The In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA) is call­ing on Venezuela to re­verse its de­ci­sion to ban six in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines from op­er­at­ing to/from the coun­try.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les will this af­ter­noon pi­lot a mo­tion for de­bate in Par­lia­ment con­demn­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ments on the T&T/Venezuela is­sue and call­ing up­on the Gov­ern­ment to reaf­firm this coun­try’s com­mit­ment to Cari­com and to the up­hold­ing of in­ter­na­tion­al law.

As she, her min­is­ters, and coun­cil­lors joined in prayer for the fam­i­ly of Coun­cil­lor Romona Vic­tor yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar reaf­firmed her com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies in cri­sis.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing death of Va­len­cia gar­den­er An­tho­ny Sankar whose body was found with gun­shot wounds to the face and tor­so on Wednes­day evening.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing a re­port of lar­ce­ny af­ter a Diego Mar­tin woman re­port­ed her boyfriend with­drew $5,000 in cash from her ac­count, with­out her per­mis­sion fol­low­ing an ar­gu­ment.

Res­i­dents of east Port-of-Spain say a trou­bling trend of po­lice of­fi­cers al­leged­ly drop­ping de­tainees in “hos­tile” neigh­bour­hoods is putting lives at risk, and are call­ing on the lead­er­ship of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to take ac­tion against those in­volved.

Po­lit­i­cal and so­cial ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj has failed in his bid to chal­lenge the de­ci­sion of for­mer House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George to de­ny him per­mis­sion to re­spond to al­leged­ly defam­a­to­ry com­ments made about him in Par­lia­ment.

A Laven­tille man has been freed of mur­der­ing a fel­low res­i­dent in 2009 af­ter the State’s main wit­ness ad­mit­ted he had lied.

Po­lice say they made a ma­jor mar­i­jua­na seizure worth $47 mil­lion fol­low­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion con­duct­ed by the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion on Wednes­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day re­turned to the com­mu­ni­ty where she once sold veg­eta­bles as a child to de­liv­er the first batch of ar­ti­fi­cial-in­tel­li­gence-en­abled lap­tops to stu­dents, urg­ing them to use the de­vices as a “win­dow to the world.”

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has an­nounced that the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal will be­gin ac­cept­ing pa­tients be­fore the end of the year, as the min­istry moves to ful­ly op­er­a­tionalise the fa­cil­i­ty af­ter a decade of lim­it­ed use.

Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s East MP Stu­art Young has ex­pressed con­cern over Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed’s de­ci­sion to end spon­sor­ship of Skif­fle Bunch Steel Or­ches­tra and Siparia Del­tones Steel Or­ches­tra, de­scrib­ing it as part of an on­go­ing pat­tern of re­duced sup­port for steel­bands.