A taxi dri­ver from San Juan has been sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of rap­ing a 14-year-old girl over a decade ago.

A trade union­ist has been giv­en the green light to sue the Min­istry of Fi­nance over its re­fusal to dis­close an au­dit re­port in­to a med­ical in­sur­ance plan for teach­ers. 

Tourism Sec­re­tary Tashia Bur­ris has de­fend­ed the di­vi­sion’s over­seas trav­el ex­pens­es, in­sist­ing she has not failed in ef­forts to im­prove the is­land’s air­lift de­spite not se­cur­ing new air­lines.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has filed two com­plaints with the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, ask­ing for probes of al­leged mis­use of pub­lic funds by the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Plipde­co) board in the pur­chase of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Red Fete tick­ets and al­leged “mis­use of state re­sources, pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees, and tax­pay­er funds to sup­port the PNM’s elec­tion cam­paign.”

A 24-year-old woman was ward­ed in crit­i­cal con­di­tion while a 25-year-old man was in sta­ble con­di­tion at hosp­tial last night, af­ter they were shot in Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day night.

De­spite a rob­bery at one of their out­lets, the man­age­ment of Pal­ki In­di­an Restau­rant says they are not dis­cour­aged by crim­i­nal­i­ty and vows to con­tin­ue busi­ness, serv­ing the pub­lic.

Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors say it is still too ear­ly to de­scribe the death of in­mate Aki­no Pur­cell as mur­der, as en­quiries con­tin­ue in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to his death.

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Colm Im­bert says the Gov­ern­ment will sup­port any ini­tia­tive that re­duces plas­tic waste in this coun­try and hopes to es­tab­lish a ro­bust na­tion­al re­cy­cling sys­tem.

The Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (CAISO) that rep­re­sents the LGBTQI-plus com­mu­ni­ty is call­ing on par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to heed the ad­vice of the Court of Ap­peal jus­tices and move this coun­try away from colo­nial-era laws.

On April 20th, Fron­tier Air­lines will op­er­ate its last flight out of T&T. The Den­ver-based ul­tra low-cost car­ri­er will end ser­vice be­tween Trinidad and its Puer­to Ri­co hub, nine months af­ter launch­ing the route. In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, Rob Har­ris, Fron­tier Air­lines’ Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er said, “We pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly re­view and up­date our routes based on de­mand, sea­son­al­i­ty, and oth­er fac­tors”. Har­ris did not rule out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the air­line re­turn­ing say­ing Fron­tier “will con­tin­ue to eval­u­ate a po­ten­tial re­turn in the fu­ture”. The Air­port’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go in a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, al­so con­firmed it will “con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er with Fron­tier Air­lines.”

The Laven­tille East/Mor­vant Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive says it is stand­ing be­hind in­cum­bent Adri­an Leonce, amid al­le­ga­tions and scruti­ny from the Op­po­si­tion over his now-de­funct busi­ness re­la­tion­ship with a man al­leged­ly linked to crim­i­nal net­works in the Unit­ed States, Eu­rope and the Caribbean.

De­spite hav­ing a rob­bery at one of their out­lets, the man­age­ment of Pal­ki In­di­an Restau­rant says they are not dis­cour­aged by crim­i­nal­i­ty and vows to con­tin­ue busi­ness, serv­ing the pub­lic.