Important Note: This Internet version of 7 News is a verbatum
transcript of our evening television news script. Many interviews on our newscast
are conducted in Creole. In the interest of clarity for our foreign readers,
we attempt to paraphrase the Creole quotes in English
Tonight a Belize City family and the volleyball community are grappling with the loss of 20-year-old Brianna Myvett. She was an athlete, an employee of the Belize Central Prison, and a young woman seeking higher education.
But last night, she was just collateral damage in the city's gun violence epidemic. Jaleeza Roberts reports:
20-year-old Brianna Myvett had just graduated from Wesley College Sixth Form and, being an honor roll student all her life, she had big dreams. But what was supposed to be another ordinary night after volleyball practice ended in tragedy last night after she became the victim of gun violence.
Alongside her was 24-year-old Alexander Carr in the driver's seat, who remains in stable condition.
The incident happened on Freetown Road sometime between 10:15 and 10:30 when Myvett and Carr were inside a Ford Escape. Another vehicle drove up alongside them, stopped near the driver's side and several shots were fired.
Both were injured and transported to KHMH where Myvett succumbed to her injuries. For her father, Fitzroy Myvett, the reality of losing his only daughter has been difficult to comprehend:
Fitzroy Myvett, Father of the Deceased "Last night I saw her roughly after 7, minutes to 8 we spoke just briefly before she went out to practice as she played sports."
"Brianna, she's my only daughter and she was athletic, smart, always on honor roll. She was also a church-going person and she was just a beautiful soul all around."
"It is something that I don't know how to process right now, it's shackled my mind, my brain is now, it's like I'm in a different realm, I am not here, I'm not really. I saw her body, yes, but it's still not registering like registering, like I don't know if I'm not believing it or not, but it's something that I don't know, I don't know, I don't know."
"You took away my angel, our angel, someone that had a bright future, but to you I got nothing to say, nothing."
But the father-daughter relationship they shared is now a memory and above all else her dad will also remember the conversations they shared:
Fitzroy Myvett, Father of the Deceased "We had our talk, but like on an intellectual level where we talk business, we talk deep mental stuff, we would talk when we were alone."
"I choose to remember my daughter is the way how I've always known her to be, you know, this strong-headed but very intellectual, very active in sports, church-going person, you know, just a beautiful soul all around."
For Brianna's friends, the grief is equally difficult, especially her volleyball family as she played with the Imperial Stars volleyball team. On the court, Brianna was affectionately known as "Granz", a nickname born from her on-court personality, but now those memories hold a deeper, more painful weight:
Shayna Bent, Friend of the Deceased "Well Brianna, she's a very kind, loving, outgoing girl. The most I could say about Brianna is she's very giving, she's very kind-hearted, she's supportive, she's a person that shows up for you when you need them, and she's a person that you want to lean on when you need someone to be by your side. Brianna has always been a very fun person to be around. My individual time with her outside of volleyball, she's been so fun. When we went to a Haven House walk, she was singing and dancing with me, we were having so much fun together. I could just say she's a very loving person and someone that you want to call friend."
Reporter "What was it like, you know, being on the court together, playing all the games together, training together?"
Shayna Bent: "It was both fun and also frustrating, which is why we have a nickname for Brianna, Granz. Because sometimes she was known for moping around on the court, and if we were at home, we'd be like, Granz, girl, hurry, girl, jump for the ball, or go for the ball, and she'd be like, girl I'm tired. She would come off of work or after she came from school, so that's why she usually comes late to practice, like at eight o'clock or 7:30."
And coming off that late from work and still dedicating herself to the court proved that she wanted more out of life, but her volleyball sister says that even in their sadness, they are calling for the gun violence to end:
Shayna Bent: "This just brings me back to the scope of the gun violence that's been happening in Belize. It's so sad, just keeps reminding me of what's been happening, and I just feel like, I hope this opens up other people's eyes. I hate for it to be this situation, Brianna passing, but it just impacts us all, even people who aren't close to Brianna. It's just so sad to lose someone that's 20 years old, someone who just graduated from Wesley College, and she had big plans for herself. And we just hope that this helps clamp down on what's been going on in Belize, and hopefully the situation improves from here, because this is not it."
Jaleeza Roberts, 7News.
Myvett intended to start pursuing a bachelor's degree this semester.
ASP Aaron Gamboa - he's become synonymous with the police unit he's headed for almost 10 years - that's the SPU, or Special Patrol Unit.
But, he's leading it no more. 7News has confirmed that Gamboa has been relieved of his command with immediate effect. Unconfirmed reports say he will now be assigned to the operations unit at headquarters, but not as commander.
So why was Gamboa relieved so suddenly of the post he has held for so long? Well, we could not reach him for comment, but sources say the decision came from the Ministerial level - where the sentiment is that the unit needed a fresh face.
Gamboa held broad sway as SPU Commander, and the unit expanded to have a national reach, routinely deployed to hotspots and crime flare-ups across the country.
Speaking to 7News the Commissioner of Police confirmed that Gamboa has been reassigned to the National Operations Office, where he will support the oversight of national operations in his new role. Neville Martinez will serve as the interim commander of SPU until the substantive office holder assumes the post later this month.
Belize's Sugar Belt is facing yet another attack on crops.
In 2024 a sugarcane outbreak of fusarium placed the industry at stake, but little did they know that they were facing yet another threat lurking under the leaves of the cane stalks.
The Mealybugs are overrunning the fields and BSI/ASR, along with all four of the cane farmer associations have taken steps to implement an integrated pest management approach to suppress the spread. Today they gave us a demonstration of the methods they have deployed,
Jomarie Lanza has the report from San Estevan, Orange Walk:
The yellowing leaves are the first sign that the cane fields in the north are under attack. July of 2024: that's when the invasion of the mealybug was first identified, a species so tiny and elusive, yet capable of destroying millions of dollars in crops. And, in Belize, that's what it's doing to the cane fields of the north.
The insects were believed to have infiltrated Belize through the Mexican border and spread to 18 monitoring sites in cane fields from Corozal to Orange Walk.
Farmers had to respond quickly, and immediately sought to find a control method. Ultimately, they resorted to chemical applications within the fields.
Marvin Garcia, Field Officer, SIRDI "We have had various major pests in the industry and one of them is still the froghopper, and the stem borer. But in 2024, 2025 and this year we have identified this new pest which is worse than the others; it is Heliococcus summervillei, it is a mealybug and it is found in a few countries starting from Pakistan going into Australia until it reaches here to the Americas. This pest is of this new generation, it is well adapted and it is very hard to control and one of the best methods to use is an integrated pest management. Different strategies within the pest management will help to minimize the population of this pest and one of the strategies is biological control where we are implementing here at SIRDI; we have cultural control, even physical, even variety that is more tolerance to pests and diseases, and today the demonstration is on chemical applications. Whenever the threshold population is very high we have to use the chemicals to bring the populations down; in this case we are applying EMIR 8.8 EC and at a dose of 120 ml per acre."
"The mealybug at its first instance, it feeds on the roots, on the young and fresh new roots, and once those roots that the plant uses to hold himself to get nutrients and get some water, they are destroyed and they are blocked and then eventually the plant will show it by the lower yellow leaf. From there, from far, you would be able to see a plant infected by a mealybug: the lower leaf turns yellow and eventually starts to dry."
With the use of a high-crop sprayer, they have effectively deployed a method they refer to as high clearance, ensuring that the chemical goes directly to the plant, preventing less wash-away or blow-away from the wind. The chemical directly targets both the nymph and adult mealybugs, reducing both populations.
But there is another approach to the pest, and the farmers from the Progressive Sugarcane Producers have found a way to stage their attack from the sky. They made a hefty investment in drones. But their main intention was to reduce the manual-labor shortage they continue to face as farmers and producers.
Cosmo Hernandez, General Manager, Progressive Sugarcane Producers "As farmers we have realized for the past three years that there is a shortage in labor, manual labor, and to keep assisting our members we have a board meeting where we presented to the membership if we could buy drones out of a revolving fund that has been approved four years ago. We started with one, we saw the benefits of it, and presently we have 2 drones assisting the farmers."
Jomarie Lanza: "What are the drones being used for?"
Cosmo Hernandez: "We started using it for the application of some microorganisms that we currently import and distribute to the farmers, a legacy foundation."
"We did some applications about 6 weeks ago with the mealybug where we realized that it was working and that is what we are currently doing with the farmers."
"Like anything new that you want to introduce to the farmers, at the beginning they are, I think, kind of hesitant, but right now people are asking for the use of the drones because they have seen the benefits and it is pretty easy to use. And of course you have to be careful because accidents happen, but the most important part of the use of the drone is the data collection-everything is stored in the system so you know exactly what you apply, where you applied it, and how much you applied it, and when."
They already have 2 drones in use and are planning to procure another very soon, with a starting price of up to 33,000 US dollars per machine.
Adrian Zetina, Manager of R&D, BSI "The drone that we are currently using is from PSCPA and there are other drones that we are also using in this application. We are applying at 20 liters per acre which is higher than the typical what is used-we use 20 liters per acre with other types of applications. Now, why the higher dosage is for the insecticide to be more effective; insecticides tend to need more water volumes so that they can work. The drone also creates a vortex as we saw here with the demonstration where it pushes the water droplets down; the drone is also capable of creating smaller water droplets and so we have a finer mist that gets down onto the cane that then can be absorbed into the plant, and that is why we can use lesser volumes in comparison to the high-clearance applicators that you saw earlier today."
"You would have a control of about 30 to 45 days with the type of insecticide that we are using so we are hoping to get that."
"It's been very effective. We have employed drone technology on BSI's service provision AgroPro and we have gotten up to 60 days control in the fields, so it has been very effective for us. We just gotten into the second application; we have a first application at the beginning of mid-June we had our first and that took us all the way going into August, so it has been very effective with the type of application that we use and also with the type of insecticide that we have used."
Those Mealy Bugs won't go away after one or two sessions of fumigation, and sourcing those pesticides will come at a major cost, which is why the Sugar Industry Research And Development Institute has partnered with GOB to secure a 5 million dollar grant to cover these costs.
The strategy is set to treat up to 50 acres affected by mealybugs.
The technicians in charge explained how this will enable the industry to recuperate after such a massive loss in cane production from 2024 to present.
Olivia Carballo Avilez, Cane Farmer Relations Manager, BSI "Well definitely the mill is very worried and concerned about the quantity of cane we will be receiving in the coming crop season."
"Our mill has the capacity of milling 1.25 million tons of cane and producing about 123,000 to 125,000 tons of sugar; we are not doing that at the moment because of Fusarium. Last year we lost from I think it was about 10-20% last year, so this year we came in at 823,000 long tons, so you can see the gap between what our capacity is and what we are actually getting in terms of cane supply. That is concerning now with mealybugs. Mealybugs seems to be a pest due to higher temperatures and the temperature fluctuation between the moisture and the higher temperature, and we have it in the entire Central America-Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala-we are all battling this, let's call it sort of a new pest of economic importance. It hasn't been that issue, and so definitely we are concerned about the drop in cane supply. The mill has fixed costs, so if we produce 1.25 or we produce 700,000 tons we have to pay the cost, so that makes the operation a lot more expensive. And of course that is very concerning for the mill and of course for the farmers because we won't be able to produce the amount of sugar to sell."
Leticia Westby, Extension Coordinator, SIRDI "So a petition was elevated to the Government of Belize, whereby a petition of financing to the industry of 5.2 million dollars, whereby 50% will be financed by the Government through a grant and the 50% will be paid by the sugarcane farmers within a 4-year period, meaning 4 crop cycles. And the way how it will be, the interventions will be deployed, I know farmers are quite aware when we will be doing the applications or the intervention in their areas, rest assured that the entire sugar belt, as the announcement was made last week Friday where approximately 50,000 acres will be intervened using insecticide. And also we are aware of the bee industry where we have apiaries, so we have that close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture where we have identified the apiaries within the Northern Sugar Belt, Corozal and Orange Walk. So we have spotted a radius of 1 km where we will be using a less harsh insecticide which is more of a botanical base and also biological to safeguard the bee industry."
Tonight a family of 7 is left displaced after their 26-year-old home caught fire this morning.
The wooden structure and everything inside was destroyed by fire.
Homeowner Sharette Zelaya says that her entire life's earnings disappeared before her very eyes and now she must start over:
Sharette Zelaya, House Fire Victim "I was upstairs sleeping because I wake up early in the morning so I usually drop back in a doze, right? So I hear my big son yelling for me like I heard him yelling hard, and I was sleeping. So when I jumped up I saw the smoke gushing up through my bedroom, so he yelled and said, 'Mom, the fire is coming from down there.' That's my next son's spot, right, so me and he try get a bucket of water and thing and his mattress was on fire because it was already up, and all I could have done was run out because the fire took over quick thing."
"I lose everything, I couldn't get nothing because the fire was already up. Everything that I had in my house is new, I lay everything, my daughter bought everything for me just the middle of this year. Everything new: new stove, new refrigerator, new sofa, everything."
"Can't do nothing about it, just have to rise and start again. I won't let it bother me, but it's hard to watch all your life's work and it just goes up in flames in a quick second, you know."
"I could have lost my life, if my son didn't yell for me I would have been a goner, I would have been ashes, but such is life. God gave me another chance, as long as I have health and strength I'm good. Material things, I will rise."
Anyone wishing to assist Zelaya and her family can contact her at 616-4618.
This morning, BEL issued a public update attempting to reassure customers after grid crashes last week and last night left large parts of the country in the dark. On both occasions, peak evening electricity demand exceeded available in-country generation, triggering widespread blackouts the moment power supply from Mexico's CFE flickered.
In response, BEL is once again ringing the alarm. In an official letter to the PUC Chairman Dean Molina dated August 26th, BEL's Executive Chairman Lynn Young requested a formal emergency declaration to initiate emergency generation procurement.
Yet, for all its urgency, we've seen this push for emergency powers before and it has yielded virtually no lasting progress. Nearly two years ago, in November 2024, former CEO John Mencias submitted an almost identical emergency notice to the PUC warning of imminent shortfalls. The primary tangible outcome of that 2024 declaration was the addition of temporary diesel units running at punishing fuel costs, which failed to fix the underlying grid fragility.
Fast forward to today, and BEL's primary line of defense remains the same: another batch of temporary diesel rentals, currently being installed at the Westlake Facility to run for six months starting mid-September 2026.
So, for the time being, high-cost temporary rentals remain the default fix while the national grid stays just one Mexican power trip away from total collapse.
Former track star Marion Jones is in Belize as the country prepares to host its first-ever National Sports Summit. Today, she was photographed at the Marion Jones Sporting Complex, one of the few facilities globally to bear her name.
Jones, a Belizean-American, will headline the two-day event with a keynote address titled "From Small Countries to Global Greatness."
The summit, organized by the National Sports Council, will take place September 2 and 3 at the Belize Civic Center under the theme, "Building Belize Through Sport: Governance, Youth Development, Health, High Performance and Sports Tourism."
The summit will also feature regional and international sports experts, including Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees President Keith Joseph and Panam Sports Organization CEO and Secretary General Jimena Saldaña.
Market vendors know that this is the time of year when they get the last few onions from the crop. For them, that means fewer sales since most consumers aren't willing to pay hiked-up prices for soft or mushy produce.
But one restaurant owner said she was given a price hike of almost one-thousand percent!
Could that be for real? We went to the Michael Finnegan market to find out. Courtney Menzies has this story.
This Facebook post by Gwen's Kitchen on Coney Drive raised alarm bells-the owner claimed that they bought onions at $300 a sack when, just two weeks ago, they only paid $35.
But Michael Finnegan Market vendor Ana Cowo says that's not her experience, and that price hike isn't something she's witnessed in the past 25 years of working at the market.
Cowo complained about the type of onions that come in this time of the year but explained that it is a complex issue of supply, demand, and seasonality.
Ana Cowo, Market Vendor "Right now like how it's the last crop of the local onions they're coming ridiculous, really bad, they're coming ruined, soft, it's just not good and the price is really high for it right now. We're paying $95, $120, all depends how you come in, but they're not good, they're not good at all."
Courtney Menzies: "When people come and try to buy onions, what kind of reactions do you get?"
Ana Cowo: "It's like, 'Only this you have? You don't have better onions than this?' And then when we give them the price, the first thing they say, 'It's so expensive and it's rotting, throw these away, it's not good,' that's the reaction we get and people don't purchase it, we end up staying with it and we lose."
"It affects us because this is for our survival, we have to pay the rent, we have to pay workers, we have to buy food, this is what we live off of and if we're not making our little profit out of it, we're not making our monthly payments so it affects us a lot."
"The price with Marketing, it's hard for you to control, all depends on how much product comes into the market so sometimes you have a lot of products, sometimes less products, so the more products come in the less you pay because let's say the vendor can't sell his product and another truck full with the same product, the price does go down."
Courtney Menzies: "Is this something you notice every year around this time, around the end of the crop?"
Ana Cowo: "Yes, you usually see things like this in marketing, yes."
So when will these soft, unsightly onions be out of the market? Cowo says they'll soon be replaced with the imported onions.
Courtney Menzies: "When do you expect the situation to alleviate itself?"
Ana Cowo: "Well we have a season of local vendors that bring in their product to sell it and then Marketing Board brings in their product to sell, so as soon as the local finishes, the Marketing Board brings in their product which is the Canadian onion."
"Everybody would want the best for their business but this is something we have to go through so we just have to know how to survive and how to go through it when we're going through it. It's not something that can be different because the local vendors have to make their money too. So if I would say make Marketing Board bring it in because the importing much better than our Belizean things, that would be unfair for the farmers in Belize, so we have to try to survive it when it's happening."
The Ministry of Agriculture confirms that the Belize Marketing and Development Corporation has started to import white and purple onions.
The reggae singer Tarrus Riley famously sang, "sorry is a sorry word" - but for a politician in any ruling party it is a rarely used word. That's because they're always right - or think themselves to be. That's why it caught our attention when PUP Area Rep Gilroy Usher said "sorry" today in a Facebook post.
Jules Vasquez looked at the recent words and deeds of Gilroy the Guillotine:
After an act of monumental bad judgment on Saturday, Port Loyola Area Rep Gilroy Usher went to personally remove a fence on a disputed plot of land in his constituency. Here he's seen clipping down the fence while the owner of one of the properties berates him:
Voice of: Property Owner "Mr. Usher driver, his brother, here is Mr. Usher cutting down my fence in my yard."
"Hi Mr. Usher cutting down my fence. Bring the phone Let me call the police please. Go in his face. Do not have respect for these people, because they don't have respect for themselves. Put it in his face. Don't be afraid because when we go to court I need the judge to see that it is him."
She even called 911
Voice of: Property Owner "911 good morning. Good morning I di call because Mr. Usher is here with a spanner vandalizing my property. Please, because I can't touch this man because he is a Minister."
In the end, he had to sheepishly lap his tail and leave, mission not accomplished-hectored and harassed into his vehicle:
Voice of: Property Owner "Where are we going Mr Usher? Where are we goinh huh? This is what you all want to do? That's why I came to show it live."
"Mr Usher came and broke down my property, see it there."
While he may not be as deft with politics as he is with a pair of pliers, Usher did try to recover from this grave error in judgment. He sent out a press release yesterday-complete with illustrated pictures-outlining the entire dispute and justifying his intervention. The press release-reads like AI-and is curiously named: "AI JUSTICE AND RESPECT FOR TITLE LAND.docx"
And today he posted a sorry/not sorry apology on Facebook in which he says, "I make no apologies for standing up for what is right and for defending the right of every Port Loyola family to live in peace and security on land they are entitled to. I, however, recognize that my action on Saturday was not the appropriate course of action, and express sincere apology for the incident."
It's an apology that is not an apology-but he's halfway there and further ahead on the road to absolution than his predecessor, Boots Martinez, who found meme immortality with this deathless incident:
Usher now too will have to live with the afterlife of this arresting image-and he too may discover immortality by memedom.
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Tonight a Belize City family and the volleyball community are grappling with the loss of 20-year-old Brianna Myvett. She was an athlete, an employee of the Belize Central Prison, and a young woman seeking higher education.
"Last night I saw her roughly after 7, minutes to 8 we spoke just briefly before she went out to practice as she played sports."
ASP Aaron Gamboa - he's become synonymous with the police unit he's headed for almost 10 years - that's the SPU, or Special Patrol Unit.
Belize's Sugar Belt is facing yet another attack on crops.
Marvin Garcia, Field Officer, SIRDI
Cosmo Hernandez, General Manager, Progressive Sugarcane Producers
"The drone that we are currently using is from PSCPA and there are other drones that we are also using in this application. We are applying at 20 liters per acre which is higher than the typical what is used-we use 20 liters per acre with other types of applications. Now, why the higher dosage is for the insecticide to be more effective; insecticides tend to need more water volumes so that they can work. The drone also creates a vortex as we saw here with the demonstration where it pushes the water droplets down; the drone is also capable of creating smaller water droplets and so we have a finer mist that gets down onto the cane that then can be absorbed into the plant, and that is why we can use lesser volumes in comparison to the high-clearance applicators that you saw earlier today."
Those Mealy Bugs won't go away after one or two sessions of fumigation, and sourcing those pesticides will come at a major cost, which is why the Sugar Industry Research And Development Institute has partnered with GOB to secure a 5 million dollar grant to cover these costs.
"Well definitely the mill is very worried and concerned about the quantity of cane we will be receiving in the coming crop season."
"So a petition was elevated to the Government of Belize, whereby a petition of financing to the industry of 5.2 million dollars, whereby 50% will be financed by the Government through a grant and the 50% will be paid by the sugarcane farmers within a 4-year period, meaning 4 crop cycles. And the way how it will be, the interventions will be deployed, I know farmers are quite aware when we will be doing the applications or the intervention in their areas, rest assured that the entire sugar belt, as the announcement was made last week Friday where approximately 50,000 acres will be intervened using insecticide. And also we are aware of the bee industry where we have apiaries, so we have that close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture where we have identified the apiaries within the Northern Sugar Belt, Corozal and Orange Walk. So we have spotted a radius of 1 km where we will be using a less harsh insecticide which is more of a botanical base and also biological to safeguard the bee industry."
Tonight a family of 7 is left displaced after their 26-year-old home caught fire this morning.
"I lose everything, I couldn't get nothing because the fire was already up. Everything that I had in my house is new, I lay everything, my daughter bought everything for me just the middle of this year. Everything new: new stove, new refrigerator, new sofa, everything."
This morning, BEL issued a public update attempting to reassure customers after grid crashes last week and last night left large parts of the country in the dark. On both occasions, peak evening electricity demand exceeded available in-country generation, triggering widespread blackouts the moment power supply from Mexico's CFE flickered.
Former track star Marion Jones is in Belize as the country prepares to host its first-ever National Sports Summit. Today, she was photographed at the Marion Jones Sporting Complex, one of the few facilities globally to bear her name.
Market vendors know that this is the time of year when they get the last few onions from the crop. For them, that means fewer sales since most consumers aren't willing to pay hiked-up prices for soft or mushy produce.
"Right now like how it's the last crop of the local onions they're coming ridiculous, really bad, they're coming ruined, soft, it's just not good and the price is really high for it right now. We're paying $95, $120, all depends how you come in, but they're not good, they're not good at all."
The reggae singer Tarrus Riley famously sang, "sorry is a sorry word" - but for a politician in any ruling party it is a rarely used word. That's because they're always right - or think themselves to be. That's why it caught our attention when PUP Area Rep Gilroy Usher said "sorry" today in a Facebook post.
Usher now too will have to live with the afterlife of this arresting image-and he too may discover immortality by memedom.
