Pas­sen­gers aboard the Galleons Pas­sage en­dured a night­mare sail­ing to To­ba­go yes­ter­day as the ves­sel took over eight hours to reach its des­ti­na­tion.

An­na-Lisa PaulShoot­ing vic­tim Ka­ia Sealy was ar­rest­ed min­utes af­ter land­ing at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port dur­ing the wee hours to­day.

The woman in­volved in the con­tro­ver­sial po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in St Au­gus­tine on Jan­u­ary 20, which led to the death of her part­ner Joshua Sama­roo and left her paral­ysed, is sched­uled to ar­rive at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port around 1:45 am to­day.

The an­guished cries of chil­dren filled the Erin Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist Church as fam­i­ly, friends and class­mates gath­ered to bid a fi­nal farewell to 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, who was vi­o­lent­ly mur­dered on her way home on June 6.

Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP and for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young called on young peo­ple to stay ground­ed in their faith and ethics while chas­ing their am­bi­tions, as he urged them to work hard and avoid tak­ing the easy way out.

A for­mer se­nior of­fi­cial of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) and a for­mer se­nior pub­lic ser­vant have re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions that a so-called “pro­tect­ed list” was cre­at­ed to ben­e­fit Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of­fi­cials and their as­so­ciates, in­sist­ing the sys­tem has ex­ist­ed for decades and was nev­er in­tend­ed to ex­empt any­one from pay­ing elec­tric­i­ty bills.

On the eve of Fri­day’s Labour Day ob­ser­vances, the Sen­ate will to­day de­bate a bill aimed at en­sur­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of all col­lec­tive agree­ments to which Petrotrin was a par­ty, through its suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said he re­mains un­fazed af­ter Op­po­si­tion MPs walked out of Par­lia­ment dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate on the Sup­ple­men­ta­tion and Vari­a­tion of Ap­pro­pri­a­tion for Fis­cal Year 2026 yes­ter­day, in­sist­ing the protest will not de­ter the Gov­ern­ment from ex­pos­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira says MPs’ con­duct in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last Fri­day over the mi­cro­phone mat­ter fell short of the stan­dards that cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to ex­pect from their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Small busi­ness own­ers op­er­at­ing in com­mu­ni­ties along the East-West Cor­ri­dor say they are hope­ful that fea­tures of this year’s bud­get will fo­cus on stim­u­lat­ing growth while ad­dress­ing the needs of the gen­er­al pub­lic.

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) has wel­comed Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to ad­dress out­stand­ing pay­ments and back­pay for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, but says the coun­try needs a broad­er eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy that goes be­yond fis­cal mea­sures.

Re­tail spend­ing in South Trinidad re­mains close­ly tied to pub­lic sec­tor wage cy­cles, with busi­ness lead­ers say­ing Gov­ern­ment’s planned salary re­lief could quick­ly rip­ple through su­per­mar­kets, hard­ware stores and oth­er re­tail out­lets as house­holds gain ad­di­tion­al spend­ing pow­er.