Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der avoid­ed di­rect­ly an­swer­ing ques­tions on how many Unit­ed States (U.S.) mil­i­tary per­son­nel re­main sta­tioned in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Dur­ing a hear­ing a short while ago, High Court Judge Maris­sa Robert­son ap­proved an ap­pli­ca­tion made late last year by lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Dai­ly News Ltd, the par­ent com­pa­ny of the news­pa­per.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has launched Phase II of Op­er­a­tion Fes­tive Shield un­der the theme “Op­er­a­tion Se­cure De VIBES – Vis­i­bil­i­ty, In­tel­li­gence, Bor­der and Band Se­cu­ri­ty, En­force­ment, Safe­ty for All”, as part of its se­cu­ri­ty plans for Car­ni­val 2026.

Sinanans­ingh was head of the le­gal de­part­ment and cor­po­rate sec­re­tary of Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL), as well as Paria act­ing gen­er­al man­ag­er, for the last sev­en months.

From next Fri­day, un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grants will be able to start the process of reg­is­ter­ing to work legal­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Adult ap­pli­cants will be re­quired to pay $700, and those who fail to reg­is­ter will face im­me­di­ate de­por­ta­tion.

The lone sur­vivor of the 2022 Paria div­ing tragedy, Christo­pher Boodram, has ex­pressed grat­i­tude not on­ly for the ex-gra­tia pay­ment made by the Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day, but al­so for the sup­port ex­tend­ed to his fam­i­ly and the fam­i­lies of the oth­er divers through­out the or­deal.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has crit­i­cised De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge over com­ments sug­gest­ing that lim­it­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al rights is “a small price to pay” if the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion helps re­move il­le­gal firearms from com­mu­ni­ties.

That’s the view of Op­po­si­tion PNM Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, who says cor­dons and cur­fews in Spe­cial Zones will add an­oth­er prob­lem for bars and oth­er busi­ness­es there, apart from the in­creas­es al­ready im­posed on them by the UNC Gov­ern­ment.

Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj is cur­rent­ly serv­ing as act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, with John Je­re­mie out of the coun­try on what is said to be of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment busi­ness.

Or­gan­ised crime and il­lic­it flows of mon­ey are prop­ping up Trinidad and To­ba­go’s econ­o­my and pro­vid­ing jobs and ben­e­fits with­in many com­mu­ni­ties, ac­cord­ing to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Josh Dray­ton.

As Par­lia­ment de­bates leg­is­la­tion that would give law en­force­ment en­hanced pow­ers in des­ig­nat­ed “Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions”, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has reaf­firmed that it will op­er­ate strict­ly in ac­cor­dance with its statu­to­ry man­date.

Rio Claro moth­er and free­lance jour­nal­ist Kellyann Lemessy was am­bushed and fa­tal­ly shot in her car as she ar­rived home just af­ter noon yes­ter­day.