One of the most close­ly watched and po­ten­tial­ly game-chang­ing bat­tles in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion—sure to hold the at­ten­tion of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty—will take place in To­ba­go.

With Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s April 28 poll an­nounce­ment, T&T is in the thick of elec­tion fever. How­ev­er, while the can­di­dates com­pete to gov­ern this coun­try, the next leader and gov­ern­ment will face a se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic chal­lenge in man­ag­ing the coun­try’s heavy debt.

The Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad (PLS), set up to pro­tect farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try from crim­i­nals, is now be­ing di­vert­ed to pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices for var­i­ous Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries projects. This shift un­der­mines the re­al pur­pose of the unit and leaves agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ties, al­ready prone to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­creas­ing­ly ex­posed.

Two men were shot dead and an­oth­er man in­jured in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in Siparia and Mara­bel­la on Fri­day night. They have been iden­ti­fied as Josi­ah Joseph, alias Pen­nie, 21, of Quinam Road, Pe­nal, and Cur­ban James, al­so known as Ban, 48, a welder of West Bayshore, Mara­bel­la.

A fraud in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing con­duct­ed in­to a let­ter pur­port­ed­ly signed by a se­nior ex­ec­u­tive of the Point Lisas De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Plipde­co), which has been cir­cu­lat­ing on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms and so­cial me­dia.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says any ad­di­tion­al claims for le­git­i­mate com­pen­sa­tion by fish­er­folk af­fect­ed dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the $34 mil­lion San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Cen­tre will be looked at re­spon­si­bly.

With less than three weeks to go be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion, the coun­try’s two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties—the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)—are ac­cus­ing each oth­er of mis­us­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in their cam­paigns to ped­dle racism, lies, and pro­pa­gan­da.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­nied any dis­cus­sions or al­liance with Far­ley Au­gus­tine, leader of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), dis­miss­ing an au­dio record­ing cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia as “fake news.”

The Gov­ern­ment is be­ing urged to em­bark on an in­for­ma­tion cam­paign to ad­vise T&T na­tion­als about the im­pact of the Unit­ed States tar­iffs.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, sur­round­ed by thou­sands of sup­port­ers and new faces from sev­er­al fresh can­di­dates on her slate, proud­ly de­clared that af­ter 15 years, she has suc­cess­ful­ly “purged” her par­ty.

Se­nior Coun­sel Lar­ry Lal­la made his de­but on a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) plat­form Sat­ur­day night, ex­press­ing con­cern about Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

With 161 can­di­dates of­fi­cial­ly nom­i­nat­ed for the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tions on April 28, 2025, the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour is call­ing on all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, can­di­dates, and sup­port­ers to ad­here to the prin­ci­ples out­lined in the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct.