 6 class of the St. Edmund Campion School in Teakettle Village, Cayo District, gathered in front of the school this morning to protest the return of the children to the school’s church, which is being used as a classroom.

A family is hurting after their loved one was brutally stabbed in the vicinity of Central American Boulevard sometime after 9:30 last night. He now remains in a critical condition at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.

Challenge against directive to return the US$10 million Venezuelan grant for the poor and sports complex failed... Panel of judges disagrees with bank’s charge of apparent bias of Banks and Financial Institutions Appeals Board

“Ashcroft Alliance” loses 3 in a row: Court of Appeal denies “9th” Amendment injunction request, again. After four days of Court of Appeal sittings and a temporary injunction barring the Attorney General, Bernard Q. Pitts, from passing the Belize Constitution, the “9th” Amendment Bill (now 8th because the original 8th Amendment was “put to rest”) was submitted to the Governor General, Sir. Colville Young, for his signature so that it could become law, after the full bench of the Court of Appeal dismissed the application by two known People’s United Party affiliates, long associated with the “Ashcroft Alliance,” for an interim injunction on the Bill until a referendum is held.

Up until today, there were no publicized details of the very private battle between Dean Lindo, one of the founding members of the United Democratic Party and a former UDP Minister, and Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of Sports, Public Service, Governance and Improvement, and Elections and Boundaries.

On Wednesday in the Supreme Court, a jury of six women and three men found Luciano Jaime Peña, an interdicted police officer attached to the Caribbean Shores police precinct station in Belize City but who is originally from Corozal, guilty of bigamy – legal marriage to a second spouse while the marriage with the first spouse is still active and that person is still alive.

He could face up to 50 years in Illinois prison... A Belizean man who had been living in the USA with his American wife today pleaded guilty to first degree murder, after having admitted that he strangled her to death last April in their Westmont, Chicago, home, following a quarrel. He faces up to 50 years in prison.

“No real prospect of success” – Denys Barrow...... “This case is about the Referendum Act” – Godfrey Smith... When Prime Minister Dean Barrow proclaimed in the House of Representatives last Friday, that the passage of the Belize Constitution 9th Amendment Bill in the House was his party’s “finest hour,” he may have spoken prematurely.

By law, nothing should be extracted from Bladen Nature Reserve, except for research purposes... The Bladen Nature Reserve, comprising nearly 100,000 acres of prized natural forest in southern Belize, is described as “the crown jewel of Belize’s protected areas.” Its status is so high among the nation’s protected areas that by law, it is ascribed the greatest level of preservation; and the area is reserved only for the work of scientists and other researchers. Although that is what the Laws of Belize say; the Ya’axche Conservation Trust (YCT), who co-manages the reserve, has again found evidence of illegal harvesting of the native xaté palm, presumably by Guatemalans who continue to come unchecked across the Belize-Guatemala border, to set up their working camps in the area.

On Sunday morning, at around 5:15, Frank Usher, 16, of Roaring Creek village was found in a nearby village, Camalote, behind a friend’s yard in the bushes with a gunshot wound in the chest. He was taken to the Western Regional Hospital in Belmopan, but died some 40 minutes later.

Former PM Said Musa paid off private hospital’s debt to Ashcroft-controlled Belize Bank... The controversy over a $33 million debt that the Musa administration had guaranteed for the Universal Health Services, now Belize Healthcare Partners, has been catapulted back into the public spotlight after the London-based Privy Council ruled Thursday, October 20, that the loan note the Musa administration had sealed between the Government and the Ashcroft-controlled Belize Bank, to pay off the private hospital’s debt was “not invalid by reason of section 7 of the Act.”