In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors are sharply di­vid­ed over the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to im­pose a sec­ond State of Emer­gency (SoE) just 10 months in­to of­fice, deep­en­ing de­bate over crime pol­i­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­its.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is again un­der a State of Emer­gency, with the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026, Le­gal No­tice No. 40 of 2026, now in force.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath says he was not sur­prised by the move by Gov­ern­ment to in­sti­tute an­oth­er State of Emer­gency, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the wake of the re­cent mass shoot­ing in Laven­tille that left three peo­ple dead. It is the sec­ond SoE to be called since the Gov­ern­ment came in­to of­fice in May 2025. It was an­nounced yes­ter­day morn­ing by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

There have been mixed re­ac­tions from past and present politi­cians to the sec­ond State of Emer­gency im­ple­ment­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment in the 11 months it has been in of­fice.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion, Idi Stu­art, has con­firmed that the union will pro­ceed with the planned protest de­spite the re­cent­ly de­clared State of Emer­gency.

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) is cau­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment against us­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE) to re­strict cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to peace­ful protest.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has as­sured the pub­lic that the is­land re­mains safe amid the na­tion­al state of emer­gency (SoE) de­clared by the Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day.

Six­ty-year-old Bachan Sam­lal — who was par­tial­ly paral­ysed by a stroke — was un­able to es­cape as flames tore through his home at Sand Hill Trace, Bar­rack­pore, on Sun­day.

The Privy Coun­cil has cleared the way for nine men for­mer­ly ac­cused of the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man to re­ceive over $20 mil­lion for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.

In a rare di­ver­gence with­in the Gov­ern­ment’s ranks, a sit­ting sen­a­tor has pub­licly dis­tanced him­self from the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion on the es­ca­lat­ing con­flict in the Mid­dle East.

While a dis­sat­is­fied Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) re­turned to the Min­istry of Fi­nance yes­ter­day to press for pay­ment of out­stand­ing salary in­creas­es and back pay, its pres­i­dent, Crys­tal Ashe, said the union will not en­cour­age mem­bers to take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

A High Court Judge has raised con­cerns over a Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) pol­i­cy of pro­mot­ing of­fi­cers while they are sus­pend­ed for be­ing ac­cused of com­mit­ting crim­i­nal of­fences.