The rhythm of Or­isha drums, songs of praise and the voic­es of some of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lead­ing cul­tur­al fig­ures filled the air yes­ter­day as fam­i­ly, friends, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and mem­bers of the artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty gath­ered at the Mor­vant Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre to cel­e­brate the ex­tra­or­di­nary life of cul­tur­al icon Bill “Paul” Trot­man.

To­bag­o­ni­ans are be­ing urged to do­nate at least 1,000 re­lief items to­day as the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) launch­es a marathon dri­ve to as­sist earth­quake-rav­aged Venezuela.

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) says it is con­tin­u­ing to man­age wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion across north east Trinidad as the Hol­lis Reser­voir grad­u­al­ly recharges fol­low­ing im­proved in­flows.

The State has raised con­cerns about the re­sources re­quired to mon­i­tor busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve while they re­main un­der house ar­rest as their ap­peal is be­ing con­sid­ered. The Hadeeds were or­dered re­leased on house ar­rest yes­ter­day by three ap­peal court judges but re­mained be­hind bars af­ter a late-night stay re­quest by at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the State.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­pressed con­do­lences fol­low­ing the pass­ing of crick­et leg­end Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, de­scrib­ing him as one of the Caribbean’s most dis­tin­guished sons and a glob­al sport­ing icon.

The High Court has per­ma­nent­ly stopped ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings against for­mer FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er, rul­ing that the con­tin­u­a­tion of the pro­ceed­ings breached his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to lib­er­ty.

North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh has joined the Caribbean and glob­al sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty in mourn­ing the pass­ing of crick­et leg­end Sir Garfield Sobers, de­scrib­ing him as the great­est all-round crick­eter the world has ever pro­duced.

Two men were ar­rest­ed and a firearm seized fol­low­ing an armed rob­bery at a mi­ni mart in Ch­agua­nas to­day.

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) has joined the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Bar­ba­dos and the in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et fra­ter­ni­ty in mourn­ing the pass­ing of crick­et leg­end Sir Garfield Sobers.

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Chris Dehring has de­scribed Sir Garfield Sobers as “the em­bod­i­ment of West In­dies crick­et at its finest, bold, bril­liant, in­no­v­a­tive and un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly ex­cel­lent.” He not­ed that Sobers’ ex­tra­or­di­nary achieve­ments trans­formed the game and in­spired gen­er­a­tions of play­ers to dream be­yond what had once seemed pos­si­ble.

A new part­ner­ship be­tween Con­flict Women Ltd and Re­gency Re­cruit­ment and Re­sources Lim­it­ed aims to help sur­vivors of gen­der based vi­o­lence achieve fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence by cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and ex­pand­ing work­place sup­port.

Po­lice are ap­peal­ing to the pub­lic for as­sis­tance in lo­cat­ing 60-year-old Phillis Be­har­ry, who was re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter she dis­ap­peared from her Tamana home on Thurs­day.