What be­gan as a joy­ous an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion in To­ba­go near­ly end­ed in tragedy on Sun­day when two boats col­lid­ed at high speed near Pi­geon Point, leav­ing nine peo­ple in­jured, in­clud­ing four for­eign na­tion­als.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to present amend­ments to the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­mor­row (Wednes­day), prompt­ing strong crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs Stu­art Young and Do­minic Ro­main, who ar­gue the changes would sig­nif­i­cant­ly weak­en pro­cure­ment over­sight and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for cor­rup­tion.

World Peace Day was cel­e­brat­ed with a dis­tinct­ly lo­cal flavour yes­ter­day, as mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, gov­ern­ment work­ers and passers-by in down­town Port-of-Spain were served com­pli­men­ta­ry dou­bles as a ges­ture of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for their ef­forts in pro­mot­ing peace.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to ad­dress the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly around 6 pm to­day, be­gin­ning what is ex­pect­ed to be a packed diplo­mat­ic sched­ule in New York be­fore re­turn­ing home for Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions on Thurs­day.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has vot­ed in favour of a Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly res­o­lu­tion al­low­ing Pales­tin­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ab­bas to ad­dress this week’s high-lev­el de­bate vir­tu­al­ly af­ter the Unit­ed States barred him from trav­el­ling to New York.

With the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) not rul­ing out protest ac­tion over out­stand­ing back­pay, the Per­son­nel De­part­ment is re­mind­ing unionised work­ers that the State has oth­er bills to pay.

Mar­aval taxi dri­vers are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to prop­er­ly re­pair a pot­hole along Sad­dle Road, which they say caused ma­jor traf­fic con­ges­tion last week.

Class­es have re­sumed at San Juan North Sec­ondary School amid re­as­sur­ances from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the po­lice that se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns at the school will be ad­dressed.

A 27-year-old man was shot and killed near his home on George Street, Port-of-Spain, on Sun­day night, less than a week af­ter his re­lease from de­ten­tion un­der the State of Emer­gency.

De­spite the chal­lenges she faced, 13-year-old Mari­ah Seenath was de­ter­mined to achieve her goals, and those who knew her be­lieved she was des­tined for suc­cess.

Pan Trin­ba­go is seek­ing clar­i­ty from the Gov­ern­ment on how the pro­posed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026 could af­fect steel­bands, pa­n­yards, re­hearsals and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment.

The Gov­ern­ment is propos­ing changes to the pub­lic pro­cure­ment law that would lim­it the pow­ers of the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR), cre­ate ex­emp­tions from ex­ist­ing pro­cure­ment re­quire­ments and in­crease the val­ue of con­tracts some pub­lic bod­ies can ap­prove.