The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert MP, has re­vealed that the de­lay in VAT re­funds to SME com­pa­nies is as a re­sult of a cash flow is­sue, but has in­di­cat­ed monies will be paid by the end of Jan­u­ary.

Weeks af­ter an­nounc­ing his plans to re­tire lat­er this year, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley bid farewell to the me­dia at a mix­er at Bal­isi­er House on Wednes­day night.

As they fled, one of the ban­dits fired sev­er­al shots, graz­ing one of the vic­tims, on the shoul­der.

The 75-year-old man and his wives, aged 73, 60, 57, and 40, were pray­ing around 4:30 pm when four masked men, wear­ing gloves and dark cloth­ing, stormed in­to their home along Guaracara Tabaquite Road.

Three peo­ple were robbed at gun­point in Mor­vant on Wednes­day af­ter­noon af­ter re­spond­ing to a Face­book ad­ver­tise­ment for a car. The group, con­sist­ing of two men and a woman, drove to La­dy Young Road, Mor­vant, around 1 pm to meet a man who claimed to be sell­ing a Nis­san Ti­i­da.

A 46-year-old man was robbed of his car and valu­ables af­ter of­fer­ing a ride to a stranger in Diego Mar­tin ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing. The vic­tim had dropped off his cousin in down­town Port of Spain around 3:40 am when a man ap­proached him, claim­ing to be strand­ed and re­quest­ing a lift to Ceme­tery Street, Diego Mar­tin.

The gov­ern­ment of this British Over­seas has an­nounced plans to es­tab­lish an of­fi­cial Res­i­den­cy by In­vest­ment (RBI) pro­gramme aimed at boost­ing eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and gov­ern­ment rev­enue.

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.