Shakira, Madonna and BTS to headline 2026 World Cup Final halftime show
(CNN) Shakira, Madonna and K-pop superstars BTS will headline the first-ever World Cup final halftime show, FIFA announced in an Instagram post on Thursday.
The World Cup Final is set for July 19 at New Jersey’s Metlife Stadium and is expected to draw millions of viewers worldwide on top of its attendees.
World Cup 2026 kicks off June 11 in Mexico City with matches to be played in multiple locations across the US, Canada and Mexico.
The final halftime, curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, will be produced by the non-profit Global Citizen and benefit the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, FIFA said.
The fund is “a landmark initiative working to raise $100 USD million to expand access to quality education and football for children around the world,” FIFA wrote in the announcement.
“Throughout the tournament, USD 1 from every ticket sold to FIFA World Cup 2026™ matches will be donated to the Fund.”
In an announcement video posted to social media, Martin was joined by characters from Sesame Street and the Muppets, with a cameo from BTS.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino teased the inaugural performance at a World Cup event in March 2025.
“This will be a historic moment for the FIFA World Cup and a show befitting the biggest sporting event in the world,” Infantino said at the time.
The official rules of soccer, outlined by the International Football Association Board, state that halftime breaks should not exceed 15 minutes and it’s unclear whether it will be changed to accommodate the performance, such as with halftime shows at the Super Bowl.
Last week, FIFA said reggaeton superstar J Blavin would headline the World Cup’s opening ceremony in Mexico City. That performance will also feature Alejandro Fernández, Belinda, Danny Ocean, Lila Downs, Los Ángeles Azules, Maná and Tyla.
Jamaica’s police expertise now in demand across Caribbean, says PM
Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands (The Gleaner) — For years, Jamaica’s international reputation was shadowed by gangs, gun violence and murder statistics that placed the island among the world’s most dangerous countries.
Today, Jamaican police officers are being recruited across the Caribbean to help neighbouring territories fight organised crime using strategies developed in some of the island’s toughest communities.
Nowhere is that transformation more visible than in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where a 28-member contingent from the Jamaica Constabulary Force has spent the last year helping local authorities suppress violent crime.
The results have been dramatic.
“In 2024, we had 47 murders. In 2025, we had 27 murders. So far this year, ... we’ve had zero murders,” said Premier Charles Washington Misick during a visit by Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness to the officers’ residence on Saturday.
Acting Deputy Superintendent Nicholas Shorter, commander of the Jamaican contingent, believes the success stems from policing methods forged through Jamaica’s own long battle with organised criminal gangs.
“The crimes of the Third World cannot be tackled by using First World tactics,” Shorter said.
According to him, Jamaica’s policing model has evolved into a more tactical, intelligence-led and standardised system capable of being replicated elsewhere in the region.
“What we have found out since 2023 in Jamaica is that policing is really a science,” he explained. “If we do the very same things correctly as they have been done in Jamaica, then we can achieve results that are quite similar.”
The Jamaican team includes tactical operators, intelligence officers, investigators and drone pilots. Among them are three female officers working in what remains a heavily male-dominated tactical environment.
Sergeant Natricia Davis, one of the female officers deployed to Turks and Caicos, said the assignment has tested the adaptability of Jamaican officers in unfamiliar conditions.
“One of our major issues that we face here as Jamaicans is the language barrier,” Davis said, noting the territory’s large Haitian and Dominican populations. While some residents speak Haitian Creole or French, others primarily speak Spanish.
“Being here for so long, we’ve kind of learned a few of their verbiage,” she said.
Davis, who previously served on Jamaica’s SWAT team and is Level Three tactically trained, said the deployment highlighted the increasingly specialised nature of modern Jamaican policing.
“We trained vigorously,” she said. “It has been a bit difficult, but we are able to overcome it.”
The officers have also had to adapt to challenges unique to the Turks and Caicos, particularly maritime surveillance across scattered islands and irregular migration flows from Haiti.
For Jamaica’s minister of national security and peace, Dr Horace Chang, the regional demand for Jamaican policing expertise reflects years of quiet institutional rebuilding.
Chang said Jamaica had received requests for police training from countries such as Saint Lucia and that Jamaican law-enforcement agencies, including the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency, were increasingly being viewed as regional leaders in cybercrime and organised crime investigations.
He attributed Jamaica’s falling murder rate partly to the modernisation and expansion of the police force, including recruiting university graduates and technically trained specialists into the JCF.
The digitisation of policing operations, Chang said, has also transformed the force into one of the most technologically advanced arms of government.
The regional interest in Jamaica’s security expertise comes as several Caribbean territories confront increasingly sophisticated gang networks, gun trafficking and organised criminal enterprises once thought to be problems largely confined to Jamaica and parts of Latin America.
Governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands, Dileeni Daniel-Selvaratnam said the Jamaican officers had become “an integrated part” of the territory’s police force while simultaneously helping to strengthen local tactical capability and leadership development.
For Shorter, the deployment represents more than a foreign assignment.
It symbolises a remarkable reversal in Jamaica’s regional identity.
“We have managed to assist the police force in tracking down, monitoring, dismantling and degrading organised criminal gangs,” he said.
Pope creates artificial intelligence study group as Vatican prepares to release his first encyclical
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV has created a study group on artificial intelligence, the Vatican said Saturday, as he gears up to release his first encyclical that is expected to emphasize the need for an ethics-based approach to the technology that prioritizes human dignity and peace.
The Vatican said Leo had decided to create the in-house study group because of the acceleration in AI’s use, “its potential effects on human beings and on humanity as a whole (and) the church’s concern for the dignity of every human being.”
The announcement came a day after Leo signed his encyclical, 135 years to the day after his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, dated his most important encyclical, “Rerum Novarum,” or Of New Things. That document addressed workers’ rights, the limits of capitalism, and the obligations that states and employers owed workers as the Industrial Revolution was underway.
It became the foundation of modern Catholic social thought, and the current pope has already cited it in relation to the AI revolution, which he believes poses the same existential questions that the Industrial Revolution posed over a century ago. The new encyclical is expected to place the AI question in the context of the church’s social teaching, which also covers issues such as labor, justice and peace.
“I think that the Catholic Church in many ways is going to be the adult in the room on some of these debates about how we are going to integrate AI into the rest of our society,” said Meghan Sullivan, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame who directs its ethics institute. “For sure, the pope is going to be one of the most forceful advocates for human dignity in these discussions.”
Just days after his 2025 election, Leo told the cardinals who made him pope that the Catholic Church owed it to the world to offer the “treasury of its social teaching” to confront the challenges posed by AI on “human dignity, justice and labor.”
The public release of the encyclical, expected in the coming weeks, will likely become a new flashpoint between the Chicago-born Leo and the Trump administration, which has made the rapid development of AI a matter of vital national economic and security strategy. The United States has strongly rejected international regulatory efforts to rein in AI and the Trump administration has removed bureaucratic roadblocks slowing its development domestically.
The flurry of Vatican activity came as U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped up a visit to China that included AI business. Traveling with Trump on Air Force One were, among others, Elon Musk, whose social media platform X features his AI chatbot Grok, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who recently secured federal approval to sell H200 AI chips to Chinese buyers.
The Vatican wants its voice and values in the AI debate
Since the AI boom kicked off with ChatGPT’s debut, the technology’s breathtaking capabilities have amazed the world. Tech companies have raced to develop better AI systems even as experts warn of its risks, from existential but far-off threats like rogue AIs running amok to everyday problems like bias in algorithmic hiring systems.
The United Nations last year adopted a new governance architecture to rein in AI after previous multilateral efforts, including AI summits organized by Britain, South Korea and France resulted only in nonbinding pledges. In 2024, the EU adopted its own Artificial Intelligence Act, applying a risk-based approach to its AI rules.
The Vatican has sought to add its voice to the debate, offering ethical guidelines for the application of AI in sectors from warfare to education and healthcare. The underlying call has been that the technology must be used as a tool to complement, and not replace, human intelligence.
The Vatican has also warned of the environmental impact of the AI race, noting the “vast amounts of energy and water” required by AI data centers and computational power.
“There are almost a billion and a half Catholics in the world, so that alone is reason to pay attention,” said Thomas Harmon, theology professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. “But beyond the numbers, the Catholic Church has a deep and sophisticated tradition of thinking through what it means to be human.”
In 2020, the Vatican enlisted tech companies to sign on to an AI pledge, known as the Rome Call for AI Ethics, which, among other things, outlined core principles for AI regulation, including inclusiveness, accountability, impartiality, and privacy. Microsoft, IBM and Cisco were among the private sector companies that signed on.
In his final years, Pope Francis called for an international treaty to regulate AI, saying the risks of technology lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness were too great to merely trust in the morality of AI researchers and developers.
He also brought his authority to bear on the Group of Seven, addressing a special session on the perils and promises of AI in 2024. There, Francis said politicians must take the lead in making sure AI remains human-centric, so that decisions about when to use weapons or even less-lethal tools always remain made by humans. He called ultimately for a ban on the use of lethal autonomous weapons, colloquially known as “killer robots.”
AI-savvy Leo is concerned with peace, truth and human relations
In-house, Leo has warned priests against using AI to write their homilies. But the math major pope, who does spend free time scrolling on his phone, has also raised his voice on the broader implications of AI on world peace, labor and the very meaning of reality.
For the Augustinian pope, generative AI’s ability to misinform and deceive through deepfake imagery is particularly worrisome, given that the search for truth is a fundamental element of his religious order’s spirituality.
In a June 2025 speech to an AI conference, Leo acknowledged generative AI’s contributions to healthcare and scientific discovery. But he questioned “its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, on our distinctive ability to grasp reality.”
Leo, who has emphasized a constant appeal for peace, has also called for monitoring how AI is being used and developed in warfare in the Middle East and Ukraine, where automated weapons systems are using everything from aerial drones and maritime and ground platforms.
“What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation,” he said this past week at La Sapienza, Europe’s largest university.
From Cisco to Block, more companies are pointing to AI when unveiling job cuts
NEW YORK (AP) — Layoffs have been piling up recently, especially in the tech world. And the words “artificial intelligence” are accompanying more and more notices about the cuts.
That’s unnerving workers across sectors, with many fearing what the rapid adoption of AI will mean for their job prospects. Even if AI isn’t replacing people directly, some businesses have announced reductions as they redirect money to the technology or tout new ways to streamline operations — raising alarm about what might be left over for payrolls and future openings.
But corporate explanations are often very vague. AI is rarely the sole reason companies cite when taking layoffs, with most still pointing to wider corporate restructuring or macroeconomic headwinds. Some executives have also suggested that, while they’re making cuts to move around resources now, AI and its demand could open up new roles down the road. Still, it’s hard to know if that’s the real driver or just the message a business wants to tell Wall Street.
Regardless, here are some companies that have announced layoffs recently while at least nodding to the role of AI along the way.
Cisco
On Wednesday, Cisco Systems announced plans to cut under 4,000 jobs, or about 5% of its workforce. The announcement arrived the same day the tech giant unveiled record revenue for its third fiscal quarter, amid soaring demand for its AI tools and infrastructure.
CEO Chunk Robbins told employees in a memo that “the companies that will win in the AI era will be those with focus, urgency, and the discipline to continuously shift investment” — and that meant “making hard decisions.” But he said Cisco would also help employees impacted by the cuts find new opportunities, “whether internal or external.”
Block
Financial services provider Block in February moved to lay off more than 4,000 of its 10,000 plus employees. And the parent of payment platforms like Square and Cash App was vocal about reconfiguring to capitalize on AI.
“The core thesis is simple. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” CEO Jack Dorsey said in a letter to shareholders at the time. “A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better.”
Dow
Not only tech companies have pointed to AI when initiating layoffs. In January, chemicals maker Dow, Inc. announced plans to cut about 4,500 jobs — as part of broader push to “streamline” operations. That included putting more emphasis on AI and automation.
Also in January, Pinterest said it would lay off under 15% of its workforce as the company pivots more of its money to AI. The image-sharing platform said the cuts were part of broader “transformation initiatives” — which included reallocating the company’s resources to AI-focused roles and prioritizing AI-powered products.
Lufthansa Group
Last fall, Lufthansa Group said it would shed 4,000 jobs by 2030 — pointing to the adoption of AI, digitalization and consolidating work among member airlines.
Cuts at Meta and other big names arrive amid broader AI ramp-up
While perhaps not explicitly mentioning or tying the technology to recent layoff announcements, a host of other big names — including Meta, Microsoft and Amazon — are also cutting thousands of jobs while investing billions of dollars toward AI.
Meta, for example, plans to lay off about 8,000 workers, or about 10% of its workforce, starting next week. When announcing the cuts last month, the Facebook owner more broadly cited the need to offset certain investments and broader efficiency.
Still, the move arrives as Meta continues to ramp up spending on AI infrastructure and highly-paid AI expert hires. And earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said 2026 will be when, “AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.”
Meta launches WhatsApp ‘incognito’ mode to address privacy concerns for AI chats
LONDON (AP) — Meta Platforms said Wednesday it’s rolling out an “incognito” mode for WhatsApp users to have private conversations with its AI chatbot, a move intended to ease privacy concerns about sensitive information that users share in chats.
The social media company said in a blog post that incognito chat mode provides a way to have private, temporary conversations with Meta AI, its artificial intelligence assistant that’s been available on WhatsApp for a few years.
Messages will be processed in a “secure environment” that even Meta can’t access, won’t be saved by default and will disappear when exiting a session, Meta said.
Generative AI systems have been dogged by privacy concerns because the large language models that underpin these systems are trained on vast troves of data, sometimes including personal information provided by users themselves in their conversations with AI chatbots.
Rival chatbot makers already have some privacy features. Google’s Gemini chatbot has the option to disable chat history and opt out of allowing one’s data to be used in training its AI models. ChatGPT has similar controls.
Meta says it’s rolling out incognito chats because users often ask chatbots sensitive questions or include private financial, personal, health or work data in their questions.
“We’re starting ask a lot of meaningful questions about our lives with AI systems, and it doesn’t always feel like you should have to share the information behind those questions with the companies that run those AI systems,” Will Cathcart, Meta’s head of WhatsApp, told reporters.
Incognito chat mode has safety features to prevent the chatbot from answering questions about harmful topics, Cathcart said.
It will “steer the user towards helpful information if it can and then refuse (to answer) and eventually even just stop interacting with the user completely,” Cathcart said.
Users will only be able to type in questions and get text responses; they won’t be able to upload or generate images. They’ll also have to confirm their age because Meta doesn’t allow users under 13 on its platforms.
Oil touches 2-week high after drone attack on UAE nuclear power plant
SINGAPORE, May 18 (Reuters) - Oil prices extended gains on Monday as efforts to end the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran appeared to have stalled, after a nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates came under attack and as U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to discuss military options on Iran.
Brent crude futures climbed $2.03, or 1.86%, to $111.29 a barrel by 0220 GMT, after touching $112 earlier, the highest since May 5.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $107.73 a barrel, up $2.31, or 2.19%, following a rise to $108.70, its highest level since April 30. The front-month June contract expires on Tuesday.
Both contracts gained more than 7% last week as hopes of a peace deal that would end ship attacks and seizures around the Strait of Hormuz dimmed. Last week's talks between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping ended without an indication from the world's top oil importer that it would help resolve the conflict.
"The longer the conflict with Iran persists, the greater the risk of protracted oil price scarring, which could keep interest rates higher for longer," Prestige Economics' Jason Schenker said in a note.
"This could also present persistent downside risks to growth."
Drone attacks on the UAE and Saudi Arabia and rhetoric from the U.S. and Iran raised concerns of an escalation in the conflict.
Emirati officials said they were investigating the source of the strike on the Barakah nuclear power plant and that the UAE had the full right to respond to such "terrorist attacks."
Saudi Arabia, which intercepted three drones that entered from Iraqi airspace, warned it would take the necessary operational measures to respond to any attempt to violate its sovereignty and security.
"These drone strikes are a pointed warning - renewed U.S. or Israeli strikes on Iran could trigger more proxy attacks on Gulf energy and critical infrastructure by Iran or its regional proxies," IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said.
Trump is expected to meet top national security advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for military action regarding Iran, Axios reported.
Separately, in a move that could support oil prices, the Trump administration on Saturday allowed a sanctions waiver to lapse that had previously allowed countries including India to buy Russian seaborne oil after a month-long extension.
South Korea says it will pursue all options to avoid Samsung strike
SEOUL, May 17 (Reuters) - South Korea will pursue all options, including emergency arbitration, to avoid a labour strike at the country's biggest employer Samsung Electronics, opens new tab and to minimise any damage if one does occur, its prime minister said on Sunday.
The world's largest memory chip maker and its South Korean labour union will resume pay talks on Monday with a government mediator, in a move that could ease concerns over a potentially disruptive strike at the tech giant that accounts for nearly a quarter of the country's exports.
"Just one day of suspension at Samsung Electronics' semiconductor factory is expected to incur direct losses of as much as 1 trillion won ($667.68 million)," Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said after an emergency meeting with ministers on Sunday.
"What is more concerning is that a temporary pause on semiconductor manufacturing lines leads to months of inactivity," Kim said, adding there were worries about economic damage ballooning to as much as 100 trillion won if materials had to be disposed of due to a strike.
An emergency arbitration order, which can be invoked by the labour minister if the country deems a dispute is likely to harm the economy or daily life, immediately prohibits industrial action for 30 days while the National Labor Relations Commission conducts mediation and arbitration.
It has rarely been invoked and would represent an extraordinary step for a union-friendly administration.
The union said on Sunday it would not give in to pressure on arbitration and would not agree to a pay deal should the company offer a less favorable proposal.
Samsung accounts for 22.8% of South Korea's exports and 26% of the domestic stock market, employing more than 120,000 people and working with 1,700 suppliers, Kim said.
($1 = 1,497.7300 won)
WHO declares Ebola outbreak in Congo, Uganda an emergency of international concern
May 17 (Reuters) - An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization, after 80 deaths were attributed to the disease.
The WHO said the outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo virus, did not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency but there was a high risk the disease could spread further to countries sharing land borders with the DRC.
On Sunday, the U.N. health agency said in a statement that 80 suspected deaths, eight laboratory-confirmed cases and 246 suspected cases had been reported as of Saturday in the DRC's Ituri province across at least three health zones, including Bunia, Rwampara and Mongbwalu.
One case was confirmed in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, a statement by M23 rebels said.
At least six Americans in the DRC have been exposed to the Ebola virus, with three exposures deemed high risk, CBS News reported, citing unnamed sources with international aid organizations. STAT News said one American may have developed symptoms. Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
STAT News, which also cited unnamed sources, said the U.S. government was trying to transport the individuals out of the country, possibly to a military base in Germany.
Satish Pillai, Ebola response incident manager at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, declined at a Sunday briefing to say whether any Americans were among those who had been infected but stressed to reporters that the risk to the U.S. remains low.
CDC officials told reporters the agency has activated its emergency response center for the outbreak and plans to send more people to its offices in the DRC and Uganda.
The U.S. Embassy in the DRC issued a health alert on Sunday reminding U.S. citizens that the State Department advises Americans not to travel to the Ituri province and that the U.S. government is "extremely limited in its ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens" in the area.
"Do not travel to this area for any reason," the alert said.
INTERNATIONAL SPREAD DOCUMENTED, WHO SAYS
The DRC health ministry had said on Friday that 80 people had died in the new outbreak in the eastern province.
The 17th outbreak in the country, where Ebola was first identified in 1976, could in fact be much larger, given the high positivity rate of the initial samples and the increasing number of suspected cases being reported, the WHO said.
The outbreak is "extraordinary" as there are no approved Bundibugyo virus-specific therapeutics or vaccines, unlike for Ebola-Zaire strains, it said. All but one of the country's previous outbreaks were caused by the Zaire strain.
The DRC-Uganda outbreak poses a public health risk to other countries, with some cases of an international spread already documented, the agency said, advising countries to activate their national disaster and emergency-management mechanisms and undertake cross-border screening and screening at main internal roads.
In Uganda's capital, Kampala, two apparently unrelated laboratory-confirmed cases, including one death, were reported on Friday and Saturday, from people travelling from the DRC, the WHO said.
The WHO said on Sunday that a previously reported laboratory-confirmed case in Kinshasa, the DRC capital, had tested negative after secondary testing.
Those who have had contact with or cases of the Bundibugyo virus should not travel internationally, unless as part of a medical evacuation, the WHO said.
The agency advised isolating confirmed cases immediately and monitoring contacts daily, with restricted national travel and no international travel until 21 days after exposure.
At the same time, the WHO urged countries not to close their borders or restrict travel and trade out of fear, as this could lead to people and goods making informal border crossings that are not monitored.
The DRC's dense tropical forests are a natural reservoir for the Ebola virus.
Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement that he had requested technical guidance and recommendations on the potential need to declare the outbreak a public health emergency of continental security.
The often-fatal virus, which causes fever, body aches, vomiting and diarrhoea, spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected persons, contaminated materials or persons who have died from the disease, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hantavirus-hit cruise ship due to arrive at Rotterdam port as final destination
ROTTERDAM, May 18 (Reuters) - The hantavirus-hit cruise ship MV Hondius was due to dock in Rotterdam on Monday morning for disinfection, with Dutch authorities preparing quarantine arrangements for the 25 crew members and two medical staff remaining on board.
Local authorities said quarantine facilities had been set up for some of the non-Dutch crew, though it was not clear yet if they would stay there for the full recommended 42-day quarantine period.
The Dutch-flagged luxury cruise ship had been carrying around 150 passengers and crew from 23 countries when a cluster of severe respiratory illnesses among passengers was first reported to the World Health Organization on May 2.
Three people - a Dutch couple and a German national - have died since the start of the outbreak.
NOTHING LIKE COVID, SAYS WHO
The vessel, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, had been stranded off Cape Verde, its intended final destination, earlier this month after authorities barred passengers from going ashore due to the outbreak. The WHO and the EU asked Spain to manage the evacuation at the Canary Islands, after which the ship departed for Rotterdam with a skeleton crew and two additional medical staff.
Hantavirus is primarily spread by rodents but can be transmitted between people in rare cases and after prolonged, close contact. Incubation can last about six weeks.
Crew, passengers who already left the ship and people in contact with them have been quarantined in several countries around the world.
The current outbreak involves the so-called Andes virus, which has circulated in Argentina and Chile for decades. Ship samples show no meaningful variation in the virus, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said.
On Friday, the WHO revised its case count to 10 from 11 after an inconclusive U.S. case tested negative. As of May 15, there were 10 WHO reported cases - eight confirmed and two probable - including the three deaths.
British Columbia's government said on Saturday one Canadian, who had been a passenger on the Hondius, had also tested positive for hantavirus. The WHO said on Sunday it was waiting for official updates but that this would make it 11 cases.
It said earlier this month more cases were expected to emerge from the outbreak but stressed that the situation was nothing like COVID and did not constitute a pandemic.
Due to the long incubation period, the search for new cases could continue for months, testing authorities’ post-COVID communications playbook.
The WHO recommends monitoring and quarantining high-risk contacts for 42 days after exposure, while advising low-risk contacts to self-monitor and seek medical care if symptoms develop.
ROTTERDAM CITIZENS NOT WORRIED ABOUT PANDEMIC RISK
Some Dutch citizens expressed some concern about the arrival of the MV Hondius in Rotterdam, fearing people might not follow the quarantine rules, but told Reuters they didn't expect a new pandemic.
"What is concerning to me is how well will people ... stay in quarantine," 35-year-old Rotterdam resident Claudia Eduardo said. "Because we know during the pandemic a lot of people didn't abide to the rules." 18-year-old Aleks Mladenovic said it had been scary at first to hear about the hantavirus outbreak, but after doing research he felt more at ease. "It's not a new thing. We'll probably figure something out and get on top of it again," he said. "I am not worried at all."
Two Young Turks and Caicos Islanders Appointed in Ministry of Finance
The Office of the Deputy Governor has appointed two young, vibrant Turks and Caicos Islanders to the roles of Tax Officers in the Inland Revenue Department of the Ministry of Finance, Investment and Trade.
They are: Jhadijah Caley and Orrin Campbell.
Caley has a Bachelor’s degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management from Florida International University, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 2023. Additionally, she holds a Leadership Agility Badge and certifications in business analytics. In a further commitment to her professional growth, she is set to begin her Master’s in Finance, Leadership and Management this Fall.
Professionally, Caley has served in various capacities, including as a Temporary Case Worker in the Employment Services Department and a Temporary Registration Officer at the Financial Services Commission. She also gained valuable private-sector experience at Enterprise Mobility, where she received a Top Sales Award and as a Hospitality Captain at PF Chang’s Bistro.
Campbell’s educational background and his experience in customer service have prepared him for this new role. He attended the British West Indies Collegiate before completing his secondary education at TCI Middle School. He later earned an Associate of Arts in Marketing from Broward College and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Florida International University.
Professionally, Campbell spent three years at the VIP Flyers Lounge at the Howard Hamilton International Airport. During this time, he excelled in a fast-paced environment, gaining experience in customer service and client relations while maintaining the high professional standards required by the international travel sector.
On the new appointments the Deputy Governor and Head of the Public Service, Her Excellency Anya Williams noted that It is always encouraging to see our young professionals return home with diverse academic backgrounds to serve their country.
Congratulations to both of you. We wish you all the best in your new roles!