A key me­di­a­tor on Tues­day stressed the ur­gency of bro­ker­ing a cease­fire in Gaza af­ter Hamas showed a “pos­i­tive re­sponse” to a pro­pos­al, but Is­rael has yet to weigh in as its mil­i­tary pre­pares an of­fen­sive on some of the ter­ri­to­ry’s most pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says threats against De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge were ex­pect­ed due to the “much need­ed ag­gres­sive polic­ing ac­tion” to root out gang ac­tiv­i­ty over the past month. 

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ques­tion­ing why, de­spite the wealth of in­tel­li­gence on the threat to kill De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, no ar­rests have been made.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai has dis­tanced the par­ty from re­ports that an at­tor­ney “with close ties” to the par­ty is among con­spir­a­tors in a plot to kill De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo yes­ter­day blamed for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert for cre­at­ing a “for­eign ex­change cri­sis” - and Tan­coo said he’s work­ing to en­sure” the ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive use of “T&T’s forex.

For­mer Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Ran­dall Mitchell has joined the na­tion­al de­bate over the can­cel­la­tion of this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade, urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide a clear and trans­par­ent ex­pla­na­tion to cit­i­zens.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is chal­leng­ing the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to stage its own In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade, stress­ing that her Gov­ern­ment has not re­strict­ed the right to free move­ment on Au­gust 31.

Even as the In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade and fire­works show have been can­celled, Pan on Dhe Av­enue will go ahead as planned on Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Port-of-Spain.

Two Las Cuevas men have been con­firmed among five na­tion­als cur­rent­ly de­tained by Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties, af­ter they were al­leged­ly held on their way to col­lect a ship­ment of guns and il­le­gal drugs to bring back to Trinidad.

In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions across the coun­try will look dif­fer­ent­ly this year, as some re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions have opt­ed for mi­nor events to mark the oc­ca­sion of the na­tion’s 63rd an­niver­sary af­ter Gov­ern­ment can­celled the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade.

Gov­ern­ment may soon look at re­turn­ing crim­i­nal mat­ters to the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court, to al­le­vi­ate some of the pres­sure be­ing put on po­lice sta­tions now be­ing used as vir­tu­al courts.

As the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the death of six-year-old Jash­er Fran­cois nears com­ple­tion, con­sul­tant in­tensivist Dr Anand Cha­toor­goon says it is not al­ways pos­si­ble to know for sure how a per­son may re­act when a drug is be­ing ad­min­is­tered.