Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has de­scribed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism of Cari­com as “reck­less,” as she stressed the im­por­tance of strong re­gion­al ties with oth­er Caribbean coun­tries.

While some crit­ics have ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port for the Unit­ed States' ac­tions against Venezuela, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad has urged cit­i­zens not to ig­nore the scale of mi­gra­tion from the South Amer­i­can coun­try or the ter­ri­to­r­i­al threats it has made against neigh­bour­ing Guyana.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has again re­butted re­cent crit­i­cisms from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne, dis­tanc­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go from Cari­com’s “Zone of Peace” pos­ture and ac­cus­ing the re­gion­al bloc of align­ing with Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment.

Fac­ing strong back­lash for crit­i­cis­ing West­moor­ings res­i­dents who called for road re­pairs be­cause the con­stituen­cy vot­ed for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tions, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der has sought to soft­en his po­si­tion, say­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will take care of the com­mu­ni­ty.

The Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) is prepar­ing to ap­proach the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) Au­thor­i­ty in the com­ing weeks over what it de­scribes as se­ri­ous health and safe­ty breach­es at di­lap­i­dat­ed se­cu­ri­ty booths at schools across Trinidad, which it says place Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (NMTS) of­fi­cers at risk.

WEST PALM BEACH, Flori­da (AP)—The US Coast Guard yes­ter­day pur­sued an­oth­er sanc­tioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea, as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­peared to be in­ten­si­fy­ing its tar­get­ing of such ves­sels con­nect­ed to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment.

The Gov­ern­ment’s move to stream­line ex­pens­es has led to sev­er­al chair­men and may­ors of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions dip­ping in­to their pock­ets to pro­vide Christ­mas meals and gifts for coun­cil mem­bers and ad­min­is­tra­tive staff.

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Na­tion­al Youth Of­fi­cer Dane Wil­son has called on Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj to say why he chose to at­tend a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fundrais­er Christ­mas din­ner in­stead of his Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Christ­mas din­ner, adding that in his view, Ma­haraj’s ac­tions would war­rant re­fer­ral to the par­ty’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­mit­tee on dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters.

Po­lice have launched a homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter the bad­ly burnt body of a man was dis­cov­ered near a torched ve­hi­cle along Rail­way Road, Re­form, Ste Madeleine, yes­ter­day.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries last week be­gan dis­trib­ut­ing tree crops un­der the Biore­ach Project, ad­vanc­ing Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to pro­mote sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, cli­mate re­silience and food se­cu­ri­ty.

The Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of Trinidad and To­ba­go has is­sued a state­ment re­gard­ing so­cial me­dia com­ments at­trib­uted to an em­ploy­ee.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Bar­ry Padarath is­sued a state­ment to­day sup­port­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­gard­ing her re­cent com­ments on re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and for­eign pol­i­cy. Padarath stat­ed the gov­ern­ment stands with Per­sad-Bisses­sar as she con­fronts na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges. He said the Prime Min­is­ter is demon­strat­ing that diplo­ma­cy in­volves bold lead­er­ship and strate­gic al­liances rather than pas­sive ob­ser­va­tion.