(CNS): Update Monday 6:15pm. Police have now confirmed that a boat found east of the Sandbar Canal was the 26 foot canoe that went missing yesterday. Police received a report on Sunday night that the boat had left to go fishing in the morning with five people on board and had not returned. Emergency services have now called off today's search but will resume at first light tomorrow. CNS understands that a fuel tank and other possessions from those on board as well as the boat were found during the search mission. The vessel had left from Newlands Dock at approximately 7:00am, yesterday morning, with two men aged 36, a man aged 28, a 19-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl.

(CNS): A 22-year-old man has been arrested for leaving the scene of an accident in connection with the hit and run incident that occurred on 7 January Centennial Towers, West Bay where two women were knocked down. One of the two women who was 54 years old, hit by the driver received serious head injuries and has since been airlifted to Jamaica for further treatment.  A 20-year-old woman received injuries to her face, ankles and arm and was treated at the Cayman Islands Hospital in George Town and was released.

(CNS): Critics of the floating Sandbar-bar have missed the major point regarding the planned project the licence holder has told CNS. Bernie Bush says his boat will be providing food to patrons around Stingray City and not just alcohol. The deputy director of Pirates Week and local small business man Bush said that the goal was to serve small, high quality, tapas like dishes of local food prepared by local chefs to give visitors a real taste of Cayman. He said that the alcohol license was secondary to the food and that even if that had been turned down he would still have gone ahead with what he says is a restaurant, not a bar.

(CNS):  The Cayman Islands Sailing Club has been chosen to host the North American, Central American and Caribbean regional qualifying event for the Youth Olympic Games Sailing Regatta in the Byte C11 Dinghy class during the 2010 Youth Olympic Games, which will be held in Singapore from 14 to 26 August 2010. This event will take place in North Sound 10 tp 15 March 2010, the club has announced. The Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games will involve around 5,000 athletes and officials from the 205 National Olympic Committees.

(CNS): The developers of Emerald Sound, a proposed residential canal development in South Sound which had met with considerable objection from the local community, are re-submitting a new application to planning. The Burns Conolly group, the consultant engaged to make the planning submissions, has issued information to land owners in the area detailing the revised proposal on the 91-acre site adjacent to Bel Air drive. The original objections had included several issues from drainage problems to the environment. However, Burns Conolly stated in the notice of application, on behalf of RC Estates, that the detailed information on the new plans was intended to dispel misunderstandings concerning the project.

(CNS): As the Cayman Islands domestic economy continues to suffer, there are currently 882 people registered with the Department of Employment Relations that say they are looking for work. Although figures had fallen in November '09 from earlier highs of around 900 last year, the January figure has increased by around 40 people.  In what was a difficult year for Cayman when it came to jobs, Lonny Tibbetts, the director of the department, said it had managed to place over 200 people in work through 2009 and it currently has some 244 listed vacancies.

(CNS): The chair of Cayman Finance has taken the UK media to task over its depiction of the Cayman Islands. In a letter to the editor published in the weekend edition of the Daily Telegraph Anthony Travers accuses the right wing broad sheet and other UK papers of taking, “intelligence on the Cayman Islands from potboiler novels and Hollywood movies.” Referring to a Telegraph piece about the UK’s tax amnesty, Travers takes issue over the use of a photo and caption inferring that Cayman is where wealthy Brits are hiding their cash. (Photo used to illustrate amnesty article)

(CNS): The RCIPS said this morning that police officers are looking for the driver a red Mitsubishi Pajero after two women were hit and injured near Centennial Towers, West Bay last night (Thursday 7 January) at around seven o’clock. A 20-year-old woman received injuries to her face, ankles and arm and was treated at George Town Hospital and released but a 54-year-old woman sustained serious head injuries after the car ran down the women and is presently in intensive care.

(CNS): Church representatives are showing no signs of softening in their attitude towards gay tourism and remain opposed to the scheduled visit of Atlantis Gay Cruise Lines later this month carrying more than 3000 passengers.  Pastor Bob Thompson, the chair of the Cayman Ministers Association, has said that the organisation had raised its objections to the ship calling to Cayman with the premier. On each occasion that a ship carrying passengers from the gay community has docked in Cayman the association has objected, and the minister said the position had not changed.

(CNS): Despite the failure of most government entities to get their accounts in on time, Auditor General Dan Duguay said some government departments were making serious efforts to catch up and bring their books up to date but that the goal of a full set of accurate contemporary accounts is still years away. The government’s auditor said that close to a dozen departments and agencies are submitting accounts on time, but with so many lagging behind, some as much as four years, it is impossible for his office to complete any more full sets of audits on the overall government spending over the last few years.

(BBC): Coral reefs give rise to many more new species than other tropical marine habitats, according to a new study. Scientists used fossil records stretching back 540 million years to work out the evolution rate at reefs. They report in the journal Science that new species originate 50% faster in coral reefs than in other habitats. The team says its findings show that the loss of these evolution hotspots could mean "losing an opportunity to create new species" in the future. Coral reefs harbour a huge number of marine species - they are often likened to rainforests in terms of their biodiversity.

(CNS): Caymanians will have one more reason to watch the next season of Celebrity Apprentice on NBC (WestStar channel 4) when it premiers on 14 March with Selita Ebanks joining the star studded cast. Host and executive producer, Donald Trump, is claiming that the third season will blow rival show Dancing with the Stars away. The celeb line-up was announced by NBC this week and features sport stars, a chef and a former governor who is tipped to make it to the top. "This season of 'Celebrity Apprentice' is going to be fantastic,” said Trump.

(CNS): As a continuing testament to the efforts of the Cayman Rugby Football Union’s youth training programs, a recent game originally scheduled to be played on New Year’s Day between the Cayman U25’s vs. a club select side of those over the age of 25 (“the O25’s”) kicked off at 4pm on 2 January and saw a thrilling match on the south sound pitch with final victory going to the Cayman U25’s. The U25’s, led by university student Stuart McMillan, were dogged in defence for the first hour of the game and whilst the action see-sawed from end to end if was the U25’s who broke the deadlock and opened the scoring 7-0 just before half time.

(Caribbean360): The probe into the American Airlines crash at the Norman Manley International Airport has ruled out mechanical malfunctioning as the reason for the accident. But the pilots of the aircraft may have ignored advice of air traffic controllers when they tried to land on the runway. Investigators say it could take two years to definitively say what caused the accident. Minister of Transport &Works Mike Henry said the investigations revealed no mechanical problems but other information showed advice had been given not to land on that runway on the night of 22 December.

(CNS): Along with a number of other increases this year the cost of becoming a naturalized citizen of the Cayman Islands has also gone up. The Deputy Governor’s Office announced, yesterday, that a number of fees relating to citizenship have increased, as outlined in the Government Fees Order, 2010. A naturalisation application will now cost $625 and attendance at an optional private citizenship pledge or presentation ceremony will cost $500. These increases do not affect applications that were received on or before 31 December 2009. See below for full schedule of the new fees.