The death toll from the wild­fires rav­aging the Los An­ge­les area rose to 16 as crews bat­tled to cut off the spread­ing blazes be­fore po­ten­tial­ly strong winds re­turn that could push the flames to­ward some of the city’s most fa­mous land­marks.

The seizure of 40 cell­phones dur­ing two sep­a­rate raids at the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison has re­port­ed­ly an­gered re­put­ed gang mem­bers, who have al­leged­ly is­sued threats against of­fi­cials in re­tal­i­a­tion for the op­er­a­tion.

Jones P Madeira, a for­mer ed­i­tor-in-chief at the T&T Guardian who dis­tin­guished him­self in print, ra­dio and tele­vi­sion jour­nal­ism dur­ing his 45-year ca­reer, died on Fri­day at age 80. He had been ail­ing for some time.

Found­ing mem­ber of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) Wen­dell Ever­s­ley has served a let­ter to the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive threat­en­ing “swift le­gal ac­tion” should the par­ty fail to be guid­ed by its con­sti­tu­tion in the se­lec­tion of an in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader or po­lit­i­cal leader. 

One day af­ter a Cu­mu­to cou­ple was killed, the MP for the area, Dr Rai Rag­bir, is call­ing for more po­lice pa­trol in the area. In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Rag­bir said the deaths of Naveen and Ku­mari Baksh left him deeply sad­dened and out­raged.

Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters pre­sent­ed a unit­ed front yes­ter­day amid spec­u­la­tion that the PNM has been in dis­ar­ray af­ter En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young was cho­sen as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s suc­ces­sor.

While En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has re­ceived full sup­port from his Cab­i­net col­leagues as suc­ces­sor to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bishu Ra­goonath says it does not mean that all is in fact well with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

More than two dozen Ari­ma con­stituents of Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son left Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain last night feel­ing dis­heart­ened af­ter it was an­nounced that En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young had been unan­i­mous­ly en­dorsed by the gen­er­al coun­cil for the po­si­tion of Prime Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate.

Fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gen­er­al Coun­cil, the Sun­day Guardian sought the views of gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and MPs re­gard­ing its out­come. This is what they had to say.

Apart from cel­e­brat­ing his birth­day, Matthew Bar­douille had big plans this year, in­clud­ing buy­ing a car, start­ing a new job and build­ing his home. Sad­ly, the fa­ther of three went miss­ing on De­cem­ber 17.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) lead­er­ship race has been set­tled in favour of Stu­art Young, with all 21 MPs sup­port­ing him.

So­ca Queen Patrice Roberts re­claimed her throne last Sun­day when she ex­plod­ed on­to the So­ka In Mo­ka all-in­clu­sive fete stage, ig­nit­ing the au­di­ence with a demon­stra­tion of un­bri­dled con­fi­dence, show­ing off a sexy physique and com­mand­ing pres­ence.