A Rio Claro man ac­cused of as­sault­ing his moth­er-in-law, al­leged­ly caus­ing her to be­come par­tial­ly blind, has been freed af­ter the pros­e­cu­tion failed to com­ply with the court’s di­rec­tions.

A 71-year-old re­tiree and his 68-year-old wife were robbed at gun­point at their Wind­sor Park, Cal­i­for­nia, home on Tues­day morn­ing.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing a vi­o­lent rob­bery at the home of a cus­toms of­fi­cer who was beat­en and robbed of US$10,000 dur­ing the ear­ly hours of Wednes­day morn­ing.

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) has ex­pressed deep con­cern over the de­ci­sion by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro not to sus­pend of­fi­cers in­volved in the fa­tal shoot­ing of 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo dur­ing a high-speed chase in St Au­gus­tine on Jan­u­ary 20. The in­ci­dent al­so left Sama­roo’s com­mon-law wife, Ka­ia Sealy, paral­ysed.

A 51-year-old Arou­ca man was killed on Wednes­day morn­ing af­ter a truck lost con­trol and slammed in­to a ve­hi­cle he was dri­ving.

Po­lice are search­ing for a La Hor­quet­ta man who re­port­ed­ly shot at them while they were on pa­trol in the area.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has called for a phased ap­proach to changes in nat­ur­al gas pric­ing fol­low­ing an in­crease an­nounced by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that all tyres have been re­moved from an il­le­gal dump site at For­ress Park Trace, Clax­ton Bay, and said the tyre shop own­er re­spon­si­ble will face fines from lit­ter war­dens for lit­ter­ing.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ei­ther name the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors she ac­cused of seek­ing per­son­al favours in ex­change for leg­isla­tive sup­port, or with­draw the al­le­ga­tion en­tire­ly.

Pres­i­dent of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, Is­rael B. Khan, SC, says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s al­le­ga­tion that two In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors sought per­son­al favours in ex­change for sup­port­ing the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill amounts to a claim of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct and re­quires a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of politi­cis­ing na­tion­al tragedy, re­spond­ing di­rect­ly to a so­cial me­dia post in which the Prime Min­is­ter at­tacked the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment over crime and gang vi­o­lence.

The Caribbean Nat­ur­al Re­sources In­sti­tute con­vened its re­gion­al Part­ners Fo­rum on cli­mate jus­tice on Jan­u­ary 19 and 20 in Bar­ba­dos.