The Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU) has called for the sus­pen­sion of crane trans­fers of per­son­nel wher­ev­er the safe­ty of such op­er­a­tions has not been in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied, fol­low­ing a crane col­lapse at Peren­co’s Samaan Al­pha drilling plat­form which left a work­er in­jured on Wednes­day.

Hours af­ter a fire razed a class­room block, dis­plac­ing pupils of Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian School, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said an ur­gent meet­ing had been con­vened to dis­cuss the way for­ward.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of try­ing to claim cred­it for the new East Ter­mi­nal at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, de­spite what he de­scribed as their pre­vi­ous at­tempts to ob­struct the project.

Mo­torists head­ing to Port-of-Spain on Fri­day are be­ing ad­vised of traf­fic re­stric­tions, park­ing pro­hi­bi­tions and changes to taxi-stand ac­cess to fa­cil­i­tate the fu­ner­al ser­vice of ca­lyp­so leg­end Slinger "Mighty Spar­row" Fran­cis­co.

There are re­newed calls for stronger off­shore safe­ty mea­sures af­ter a work­er sur­vived a crane-re­lat­ed in­ci­dent at Peren­co’s Samaan Al­pha drilling plat­form off Trinidad’s south-east coast on Wednes­day.

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is fac­ing a $287 mil­lion re­duc­tion in its bud­get­ed ex­pen­di­ture for fis­cal 2027, in­clud­ing a $233 mil­lion cut in per­son­nel fund­ing, but Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath is as­sur­ing em­ploy­ees that there are no plans to re­duce the au­thor­i­ty’s es­tab­lished work­force.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty As­so­ci­a­tion (TP­SA) is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to ur­gent­ly pay up an es­ti­mat­ed $75 mil­lion in out­stand­ing pay­ments owed to 13 con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, warn­ing that con­tin­ued non-pay­ment could re­sult in se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers re­fus­ing to re­port for du­ty.

A star-stud­ded cast of lo­cal artistes, in­clud­ing Machel Mon­tano, De­stra Gar­cia, Su­perblue, Crazy and Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, will take the stage to­day to pay trib­ute to ca­lyp­so leg­end Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co.

A glimpse of Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co in his jock­ey shorts, qui­et­ly read­ing the Bible, was among the mem­o­ries Dr Hol­lis “Chalk­dust” Liv­er­pool shared as he paid trib­ute to his long­time friend and fel­low ca­lyp­son­ian dur­ing a spe­cial event at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day.

A 19-year-old work­er is call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a work­place ac­ci­dent near the Nu Iron plant at Point Lisas that re­sult­ed in the am­pu­ta­tion of part of his left lit­tle fin­ger.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has wel­comed the sub­stan­tial in­crease in fund­ing al­lo­cat­ed for fis­cal 2027 and says it is pre­pared to be­gin im­ple­ment­ing key projects as soon as the funds be­come avail­able.

An in­fra­struc­tur­al prob­lem has caused the tem­po­rary clo­sure of the re­cent­ly opened Good­wood Mi­cro Po­lice Post.