Ste­fan O’Brien was found not guilty by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry be­fore High Court Judge Sherene Mur­ray-Bai­ley at the end of his tri­al at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain last Wednes­day. 

A 26-year-old Pa­lo Seco man is in po­lice cus­tody as in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­tin­ue prob­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, whose body was dis­cov­ered in Erin on Sun­day morn­ing, just hours af­ter she was re­port­ed miss­ing.

Gov­ern­ment is head­ed to Par­lia­ment to ex­tend the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE), which ex­pires on June 17. 

The na­tion is reel­ing from the trag­ic death of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, spark­ing grief and out­rage across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Con­tract­ed work­ers at the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help Lim­it­ed (NC­SHL) are qui­et­ly be­ing sent home in small batch­es through the non-re­new­al of con­tracts.

Ahead of the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view, T&T’s pri­vate sec­tor is is­su­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed call for the Gov­ern­ment to move be­yond pol­i­cy in­ten­tions and de­liv­er mea­sur­able re­sults, as con­cerns grow over slug­gish eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, per­sis­tent struc­tur­al bot­tle­necks and de­clin­ing busi­ness con­fi­dence.

Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to set­tle long-out­stand­ing wage oblig­a­tions to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, along­side a re­quest for an ad­di­tion­al $2.93 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary spend­ing, is in­ten­si­fy­ing con­cerns among econ­o­mists about how those com­mit­ments will be fi­nanced, with strong warn­ings that in­creased bor­row­ing could deep­en fis­cal pres­sures.

Health­care work­ers may con­sid­er protest­ing out­side min­is­ters’ homes if re­stric­tions un­der the State of Emer­gency pre­vent demon­stra­tions in tra­di­tion­al lo­ca­tions, Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art has warned.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is rais­ing con­cerns that ed­u­ca­tors could be as­signed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties out­side their ex­ist­ing job func­tions un­der the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion aimed at tack­ling school vi­o­lence and stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline.

In the dig­i­tal space, an in­di­vid­ual with a large fol­low­ing can in­cite thought, anger, res­o­nance or in­spire.

Dr Mar­garet Rose went from guard­ing her po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence “fierce­ly” to be­ing the sur­prise se­lec­tion of Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les to join her Sen­ate bench.

Amid a wave of in­tense pub­lic demon­stra­tions in the cap­i­tal city, a mas­sive col­lab­o­ra­tive youth ini­tia­tive is seek­ing to am­pli­fy mes­sages of uni­ty, de­clar­ing that the col­lec­tive voice for peace must be­come loud­er than the re­gion’s strug­gles with crime and vi­o­lence.