New York City May­or Er­ic Adams says that 13 new emer­gency shel­ters serv­ing Caribbean and oth­er asy­lum seek­ers across the five bor­oughs, in­clud­ing Hall Street in Brook­lyn, one of the city’s largest fa­cil­i­ties that cur­rent­ly hous­es about 3,500 mi­grants, are slat­ed to close by June 2025. 

Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu said Thurs­day that a “last-minute cri­sis” with Hamas was hold­ing up Is­raeli ap­proval of a long-await­ed cease­fire that would pause the fight­ing in the Gaza Strip and re­lease dozens of hostages. Is­raeli airstrikes, mean­while, killed at least 72 peo­ple in the war-rav­aged ter­ri­to­ry.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is dou­bling down on his con­tro­ver­sial com­ments about fear­ful po­lice of­fi­cers hid­ing from crim­i­nals in po­lice sta­tions, but in­sists his words were tak­en out of con­text and mis­un­der­stood.

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (DCP) Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin has re­in­forced the state­ment that all po­lice fa­cil­i­ties are open on a 24-hour ba­sis.

As po­lice op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin says they do not be­lieve there is a need for a cur­few to aid in re­strict­ing the move­ments of crim­i­nals.

Po­lice of­fi­cers in one of the four po­lice sta­tions with­in the con­stituen­cy of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, yes­ter­day rub­bished his claim that of­fi­cers lock­ing them­selves in sta­tions at night to hide from the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

A 61-year-old Laven­tille man was ar­rest­ed in re­la­tion to a break-in at a fur­ni­ture store in down­town Port-of-Spain ear­ly on Tues­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said Dar­ren Fran­cis, a dou­bles ven­dor, and a friend were lis­ten­ing to mu­sic from his white Mit­subishi Lancer along Race Course Road, Cara­po, at 9.22 pm, when they were ap­proached by two masked men, one of whom was hold­ing a piece of iron.

While he awaits Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s of­fi­cial ex­it from the post—ex­pect­ed in March—to step in­to his new role, Young yes­ter­day teased some of his plans, in­clud­ing chang­ing the ed­u­ca­tion­al cur­ricu­lum and en­gag­ing more with the na­tion’s youth. 

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young be­lieves Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is “grasp­ing at straws” when he ques­tioned if Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro in­struct­ed Young to with­hold the names of the of­fi­cials he met with in Venezuela be­tween 2022 and 2024.

UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has warned that a vote for any third par­ty “is a vote for the PNM.”

Cel­e­brat­ed for their ex­cel­lence in ANSA McAL’s He­roes Foun­da­tion pro­gramme, 102 par­tic­i­pants yes­ter­day re­ceived cer­tifi­cates of par­tic­i­pa­tion as well as spe­cial awards as they com­plet­ed the three-year pro­gramme.