Even with the ar­rest of a sus­pect in the bru­tal mur­der of his daugh­ter, the griev­ing fa­ther of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne says noth­ing will ease the pain or erase the vi­o­lent man­ner in which she lost her life.

Child­hood Jus­tice Col­lec­tive (CJC) con­venor Mar­cus Kissoon is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to recom­mit to a child-cen­tred ap­proach to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, amid grow­ing con­cerns over the num­ber of chil­dren be­ing af­fect­ed by vi­o­lence and abuse.

The As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxi Op­er­a­tors is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to crack down on 'PH' dri­vers, fol­low­ing the trag­ic death of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, whose life was cut short in cir­cum­stances linked to a PH (pri­vate hire) taxi dri­ver.

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has is­sued 40 Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026, re­sult­ing in the de­ten­tion of in­di­vid­u­als al­leged to be linked to or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works, gang lead­er­ship struc­tures and firearm-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

A Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cer has been grant­ed bail af­ter be­ing charged with forgery and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste has clar­i­fied that the $2.8 bil­lion be­ing sought by the Gov­ern­ment in the mid-year bud­get re­view is in­tend­ed to fund salary in­creas­es for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers whose unions have al­ready con­clud­ed wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, and not for new salary set­tle­ments.

Econ­o­mist Dr Roger Ho­sein is urg­ing cit­i­zens to tem­per their ex­pec­ta­tions as the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to seek an ad­di­tion­al $2.8 bil­lion in the up­com­ing mid-year bud­get re­view to ad­dress wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and out­stand­ing salary pay­ments.

More than 40 ven­dors op­er­at­ing at the Cross Cross­ing Vend­ing Zone in San Fer­nan­do have sought le­gal ad­vice, af­ter re­ceiv­ing no­tice that they would be barred from sell­ing for two weeks to fa­cil­i­tate main­te­nance works in the area.

Co­conut oil pro­duc­ers and ven­dors in the south-west­ern com­mu­ni­ty of Ica­cos are ex­press­ing con­cern over Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to dou­ble the penal­ty for man­u­fac­tur­ing co­pra prod­ucts with­out a li­cence, warn­ing the move could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact small op­er­a­tors who de­pend on the in­dus­try for their liveli­hoods.

The lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al mu­sic com­mu­ni­ty is mourn­ing the loss of leg­endary pan­nist, arranger, com­pos­er and pro­duc­er Robert “Rob­bie” Greenidge, 76, who died yes­ter­day.

When trade unions marched out­side min­is­ters’ homes un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, it was framed as law­ful in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge has threat­ened to sue Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les for defama­tion.