Local news

The Senate Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety Committee on Thursday advanced legislation to strengthen enforcement of the Virgin Islands’ traffic violation point system, while holding a separate measure on civil liability for damage to government property.

The government is recommending a 22-month prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release for David Whitaker, the convicted felon turned cybersecurity contractor who became a cooperating witness against three former high-ranking government officials and a local business owner. 

The driver of a water truck that overturned in January, killing his 6-year-old daughter, was charged with vehicular homicide and child abuse Thursday, according to court records.

The revered poem and anthem of youth empowerment, "I Am a Virgin Islands Child," written by local educator and poet Lawrence Sewer in 1978, is being given new life through a book inspired by the beloved work. Sewer’s daughter, author, poet and storyteller Zenzi Hodge, has transformed her late father’s celebrated poem into a picture book that expands on and celebrates its themes of identity, culture and self-worth.

The Virgin Islands Trail Alliance has completed and opened the first new trail segment within the Maroon Sanctuary Territorial Park on St. Croix, creating a new one-mile pathway that connects Mount Eagle to Scenic Road and forms part of a three-mile loop utilizing existing dirt roads and traditional trails.

A chance encounter with Scott Pelley at a journalism gala last fall now feels prophetic. As respected news voices disappear from mainstream media, one journalist reflects on integrity, truth-telling and the future of a free press.

U.S. Marshals arrested the owner of the St. John Ink tattoo parlor for allegedly fleeing assaulting-an-officer charges in Florida, officials said Thursday.

The Virgin Islands Board of Elections voted Wednesday to continue using a single ballot for federal and territorial races, while spending much of a lengthy meeting debating candidate eligibility, residency disputes, and a failed effort to remove Elections Supervisor Caroline Fawkes.

In a letter to V.I. Port Authority leadership and Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. Wednesday, major airlines decried the lack of transparency around plans to redevelop the St. Thomas and St. Croix airports and said they would not sign leases or operating agreements under the current structure. 

Acting Gov. Tregenza A. Roach has signed legislation appropriating $2.1 million for repairs and assessments intended to improve power reliability in the St. Thomas-St. John district and $2.3 million to continue the University of the Virgin Islands' tuition-free scholarship program.

Sargassum continued to rise across much of the Atlantic basin during May, and the latest regional outlook from the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab indicates that beaching events around the Caribbean and Florida may continue to increase in June.

With power interruptions continuing across St. Thomas and St. John, residents and a sitting senator took their frustrations outside Legislature on Tuesday, staging a peaceful protest that called for accountability, long-term solutions, and outside assistance to address WAPA's ongoing power crisis.

In memoranda filed in U.S. District Court Tuesday, federal prosecutors asked a judge to sentence former V.I. Police Commissioner Ray Martinez to up to 30 years in prison and former Management and Budget Director Jenifer O’Neal to seven years following their conviction on charges of wire fraud, bribery and money laundering conspiracy. Martinez was also found guilty of obstructing justice. 

The 28-page opinion, handed down Monday and authored by Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman, found that the issue was not, “as the Government frames it, ‘whether to seek the death penalty’ falls within the purview of the Executive Branch; it does. … Instead, the issue is whether courts have the right to manage their cases; they do.”

Compliance monitors and lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice told a federal judge on St. Thomas they looked forward to the day when the Virgin Islands Police Department will no longer be subject to a consent decree first imposed in 2009. Testimony and statements to that effect were heard late last week before Chief District Judge Robert Molloy at a compliance hearing.

Antilles School seniors Halina Diehl and Emma Walters have committed to continue their sailing careers at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania, joining a long tradition of Antilles sailors who have gone on to compete at the highest levels of collegiate sailing.

Students from across the U.S. Virgin Islands will have the opportunity to attend Space Camp this year through scholarships funded by RapierMed, a contribution supporters say will help expand access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education for local youth.

Governor Albert Bryan Jr. has proposed a roughly $1.63 billion FY2027 budget, including a $958.2 million General Fund spending plan that projects continued revenue growth fueled by tourism, housing development, private investment, and recovery-related activity.

Lt. Gov. Tregenza Roach delivered news Monday that, on almost any other day, might have been met with applause. But even new direct flights to St. Croix and a potential $400 million luxury resort — with a public land clawback – on Water Island couldn’t outshine the districtwide power outage darkening St. Thomas and St. John since Saturday.

Maintenance issues first triggered by one of the Randolph Harley power plant’s aging “legacy” units have stymied attempts to restore power to large swathes of St. Thomas and St. John and end the latest episode of persistent outages, V.I. Water and Power Authority Chief Executive Officer Karl Knight said during a press conference Monday morning.