At the dawn of spe­cial op­er­a­tions in des­ig­nat­ed di­vi­sions and the Gov­ern­ment’s promise of hard­er polic­ing, de­vel­op­ment fund­ing for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is set to more than triple to $230.5 mil­lion, with sub­stan­tial boosts for spe­cial­ist units, sta­tions, ve­hi­cles and equip­ment.

Fund­ing al­lo­ca­tions for over­time pay­ments to Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) dai­ly-paid and month­ly-paid work­ers have been re­duced in the 2027 fis­cal pack­age. Al­lo­ca­tions for con­tract em­ploy­ment with­in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) have al­so been cut.

Olympic javelin cham­pi­on Keshorn Wal­cott fought back tears yes­ter­day as he re­mem­bered Sean Roach, the busi­ness­man and ath­lete man­ag­er who helped trans­form his life, de­scrib­ing him as the broth­er who shaped the per­son he has be­come.

For Kelsey Bobb, The Mighty Spar­row’s mu­sic was a con­nec­tion to her child­hood, her Guyanese par­ents and her late fa­ther — one strong enough to bring her from New York to Trinidad and To­ba­go for just a day to pay her re­spects.

The Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed sale of sev­er­al State-owned as­sets has trig­gered sharp crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion mem­bers, who warn that the coun­try risks los­ing valu­able na­tion­al hold­ings, while econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon ar­gues that di­vest­ment could ben­e­fit cit­i­zens if the process is trans­par­ent, prop­er­ly struc­tured and aimed at cre­at­ing long-term val­ue.

Hilton Trinidad work­ers have been left anx­ious and un­cer­tain about their fu­ture af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans to di­vest the state-owned ho­tel, with em­ploy­ees learn­ing of the pro­posed move through news­pa­per re­ports rather than di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Gov­ern­ment.

Af­ter years of mount­ing loss­es, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing fa­cil­i­ties, man­age­ment up­heaval and re­peat­ed at­tempts to turn around op­er­a­tions that have left the once-pre­mier To­ba­go re­sort a shad­ow of its for­mer self, work­ers at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach & Golf Re­sort say a sale of the state-owned prop­er­ty may fi­nal­ly of­fer the fresh start the ho­tel des­per­ate­ly needs.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pledged to work with the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty to de­ter­mine how quick­ly re­pairs can be com­plet­ed at the Scar­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion.

Pas­sen­gers trav­el­ling through the new east ter­mi­nal at ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port say the fa­cil­i­ty has left them on cloud nine.

One cur­rent and one for­mer To­bag­on­ian sen­a­tor have ques­tioned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pro­pos­al to guar­an­tee To­ba­go at least two in­de­pen­dent Sen­ate seats in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Busi­ness­woman Di­ane Hadad is look­ing for­ward to the open­ing of the $500 mil­lion Mar­riott re­sort at Rocky Point, To­ba­go, in 2029. Hadad, a for­mer head of the To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said the is­land could not af­ford to lose the de­vel­op­ment.

Res­i­dents across Diego Mar­tin say a sharp re­duc­tion in fund­ing to the bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion could wors­en long-stand­ing prob­lems, in­clud­ing flood­ing, blocked drains, over­grown lots and de­te­ri­o­rat­ing in­fra­struc­ture. Some al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of po­lit­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­tag­ing the area.