Amid smiles and ner­vous glances across South Trinidad yes­ter­day, chil­dren re­turned to school, some rac­ing to greet old friends while first-time pupils clung a lit­tle tighter to par­ents who were not quite ready to let go.

All schools in To­ba­go were opened for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year yes­ter­day, de­spite mi­nor re­pairs still to take place at some of them.

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad has ad­mon­ished pub­lic au­thor­i­ties to em­brace trans­paren­cy af­ter or­der­ing the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) to re­lease doc­u­ments re­quest­ed un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA).

Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­cel­lence will be cel­e­brat­ed in New York City on Sep­tem­ber 12, when 19 ho­n­ourees are recog­nised at The Riv­er Run­way 2026: Icons of In­flu­ence.

Three fish­ing pirogues were de­stroyed in a fire at the Morne Di­a­blo Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty on Sun­day night, prompt­ing fish­er­men to re­move their re­main­ing ves­sels yes­ter­day amid fears the at­tack­ers could re­turn.

A 23-year-old Venezue­lan woman ac­cused of aban­don­ing her new­born ba­by was grant­ed $60,000 bail with sure­ty when she ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Kateisha Am­brose-Per­sads­ingh in the Siparia Court yes­ter­day.

Gov­ern­ment is promis­ing a “very ro­bust” leg­isla­tive agen­da when Par­lia­ment re­sumes on Fri­day, with leg­is­la­tion aimed at re­mov­ing what the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion de­scribes as a long­stand­ing bot­tle­neck in the con­struc­tion ap­proval process set to come be­fore the House.

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) sen­a­tor and Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer (PRO) Ronald Hug­gins has been ap­point­ed man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), with the Gov­ern­ment dis­miss­ing con­cerns about his pre­vi­ous po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion and in­sist­ing his abil­i­ty to de­liv­er is what mat­ters.

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning is chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) process for de­ter­min­ing the par­ty groups el­i­gi­ble to par­tic­i­pate in in­ter­nal elec­tions, warn­ing that the list of 30 par­ty groups de­clared for the con­stituen­cy is not a valid roll and that any ex­ec­u­tive elect­ed on it would be open to chal­lenge.

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) lead­er­ship of­fi­cials have de­nied that San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning was “bul­lied” at last Fri­day’s vir­tu­al Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing and that his mi­cro­phone alone was mut­ed.

Three peo­ple, in­clud­ing the cap­tain of the ill-fat­ed MV Bari­ma that sank on Ju­ly 18, killing more than 100 peo­ple, ap­peared in court on Mon­day, but the mat­ter was ad­journed to Sep­tem­ber 14.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter, Daryll Matthew, has de­scribed as “his­toric” the de­ci­sion to pro­vide “uni­ver­sal free ed­u­ca­tion from ear­ly child­hood to uni­ver­si­ty” as the new school term got un­der­way in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da on Mon­day.