The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) and Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre have fi­nalised an 11 per cent wage in­crease for work­ers cov­er­ing two pe­ri­ods: June 1, 2019 to May 31, 2022, and June 1, 2022 to May 31, 2025.

Venezuela’s in­ter­na­tion­al air links are rapid­ly dwin­dling as three more car­ri­ers have sus­pend­ed flights to the coun­try. On Thurs­day, Pana­ma-based Co­pa Air­lines sus­pend­ed flights for two days due to “in­ter­mit­tent nav­i­ga­tion sig­nal is­sues” re­port­ed by its pi­lots. That sus­pen­sion has now been ex­tend­ed to De­cem­ber 12. In a state­ment, the air­line said the safe­ty of pas­sen­gers and crew re­mains its top pri­or­i­ty, and it will con­tin­ue to “eval­u­ate the con­di­tions that guar­an­tee op­er­a­tional safe­ty”. Colom­bian low-cost car­ri­er Wingo has sim­i­lar­ly sus­pend­ed flights un­til De­cem­ber 12. Wingo is owned by Co­pa Hold­ings, the par­ent com­pa­ny of Co­pa Air­lines. Colom­bian air­line SATE­NA has al­so in­def­i­nite­ly sus­pend­ed flights, pledg­ing to re­sume ser­vice once in­ter­na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties cer­ti­fy it is safe to do so.

A Ch­agua­nas man was killed and a woman in­jured fol­low­ing a shoot­ing in En­ter­prise last night.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice has dis­con­tin­ued its ad­verse weath­er alert, mov­ing con­di­tions to a green lev­el as the risk of im­pact­ful weath­er de­creas­es.

De­spite Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo’s con­fir­ma­tion that the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) may have to ac­cept non-cash pay­ments for the re­main­der of their back­pay, union pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas is stand­ing firm, in­sist­ing that pub­lic ser­vants will on­ly ac­cept cash.

Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union (CGW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al Er­mine De Bique-Meade is call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to pay her mem­bers their out­stand­ing back­pay be­fore Christ­mas.

Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), An­cil Den­nis, has ac­cused Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of know­ing about the mil­i­tary radar in­stalled in To­ba­go be­fore it was made pub­lic.

Lec­tur­er at the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Dr Michał Paw­ińs­ki, says the ver­sion of what hap­pened in a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion be­tween US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro so­lid­i­fies that there is no ease in ten­sion be­tween the two coun­tries.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has pushed back against com­ments by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne, who called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to “cool it” and “mod­er­ate” her lan­guage fol­low­ing re­cent on­line threats made against him.

A heat­ed T&T Po­lice Ser­vice meet­ing on Wednes­day led to a walk­out by some dis­grun­tled Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cers up­set with the cur­rent ab­sorp­tion pol­i­cy.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is pledg­ing to cre­ate a “ba­by trust fund” as To­ba­go bat­tles an alarm­ing drop in births.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Bars and Restau­rants (TTCO­BAR) and the Bar­keep­ers Own­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOATT) are warn­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to in­crease the Amuse­ment Gam­ing Tax from $6,000 to $25,000 per ma­chine per year will crip­ple small and medi­um-sized bar en­ter­pris­es and lead to wide­spread clo­sures and job loss­es.