Amalya Burke and Cordell Hinds have emerged as the top per­form­ers in their re­spec­tive age groups at the 11th edi­tion of the More Than Just Tal­ent (MTJT) com­pe­ti­tion, which show­cased the singing, danc­ing and in­stru­men­tal skills of young per­form­ers at the Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day.

Twen­ty-five peo­ple sus­pect­ed of be­ing il­le­gal im­mi­grants have been de­tained af­ter po­lice in­ter­cept­ed a ves­sel along Trinidad’s west­ern penin­su­la dur­ing a late-night op­er­a­tion on Tues­day.

The Min­istry of De­fence is re­cruit­ing ad­di­tion­al mem­bers for the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF), with De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge say­ing the ex­pan­sion is nec­es­sary to meet the coun­try's grow­ing se­cu­ri­ty and re­gion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

The Gov­ern­ment spent $1.3 mil­lion on the fu­ner­al arrange­ments and of­fi­cial farewell for leg­endary ca­lyp­son­ian Dr Slinger Fran­cis­co, bet­ter known as the Mighty Spar­row.

Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed $6 mil­lion to re­fur­bish the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence, which Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says is mould-in­fest­ed and cur­rent­ly un­in­hab­it­able.

The Op­po­si­tion is lament­ing that it was un­able to ques­tion the Gov­ern­ment about mil­lions of dol­lars al­lo­cat­ed for po­lice in­fra­struc­ture, equip­ment and oth­er de­vel­op­ment projects af­ter blam­ing Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) chair­man Jagdeo Singh for mov­ing past a key ex­pen­di­ture item dur­ing yes­ter­day’s SFC ex­am­i­na­tion of the 2027 Bud­get with­out paus­ing for their ques­tions.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath yes­ter­day stopped short of as­sur­ing cit­i­zens that elec­tric­i­ty rates would not be in­creased to help set­tle the near­ly $10 bil­lion debt owed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) to the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

Broth­er Valenti­no, the Grena­da-born ca­lyp­son­ian whose mu­sic cham­pi­oned black con­scious­ness, equal­i­ty and the strug­gles of or­di­nary peo­ple, died on Tues­day at the age of 85.

Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe is cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing $10,000 a month as the Gov­ern­ment awaits a de­ter­mi­na­tion from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) on his re­mu­ner­a­tion for the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man po­si­tion.

As To­ba­go pre­pares to wel­come an es­ti­mat­ed 60,000 rev­ellers for next week’s Car­ni­val, an ad­di­tion­al 100 po­lice of­fi­cers have been de­ployed from Trinidad to bol­ster se­cu­ri­ty, with sup­port from the De­fence Force and oth­er law en­force­ment agen­cies.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the pro­cure­ment process for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tran­si­tion to an elec­tron­ic pass­port sys­tem has be­gun, but he was un­able to pro­vide key de­tails about the project, in­clud­ing its cost, im­ple­men­ta­tion time­line and the num­ber of com­pa­nies in­volved in the ten­der­ing process.

The with­draw­al of First Cit­i­zens Bank (FCB) from this year’s Di­vali Na­gar has added to the spon­sor­ship chal­lenges fac­ing the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), just days be­fore the an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tions be­gin.