It was more a cel­e­bra­tion than a fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, as steel­pan mu­sic, tra­di­tion­al mas and the red, white and black of na­tion­al flags brought the streets of Port-of-Spain alive for Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co’s farewell pa­rade.

Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co took his fi­nal bow at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) yes­ter­day. But out­side the venue, his mu­sic was still do­ing what it had done for gen­er­a­tions —bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er.

That’s what Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says Trinidad and To­ba­go is in dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment’s tenure.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ridiculed Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ claim that Trinidad and To­ba­go is in a re­ces­sion, sug­gest­ing in­stead that it is the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) fac­ing fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of try­ing to steal cred­it for the new East Ter­mi­nal at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, claim­ing they pre­vi­ous­ly tried to ob­struct the project.

The Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion has opened an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a vi­ral video show­ing a par­ent beat­ing her child on the Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School com­pound on Thurs­day.

Ma­yaro MP Nicholas Mor­ris is al­leg­ing that tax­pay­ers were asked to foot a $414,000 bill for a par­ty at for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley's of­fi­cial To­ba­go res­i­dence on the same night his ad­min­is­tra­tion de­clared a State of Emer­gency in De­cem­ber 2024.

Peren­co has shut down crane op­er­a­tions as the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty Agency (OS­HA) start­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the crane col­lapse at Peren­co’s Samaan Al­pha Drilling Plat­form, urg­ing em­ploy­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those op­er­at­ing in high-risk in­dus­tries, to pro­vide safe and healthy work­ing en­vi­ron­ments for em­ploy­ees.

A to­tal of 124 dai­ly-paid work­ers at the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) have been sent home, with the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) call­ing on the au­thor­i­ty’s man­age­ment to ex­plain the de­ci­sion and ad­dress con­cerns about the af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees’ out­stand­ing over­time pay­ments.

These were the words of one fire of­fi­cial at yes­ter­day’s dou­ble mur­der scene at Sev­enth Av­enue, Mal­ick, Barataria, as rel­a­tives of Rosan­na and Ele­na Ram­lal anx­ious­ly await­ed the ar­rival of pa­tri­arch Wes­ley Ram­lal.

A 33-year-old man from Diego Mar­tin has been ac­quit­ted of mur­der­ing a neigh­bour over a decade ago.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is push­ing back against con­cerns over the per­mit sys­tem un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, say­ing there is no rea­son for the pub­lic to be alarmed.