Less than 24 hours af­ter the Trinidad and To­ba­go News­day of­fi­cial­ly ceased op­er­a­tions, staff re­turned one fi­nal time to say their good­byes and col­lect per­son­al be­long­ings.

PANA­MA CITY—Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has pushed back against crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment’s US$1 bil­lion bond is­sue, in­sist­ing the bor­row­ing is backed by fu­ture rev­enue and not a case of pass­ing to­day’s debt on­to an­oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tion.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young is warn­ing that multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions could be ma­noeu­vring to take the lead on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s long-de­layed Drag­on Gas project, po­ten­tial­ly push­ing the State to the mar­gins of fu­ture ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Since of­fi­cers of the School-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Unit were as­signed to schools across Trinidad and To­ba­go last Sep­tem­ber, 33 stu­dents have been ar­rest­ed for var­i­ous of­fences, po­lice re­port­ed yes­ter­day.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith will have to wait just over five months to learn the out­come of his law­suit against for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad over her con­tro­ver­sial de­ci­sion to with­draw a mer­it list dur­ing his bid for reap­point­ment in 2021.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is push­ing back against crit­i­cism from with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), af­ter par­ty stal­warts urged her to ex­er­cise more de­ci­sive lead­er­ship of the 70-year-old or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Two men were ac­quit­ted of sep­a­rate mur­der charges fol­low­ing judge-alone tri­als at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain ear­li­er this week.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says a se­nior Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor was ap­proached by two In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors be­fore the vote on the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill on Tues­day. The Bill failed in the Sen­ate with eight vot­ing against the Bill while Sen­a­tor Court­ney Mc­Nish ab­stained.

Since of­fi­cers of the School-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Unit were as­signed to var­i­ous schools across Trinidad and To­ba­go last Sep­tem­ber, 33 stu­dents have been ar­rest­ed for var­i­ous of­fences, po­lice re­port­ed.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in charge of Ad­min­is­tra­tion Ju­nior Ben­jamin says the de­feat of a bill in­tend­ed to in­tro­duce Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) in com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go has not dis­cour­aged the po­lice, as of­fi­cers in­tend to con­tin­ue reg­u­lar an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions.

Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC), Bal­dath Ma­haraj, has re­newed calls for stronger and more dis­rup­tive se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in Cen­tral Trinidad, fol­low­ing the fail­ure of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion (ZOSO) Bill.

Cari­com Chair Dr Ter­rance Drew will make an of­fi­cial vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go this week to meet with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and mem­bers of her team, against the back­drop of re­cent ten­sion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and some oth­er Cari­com mem­ber states.