Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas yes­ter­day put the union’s protest ac­tion at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) on hold, af­ter Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath com­mit­ted Gov­ern­ment to set­tling the out­stand­ing pro­pos­als for some 2,800 month­ly-paid work­ers. How­ev­er, she is warn­ing that the union will re­sume in­dus­tri­al ac­tion if Gov­ern­ment fails to de­liv­er.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is re­ject­ing calls by the Steel Work­ers’ Union of T&T (SWUTT) for a chance at in­put in the re­open­ing of the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant in Point Lisas by Ibis Steel Com­pa­ny, say­ing the US-backed com­pa­ny is free to hire any cit­i­zen it con­sid­ers suit­able.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pri­ori­tise and set­tle out­stand­ing wage dis­putes with trade unions, warn­ing that pro­longed ne­go­ti­a­tions and in­dus­tri­al un­rest could car­ry eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal risks.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­veal how many cit­i­zens her Gov­ern­ment has re­port­ed to Unit­ed States au­thor­i­ties, with rec­om­men­da­tions that their US visas be re­voked.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she hopes the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) can “sort them­selves out soon” amid con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the re­gion­al court’s lead­er­ship, but has de­clined to say whether her Gov­ern­ment re­mains con­fi­dent that the court can fair­ly de­ter­mine the dis­pute over the reap­point­ment of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

The In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) is de­mand­ing an­swers from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) about why its pro­posed is­land­wide con­ven­tion on au­ton­o­my — sched­uled for Au­gust 10 — nev­er took place.

For five weeks, chil­dren at Kinder­Care Learn­ing Cen­tre in Welling­ton Gar­dens, Debe, trad­ed their usu­al sum­mer rou­tine for an en­tre­pre­neur­ial ad­ven­ture.

The sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers who were ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the dis­ap­pear­ance of three firearms and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion from the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion (CPS) on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, on Au­gust 10, have all been re­leased.

A San­gre Grande man has been grant­ed $100,000 bail af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore the South High Court on charges linked to a miss­ing po­lice firearm from the Ma­yaro po­lice sta­tion.

The con­tro­ver­sial po­lice post at the Ed­die Hart Recre­ation Ground in Tacarigua drew a high-lev­el se­cu­ri­ty vis­it yes­ter­day, even as the dis­pute over its con­struc­tion at the recre­ation grounds re­mains un­re­solved.

Res­i­dents of Gol­con­da and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties are rais­ing con­cerns about noise, heat and the po­ten­tial im­pact on schools from the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a da­ta cen­tre at the Debe Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone along the M2 Ring Road, Gol­con­da.

Queen’s Hall has re­ject­ed claims that it with­drew ap­proval for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to hold its an­nu­al con­ven­tion and car­ni­val event at the venue, say­ing nei­ther date was ever for­mal­ly ap­proved.