A tense, 48-hour res­cue op­er­a­tion in the deep for­est off Lala­ja, along the Ari­ma–Blan­chisseuse Road, con­clud­ed suc­cess­ful­ly yes­ter­day as na­tion­al emer­gency teams ex­tract­ed the in­jured hik­er, 40-year-old Fayyad Ho­sein of Rio Claro, who suf­fered a frac­tured left fe­mur dur­ing a re­mote hike.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath has said he will fol­low up on al­le­ga­tions that lizards were found in­side roti sup­plied by a Freeport ro­ti­mak­er to the School Feed­ing Pro­gramme two weeks ago.

A 39-year-old man from Bon Air North, D’Abadie, ap­peared in the Ari­ma Third Mag­is­trates’ Court on No­vem­ber 20, fac­ing three charges un­der the Med­ical Board Act 29:50 for al­leged­ly pos­ing as a doc­tor.

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the Catholic Church and the St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home were giv­en un­til the end of Jan­u­ary to sub­mit to the court rea­sons the le­gal lim­it on a law­suit brought against it should be ad­hered to.

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad says there is no way to con­firm if the court was lied to and must now main­tain that there is no sin­gle pol­i­cy per­tain­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) run­ning high-ten­sion wires over pri­vate prop­er­ty.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says To­bag­o­ni­ans may know the elec­tion date with­in the next sev­en days, even as he works to man­age grow­ing frus­tra­tion among To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty sup­port­ers over the de­ci­sion to re­open nom­i­na­tions in two con­stituen­cies.

The Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025, which will be de­bat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­mor­row, pro­pos­es a $500,000 fine plus 20 years’ jail for per­pe­tra­tors, with a $750,000 fine and 25 years’ jail if they are a gang mem­ber or act in the pres­ence of a se­nior cit­i­zen or child.

Youth Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans de­bat­ing the need for cy­ber­bul­ly­ing leg­is­la­tion yes­ter­day turned to re­al-world events for em­pha­sis, point­ing to the death threats re­cent­ly made against Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne as proof of how quick­ly on­line abuse can es­ca­late.

Days af­ter mul­ti­ple air­lines can­celled sched­uled com­mer­cial ser­vices to Venezuela, the coun­try’s In­sti­tu­to Na­cional de Aeronáu­ti­ca Civ­il Venezuela (IN­AC) is is­su­ing an ul­ti­ma­tum to air­lines: re­sume ser­vice with­in 48 hours or risk hav­ing their traf­fic rights sus­pend­ed.

Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GS­FCC), Ki­ran Singh says South­ern­ers will soon ben­e­fit from trade op­por­tu­ni­ties be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and France span­ning agri­cul­tur­al tech­nol­o­gy, man­u­fac­tur­ing, tourism, ex­port part­ner­ships and even cul­tur­al ex­change pro­grammes.

En­quiries are con­tin­u­ing in­to the dis­cov­ery of a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na at the Port of Port of Spain on Mon­day morn­ing.

In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les has reaf­firmed calls for T&T's Gov­ern­ment to re­main neu­tral af­ter the Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro has of­fi­cial­ly been de­clared a mem­ber of a For­eign Ter­ror­ist Or­gan­i­sa­tion (FTO).