The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment has re­ject­ed claims by Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga that the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to de­vel­op a na­tion­al pol­i­cy on gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties is a “po­lit­i­cal gim­mick.”

The Min­istry of Hous­ing on Fri­day host­ed a Home Im­prove­ment Grant (HIG) cheque dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny where cheques were dis­trib­uted to 38 pro­gramme ben­e­fi­cia­ries.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly one week be­fore the new school term, the To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is rais­ing con­cerns about school readi­ness, ac­cus­ing the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion of fail­ing to pro­vide clear up­dates on its 2025 re­pair pro­gramme.

The lead­ers of the two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties on Thurs­day met for their first head-to-head clash in the fi­nal of three na­tion­al de­bates.

Cari­com Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Dr. Car­la Bar­nett has ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Trinidad and To­ba­go on the oc­ca­sion of its 63rd an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says he is hop­ing to re­solve the is­sue of tax­es in the Unit­ed States that forced the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Cor­po­ra­tion (TTPost) to tem­porar­i­ly stop all ex­ports to the US that are not pack­ages.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter says she has been over­whelmed by the pub­lic’s out­pour­ing of con­cern and sup­port fol­low­ing al­leged death threats against her.

A mere two days af­ter call­ing T&T’s Gov­ern­ment “shame­ful” af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised to al­low Unit­ed States mil­i­tary to use T&T as a base if Venezuela in­vades Guyana, Venezuela’s Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo has hit out at T&T again.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les con­tin­ues to de­mand clar­i­ty from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s arrange­ments with the Unit­ed States, say­ing cit­i­zens de­serve to know the full ex­tent of any se­cu­ri­ty or mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion.

While he is un­able to say for cer­tain whether the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) will be ex­tend­ed, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der says more long-term re­sults are ex­pect­ed through con­tin­ued law en­force­ment ac­tiv­i­ties.

Al­most a year af­ter tak­ing com­mand of the To­ba­go po­lice di­vi­sion, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Earl Elie says the is­land has record­ed one of its sharpest drops in mur­ders and vi­o­lent crime in years.

Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing clos­er to in­tro­duc­ing a pol­i­cy that will al­low com­mu­ni­ties to ap­ply for ‘gat­ed’ sta­tus as a mea­sure to pro­tect them­selves from crime.