Clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er Dr Kati­ja Khan is urg­ing so­ci­ety to stop nor­mal­is­ing in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence and vic­tim-blam­ing, say­ing abu­sive be­hav­iour should nev­er be dis­missed as or­di­nary re­la­tion­ship con­flict.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a vi­ral video show­ing a man al­leged­ly ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly abus­ing a woman while dri­ving reck­less­ly.

The Gov­ern­ment will ac­cord ca­lyp­so icon Dr Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co an of­fi­cial state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al, with Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin al­so an­nounc­ing a na­tion­al trib­ute and oth­er plans to ho­n­our his lega­cy.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has bro­ken her cus­tom­ary si­lence on at­tacks against her and the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, say­ing there are times when re­straint must give way to de­fend­ing the dig­ni­ty of the of­fice.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les says she will write to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo over Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lan­guage about In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira SC says Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark may have had the le­gal pow­er to break two tied votes in the Sen­ate, but ques­tions re­main over whether par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion sup­port­ed us­ing that pow­er to pass leg­is­la­tion.

That was the warn­ing from Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer yes­ter­day, as union lead­ers from across the labour move­ment ral­lied be­hind the CWU in its es­ca­lat­ing dis­pute with the Gov­ern­ment over wages at ma­jor­i­ty state-owned TSTT.

Port work­ers yes­ter­day staged an­oth­er protest over out­stand­ing wages and al­leged­ly un­safe work­ing con­di­tions, say­ing re­peat­ed ap­peals for an­swers and re­pairs had brought lit­tle re­lief.

Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day ap­proved Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (DCP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin to act as Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er lat­er this month and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Anand Rame­sar to act as DCP.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing to meet the re­quire­ments for ac­cess­ing an In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) loan to ad­dress the coun­try’s wa­ter is­sues.

No re­open­ing date has been set for the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ (UWI) Debe Cam­pus, Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Sen­a­tor Prakash Per­sad says.

The Gov­ern­ment will ac­cord ca­lyp­so icon Dr Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co an of­fi­cial state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al, with Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin al­so an­nounc­ing a na­tion­al trib­ute and oth­er plans to ho­n­our his lega­cy.