The Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) and Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions will not be used as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball.

A fa­ther and son were killed, and an­oth­er son was fight­ing for his life at hos­pi­tal last night, af­ter gun­men at­tacked the rel­a­tives in Va­len­cia on Wednes­day night.

Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) is on board with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s ap­proved four per cent wage in­crease of­fer to pi­lots, but the union rep­re­sent­ing them isn’t ready to fly with all of the pro­pos­al just yet.

The Gov­ern­ment and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert are be­ing urged to step in to reg­u­late how banks dis­trib­ute for­eign ex­change, with at least one econ­o­mist sug­gest­ing leg­is­la­tion to lim­it the amount of US dol­lars banks can utilise for in­vest­ments in for­eign mar­kets as a short-term mea­sure and busi­nesses call­ing for sol­id ac­tion to al­le­vi­ate the woes they are fac­ing.

Scores of peo­ple line up out­side roti shops yes­ter­day to pur­chase their Di­vali hol­i­day es­sen­tials.

While many fam­i­lies spent Di­vali with loved ones yes­ter­day, Hes­per Ali-Dar­soo was cry­ing at the grave of her el­dest son and youngest grand­daugh­ter, who were gunned down in Moru­ga on Au­gust 21.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred as Cen­tral Di­vi­sion po­lice were re­spond­ing to a re­port of a rob­bery at an ice fac­to­ry at Ca­paro Bras­so Val­ley Road in­volv­ing four gun­men. They were giv­en the li­cence plate num­ber of the al­leged get­away ve­hi­cle.

One day af­ter the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice was or­dered to dis­con­tin­ue a de­part­men­tal or­der used to as­sess po­lice of­fi­cers for pro­mo­tion, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher pro­mot­ed 25 po­lice of­fi­cers.

While stake­hold­ers es­ti­mat­ed that To­ba­go’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val drew be­tween 30,000 and 37,000 vis­i­tors, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke has ques­tioned the fes­ti­val’s over­all im­pact on the is­land’s econ­o­my.

A teacher, whose pro­mo­tion was de­layed for over a decade, is set to re­ceive over half a mil­lion dol­lars in com­pen­sa­tion.

De­spite the es­tab­lish­ment of an Ex­tor­tion Unit with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj says busi­ness­peo­ple in cen­tral Trinidad are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly fear­ful of re­port­ing ex­tor­tion to po­lice, with many avoid­ing not on­ly Di­vali fes­tiv­i­ties but all so­cial en­gage­ments.

A High Court Judge has agreed to add a con­sul­tan­cy com­pa­ny to a law­suit over the pro­mo­tion as­sess­ment process for the rank of As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice (ASP).