A 19-year-old Va­len­cia man was ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice seized a 9mm pis­tol loaded with sev­en rounds of am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing a road check op­er­a­tion on Tues­day night.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has again de­scribed Trinidad and To­ba­go as a “law­less dump,” urg­ing “crim­i­nals and bel­liger­ent in­di­vid­u­als” to stay home if they can’t be­have so law-abid­ing cit­i­zens can en­joy them­selves.

Al­le­ga­tions of gang af­fil­i­a­tion, in­tim­i­da­tion, ex­tor­tion and threats have prompt­ed a ma­jor shake-up at the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA).

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has brushed aside crit­i­cism over her de­ci­sion to is­sue a sep­a­rate In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers, de­scrib­ing the back­lash as “fake out­rage” and in­sist­ing she will con­tin­ue to de­fend the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to apol­o­gise to the na­tion over an In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers, ac­cus­ing her of pro­mot­ing racial di­vi­sion and threat­en­ing the coun­try’s so­cial har­mo­ny.

Prime Min­is­ter and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dis­missed sug­ges­tions that her re­cent In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage sig­nalled an im­pend­ing con­test for the lead­er­ship of her par­ty, de­scrib­ing that in­ter­pre­ta­tion as in­cor­rect.

So­cial ac­tivist First Wave Move­ment leader Umar Ab­dul­lah is call­ing on Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for sedi­tion over re­marks made dur­ing her In­de­pen­dence Day ad­dress.

De­spite be­ing ab­sent from two re­cent Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) events in­volv­ing par­ty leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning spent last night meet­ing with con­stituents, as the con­stituen­cy be­gan chart­ing a path for­ward fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of its ex­ec­u­tive.

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers’ and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA), Gre­go­ry Aboud, is ap­peal­ing for ur­gent po­lice in­ter­ven­tion to quell what he de­scribed as in­creas­ing­ly brazen and re­source­ful crim­i­nals tar­get­ing cop­per equip­ment.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the three new po­lice posts in To­ba­go will be ful­ly op­er­a­tional with­in a week.

The Fire­Pow­er Fire­works rep­re­sen­ta­tive who suf­fered third-de­gree burns when fire­works ac­ci­den­tal­ly dis­charged dur­ing prepa­ra­tions for Mon­day’s In­de­pen­dence Day dis­play at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

For­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith says Trinidad and To­ba­go’s an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion is too weak to ef­fec­tive­ly tar­get gang mem­bers, leav­ing po­lice with lit­tle choice but to pur­sue sus­pects for in­di­vid­ual of­fences.