The En­er­gy Min­istry has ap­proved a farm-in to Block Trinidad and To­ba­go Ul­tra Deep-1 (TTUD-1) by ma­jor Amer­i­can en­er­gy com­pa­ny Oc­ci­den­tal Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion (Oxy), says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Young men in Les Coteaux, To­ba­go, say they are be­com­ing rest­less, as they now feel for­got­ten and ne­glect­ed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

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.