Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act doc­u­ments show the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) tenure paid large sums of mon­ey to a no­to­ri­ous gang­ster, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, as well as a for­mer PNM Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­date.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has come un­der heavy fire from rel­a­tives de­mand­ing jus­tice for last week’s killing of Joshua Sama­roo, and what they have claimed was the at­tempt­ed ex­e­cu­tion of his com­mon-law wife and US cit­i­zen Ka­ia Sealy.

Since the Unit­ed States op­er­a­tion that led to the ar­rest of Venezuela’s oust­ed pres­i­dent, Nicolás Maduro, Trinidad and To­ba­go has found it­self stand­ing apart from much of the Caribbean. The Gov­ern­ment’s pub­lic praise for the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary ac­tion against il­le­gal drug run­ning in the South­ern Caribbean and Venezuela — an ac­tion many in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­perts have ques­tioned — has fu­elled fresh ques­tions about T&T’s place with­in a frac­tured re­gion­al bloc strained by diplo­mat­ic ten­sion.

State com­pa­ny Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny and pri­vate div­ing com­pa­ny Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (LM­CS) have been giv­en un­til the end of next month to de­cide whether they wish to set­tle le­gal dis­putes with the fam­i­lies of two of the four vic­tims in a div­ing tragedy at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty in 2022.

Ahead of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, the Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, is be­ing called on to be more de­ci­sive in her de­ci­sions and shed some po­lit­i­cal bag­gage if the par­ty is to re­turn to pow­er.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress marked six­teen years of lead­er­ship un­der Po­lit­i­cal Leader and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day, recog­nis­ing a tenure that be­gan in Jan­u­ary 2010 and has spanned more than a decade and a half of par­ty and na­tion­al pol­i­tics.

In the still­ness of a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, a large ship docked on the wa­ter­front near the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain. There are many ships that dock on those wa­ters week­ly, but this ves­sel presents a glimpse in­to an in­dus­try long­ing to be dis­cov­ered in this coun­try.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned that her Gov­ern­ment will not in­crease fund­ing for re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, say­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey must be used for es­sen­tial ser­vices rather than “fet­ing, rum, win­ing on the road and pay­ing for ghost projects.”

Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), Christo­pher Streete, says they will meet with Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dr Daryl Din­di­al on Mon­day morn­ing to be­gin ne­go­ti­a­tions for the pe­ri­ods 2014–2016 and 2017–2019.

A 31-year-old man suf­fered head in­juries af­ter he was beat­en dur­ing a home in­va­sion in Clax­ton Bay on Wednes­day. Po­lice said around 11.45 pm, a 46-year-old woman, who owns a busi­ness, ar­rived at her Pranz Gar­dens home in her black Kia Sportage. She was ac­cost­ed in the garage by three sus­pects, armed with a firearm and a cut­lass. They forced her in­to her home, where they met the oth­er vic­tim, a 31-year-old man. They struck him sev­er­al times on the head and face with the gun butt and tied the hands of both vic­tims. The ban­dits then ran­sacked the house, leav­ing with cash, jew­ellery, al­co­hol, and cell­phones.

The fam­i­ly of a man who died in a car ac­ci­dent with an un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle in Cou­va in 2018 is set to re­ceive a lit­tle over $300,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

Padarath de­scribed the role of Po­lit­i­cal Leader as de­mand­ing “not on­ly po­lit­i­cal acu­men, but emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al dis­ci­pline, re­silience un­der pres­sure, and an un­wa­ver­ing moral com­pass,” adding that it re­quires long nights, per­son­al sac­ri­fice, and crit­i­cal de­ci­sion-mak­ing that af­fect thou­sands, and some­times mil­lions.