Cari­com IM­PACS, the re­gion­al crime and se­cu­ri­ty agency, says a four-week op­er­a­tion has dis­rupt­ed transna­tion­al smug­gling net­works and seized an es­ti­mat­ed US$54.5 mil­lion in il­lic­it as­sets and con­tra­band.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is po­si­tion­ing it­self to tap in­to more than 12 tril­lion cu­bic feet of nat­ur­al gas from sev­er­al cross-bor­der and re­gion­al fields fol­low­ing the sign­ing of new hy­dro­car­bon ex­plo­ration li­cences in Venezuela.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says Trinidad and To­ba­go should be­gin to feel the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of in­creased gas pro­duc­tion and ef­forts to re­vive oil pro­duc­tion by 2027, but has stopped short of de­scrib­ing the ex­pect­ed gains as an­oth­er en­er­gy wind­fall.

Par­ents await­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s book grant could be­gin re­ceiv­ing pay­ments from Au­gust 24 as the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion moves to fi­nalise ap­provals ahead of the Sep­tem­ber 7 re­open­ing of schools.

Dozens of chil­dren in Debe re­ceived free book bags and sta­tionery yes­ter­day as part of an ini­tia­tive to help fam­i­lies pre­pare for the new school term.

As the ex­cite­ment builds for the an­nu­al Great Race in To­ba­go tak­ing place to­day, con­cern is grow­ing at Store Bay over a leatherback tur­tle nest on the pop­u­lar beach.

A busi­ness­man from cen­tral Trinidad, sus­pect­ed of op­er­at­ing a broth­el and en­gag­ing in hu­man traf­fick­ing, has lost his le­gal chal­lenge over be­ing de­tained on a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) for the past three months.

Over four years af­ter the trag­ic in­ci­dent at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty, where four divers lost their lives, the fate of par­al­lel pros­e­cu­tions brought by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OSH Au­thor­i­ty) is still up in the air.

Eighty-year-old Lawrence Ram­per­sad prayed for his life and the safe­ty of his bedrid­den wife as two in­trud­ers beat him at his Gran Cou­va home on Tues­day.

The sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the dis­ap­pear­ance of three firearms and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion from the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion (CPS) on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, on Mon­day re­main in cus­tody.

The sound of steel­pan and mem­o­ries of a life de­vot­ed to mu­sic filled the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, as fam­i­ly, friends and mem­bers of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s steel­pan fra­ter­ni­ty gath­ered to bid farewell to in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed pan­nist, arranger and com­pos­er Robert “Rob­bie” Greenidge.

A busi­ness­man from cen­tral Trinidad, sus­pect­ed of op­er­at­ing a broth­el and en­gag­ing in hu­man traf­fick­ing, has lost his le­gal chal­lenge over be­ing de­tained on a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) for the past three months.