Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ad­dress the na­tion di­rect­ly, fol­low­ing a string of vi­o­lent crimes in­clud­ing the mur­der of a po­lice of­fi­cer at a mu­nic­i­pal sta­tion dur­ing a gun theft and the coun­try’s first quadru­ple homi­cide for the year.

The Gov­ern­ment has re­leased the names of more than two dozen in­di­vid­u­als fol­low­ing its re­cent black­list­ing of three in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions as ter­ror­ist groups.

The Gov­ern­ment says it will bring the nec­es­sary leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment to pre­vent any re­cur­rence of the un­law­ful dis­pos­al of 56 un­claimed bod­ies at a Cu­mu­to ceme­tery.

As she pre­pares to de­fend her con­duct be­fore her po­lit­i­cal leader this week, em­bat­tled Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates says she will ac­cept her fate, what­ev­er it may be.

For­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, Stephen Williams, said there is a flawed per­cep­tion by the two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties that a state of emer­gency (SoE) can be used to fight crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­pressed sad­ness fol­low­ing the pass­ing of long-stand­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­ber Don Sylvester, de­scrib­ing him as a de­vot­ed and com­mit­ted sup­port­er of the par­ty. Sylvester died on Mon­day.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has stepped up crit­i­cism of the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cus­ing it of fail­ing to act on con­cerns raised by Unit­ed King­dom au­thor­i­ties over a surge in asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions by Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als.

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald Mac Lean is an­tic­i­pat­ing teething prob­lems fol­low­ing the re­moval of the do­mes­tic de­par­ture lounge at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath says the launch of the Min­istry’s Form One dig­i­tal AI text­books will ease the fi­nan­cial bur­den on par­ents, re­duc­ing the need for cost­ly text­books.

The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has called for re­spect and uni­ty fol­low­ing a com­ment made by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Anil Roberts, out­side Par­lia­ment to­day.

Weeks af­ter two San­ta Flo­ra fish­er­men and the ves­sel they were aboard dis­ap­peared at sea with­out a trace, a US$5,000 re­ward is be­ing of­fered for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to their re­cov­ery.

A video of the in­ci­dent post­ed on so­cial me­dia showed the of­fi­cer pulling a woman’s hair and strik­ing her at least nine times across her face and head as they walked to the side of a house.