Don­ald Trump was elect­ed the 47th pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States on Wednes­day, an ex­tra­or­di­nary come­back for a for­mer pres­i­dent who re­fused to ac­cept de­feat four years ago, sparked a vi­o­lent in­sur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capi­tol, was con­vict­ed of felony charges and sur­vived two as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempts.

Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir says he is hap­py to hear that screen­ing in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is fi­nal­ly tak­ing place. How­ev­er, he is con­cerned at the lack of in­for­ma­tion, and he fears that the UNC is con­duct­ing its af­fairs in a “hap­haz­ard and un­pro­fes­sion­al man­ner.”

Of­fi­cials of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) are mum on whether gen­er­al coun­cil mem­ber Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus has been “spo­ken to” or may face dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion for her cri­tique of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s state­ments on why the par­ty’s con­ven­tion was post­poned.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has an­nounced plans to con­sult with stake­hold­ers on chang­ing the method for al­lo­cat­ing for­eign ex­change. The dis­cus­sions will out­line the path to­ward achiev­ing eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion.

With the Gov­ern­ment ex­pect­ing to col­lect $191 mil­lion in prop­er­ty tax, the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) has al­ready re­ceived $105 mil­lion from prop­er­ty own­ers. In a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert re­vealed that, as of yes­ter­day, prop­er­ty own­ers paid $105,609,387 for 104,102 prop­er­ties. Break­ing it down, he said $13 mil­lion came from prop­er­ty own­ers with­in the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion; Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, $13 mil­lion; San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, $9 mil­lion; San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, $9 mil­lion; Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, $9 mil­lion; Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, $8 mil­lion; and Port-of-Spain City, $3 mil­lion.

There will be no swan song for Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, as he says he will be de­liv­er­ing his 11th bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion next year once the PNM wins the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says he of­fered to set­tle the wage ne­go­ti­a­tion im­passe be­tween Caribbean Air­lines and pi­lots to put an end to mis­in­for­ma­tion float­ing around.

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says ships will be redi­rect­ed from the Port of Port-of-Spain to the Point Lisas Port to pre­vent a ma­jor shut­down of port op­er­a­tions in this coun­try.

Ex­tor­tion was again the main top­ic of dis­cus­sion when the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) met with Kei­th Scot­land, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (Ag), on Mon­day. 

A Cunu­pia busi­ness­woman is now sell­ing her spa and says she will be re­lo­cat­ing af­ter re­peat­ed­ly be­ing tar­get­ed by ex­tor­tion­ists for $30,000. Malai­ka Gar­raway, the own­er of Ar­ray Mas­sages and Mas­sage Train­ing, is speak­ing out about the con­stant threats she has been fac­ing.

The head of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, ACP Richard Smith, says one ma­jor gang is be­hind in­ci­dents of ex­tor­tion in Cen­tral and North Cen­tral dis­tricts.

While the world was anx­ious to know who would be­come the 47th pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, many uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents re­mained un­fazed by the out­come.