With less than two weeks be­fore the start of the new school term, pres­sure is mount­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to pro­vide an­swers on the Gov­ern­ment’s school sup­plies and book grant, as par­ents com­plain that their ap­pli­ca­tions re­main stuck at the pro­cess­ing stage.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is work­ing to­wards greater co­or­di­na­tion among the po­lice, fire and am­bu­lance ser­vices, say­ing emer­gency agen­cies must re­spond as a team to pro­vide a more ef­fec­tive ser­vice.

Work has be­gun to clear piles of garbage that ac­cu­mu­lat­ed across Va­len­cia, af­ter the con­trac­tor re­spon­si­ble for waste col­lec­tion stopped ser­vic­ing the area.

A lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor is call­ing for faster as­sis­tance for res­i­dents af­fect­ed by Tues­day’s se­vere weath­er, as re­ports of dam­age to homes in south­west­ern com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to in­crease.

A 38-year-old man charged in con­nec­tion with a shoot­ing in­ci­dent in Princes Town was grant­ed bail with sure­ty in the sum of $75,000 when he ap­peared be­fore the South B-1 Mas­ter’s Court on Tues­day.

Po­lice seized ap­prox­i­mate­ly 340 grammes of cannabis and 80 rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion in Tu­na­puna ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing.

Around 16,000 cus­tomers were with­out elec­tric­i­ty across Trinidad and To­ba­go as T&TEC re­spond­ed to 11 area out­ages.

Meta agreed Wednes­day to pay up to $18 bil­lion and add stronger child-safe­ty mea­sures to its Face­book and In­sta­gram plat­forms as part of a land­mark le­gal set­tle­ment that end­ed a tri­al over teen so­cial me­dia ad­dic­tion and set­tled claims filed by near­ly every state.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says greater co­or­di­na­tion among the po­lice, fire and am­bu­lance ser­vices is need­ed to en­sure a more ef­fec­tive emer­gency re­sponse.

Chair­man of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA), Dr Tim Gopeesingh, says sev­er­al ma­jor up­grades are planned for hos­pi­tals un­der the au­thor­i­ty as part of ef­forts to im­prove con­di­tions for pa­tients, nurs­es and doc­tors.

Bmo­bile says ser­vices and cus­tomer sup­port chan­nels af­fect­ed by mul­ti­ple fi­bre breaks ear­li­er to­day have been re­stored.

Tim Cur­ry, a char­ac­ter ac­tor who cre­at­ed a gallery of de­li­cious, very loony vil­lains for stage and screen, in­clud­ing Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show” and the smug concierge in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” has died. He was 80.