Ques­tions re­gard­ing whether se­nior na­tion­al foot­ball coach Dwight Yorke would be re­tained fol­low­ing last year’s un­suc­cess­ful World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign were fi­nal­ly an­swered yes­ter­day, when he an­nounced he had made the “dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion” to step down.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ac­cus­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­ing “dan­ger­ous­ly dis­con­nect­ed from re­al­i­ty,” af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter sug­gest­ed that in­ci­dents of class­room vi­o­lence should re­sult in stu­dents be­ing ex­pelled.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge has re­quest­ed in­creased mil­i­tary sup­port from the Unit­ed States to help Trinidad and To­ba­go com­bat drug car­tels op­er­at­ing in the Caribbean.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is off to the Unit­ed States to­day, ahead of the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as sum­mit in Do­ral, Flori­da, to hold high-lev­el talks with US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and se­nior US of­fi­cials.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says the Gov­ern­ment has al­ready as­sist­ed at least three Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als seek­ing to leave parts of the Mid­dle East af­fect­ed by the on­go­ing con­flict in­volv­ing the Unit­ed States, Is­rael and Iran.

Res­i­dents of San­gre Grande are call­ing for more con­sul­ta­tion with the gov­ern­ment on crime-fight­ing strate­gies, say­ing that a state of emer­gency (SoE) alone is not an ef­fec­tive so­lu­tion.

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean said the lat­est state of emer­gency (SoE) has come at the worst time for the is­land.

While the gov­ern­ment has de­clared an­oth­er state of emer­gency (SoE) to curb crime in parts of T&T, suc­cess in the South­ern Di­vi­sion will be mea­sured not on­ly by ar­rests and in­dict­ments but by how peace­ful the com­mu­ni­ty re­mains af­ter the pe­ri­od ends.

Af­ter sev­en weeks with­out pipe-borne wa­ter, frus­trat­ed res­i­dents of Roberts Vil­lage, Table­land, are ap­peal­ing to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath for help.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says stricter dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures may be nec­es­sary to ad­dress ris­ing be­hav­iour­al prob­lems in schools, fol­low­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath’s re­cent dis­clo­sure of an in­crease in in-class­room in­ci­dents.

De­fence at­tor­ney Criston Williams is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to lay both the 2024 and 2025 re­ports of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) in Par­lia­ment, ar­gu­ing that they would pro­vide vi­tal in­sight in­to gang ac­tiv­i­ties in the coun­try.

Health Min­is­ter Lack­ram Bo­doe says the gov­ern­ment has tak­en a ma­jor step to­ward mod­ernising the coun­try’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem with the launch of a na­tion­al drug data­base, while urg­ing phar­ma­cists to re­main vig­i­lant as chal­lenges in the sec­tor per­sist.