A heat­ed ar­gu­ment be­tween two men in Va­len­cia es­ca­lat­ed in­to a cut­lass at­tack on Fri­day af­ter­noon, leav­ing one man with se­ri­ous in­juries and an­oth­er in po­lice cus­tody.

Statu­to­ry re­ports from the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency show the State in­ter­cept­ed over two mil­lion calls and da­ta be­tween 2018 and 2023, but none of the re­ports re­viewed or pub­lic state­ments record­ed a con­vic­tion aris­ing from crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in which in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions were used.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has de­scribed le­gal pro­ceed­ings for it to dis­close the fi­nanc­ing for the ren­o­va­tion and con­struc­tion of its Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain as a po­lit­i­cal witch hunt.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is in­sist­ing that the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fund­ing of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters is be­ing con­duct­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly and has noth­ing to do with pol­i­tics. He is urg­ing the pub­lic to al­low in­ves­ti­ga­tors and the courts to car­ry out their du­ties with­out po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

The fa­ther of 14-year-old An­drea Fran­cis says he was un­aware of the con­tents of her au­top­sy re­port and in­sists he could nev­er harm his chil­dren, even as in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­firmed the Ch­agua­nas teenag­er was mur­dered.

Three weeks af­ter ca­ble thieves plunged the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) Fair­field, Princes Town com­mu­ni­ty in­to dark­ness, res­i­dents are now fac­ing an­oth­er cri­sis af­ter ca­ble thieves crip­pled the com­mu­ni­ty’s waste­water treat­ment plant. The dis­cov­ery was made around 8.25 am yes­ter­day when an HDC em­ploy­ee found the plant, which ser­vices hun­dreds of house­holds, van­dalised.

A Venezue­lan woman was stabbed to death dur­ing a do­mes­tic dis­pute in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing. 

And that’s be­fore mil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars are spent on au­dit re­ports, le­gal fees and com­mis­sions of in­quiry.

The lat­est Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund re­ports, pub­lished Fri­day, show Gov­ern­ment with­drew US$510.78 mil­lion from the Fund over six months.

On the open­ing day of the 51st Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing last week in St Lu­cia, 25-year-old Rahym Au­gustin-Joseph de­liv­ered a sting­ing analy­sis of the state of the re­gion­al bloc. His words were so sober­ing; Heads of Gov­ern­ment like Mia Mot­t­ley and Dr Ir­faan Ali were pic­tured nod­ding along at times. So­cial me­dia users con­grat­u­lat­ed him for his ster­ling speech, which, by many es­ti­mates, was longer than the re­marks of some lead­ers.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says pro­posed ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence da­ta cen­tres will be de­vel­oped in a spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone in Debe, with short, medi­um and long-term plans in place to meet their wa­ter needs.

The Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est US$800 mil­lion sov­er­eign bond may have at­tract­ed over­whelm­ing in­vestor de­mand, but econ­o­mists are warn­ing that the more im­por­tant sto­ry is the grow­ing cost of bor­row­ing and the long-term bur­den the debt could place on the coun­try’s fi­nances.