Just hours be­fore the ar­rival of a Unit­ed States war­ship in Trinidad amid ris­ing ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the US, Se­nior Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Co­or­di­na­tor at the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Jer­ry David, posed a sober­ing ques­tion to Red Cross vol­un­teers: “Are you ready to help in times of con­flict?”

The John E Sab­ga Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion is sound­ing the alarm over what it de­scribes as a wor­ry­ing in­crease in pan­cre­at­ic can­cer in Trinidad and To­ba­go, even among young women, as it re­news calls for stronger ad­vo­ca­cy, ear­ly de­tec­tion, and ro­bust gov­ern­ment-led da­ta col­lec­tion.

Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh will this morn­ing present Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 Bud­get in the Sen­ate as he pi­lots the de­bate of the pack­age there.

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has re­ject­ed the 2026 Bud­get, de­scrib­ing it as a “be­tray­al of the peo­ple’s trust” and a con­tin­u­a­tion of what it called the Gov­ern­ment’s “cam­paign of de­cep­tion”.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says To­ba­go is see­ing a ma­jor drop in mur­ders this year com­pared with the same pe­ri­od last year, link­ing the de­cline to stronger po­lice op­er­a­tions and in­creased vis­i­bil­i­ty on the is­land.

Warao chil­dren in Trinidad’s south­west­ern penin­su­la are liv­ing in squalor, run­ning bare­foot along the beach, their tiny feet cov­ered in blis­ters and sores.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and at­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day said the ap­point­ment of Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh was done in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion, and there was no rea­son for him to re­sign.

De­spite crit­i­cisms of the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve by the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union (BIG­WU), more than 500 peo­ple con­tin­ued to flow in­to the MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy in Pe­nal over the week­end in search of em­ploy­ment.

Hum­ming­bird Gold Medal re­cip­i­ent Mun­gal Patasar has re­ceived an hon­orary doc­tor­ate from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Fac­ul­ties of Hu­man­i­ties, Ed­u­ca­tion, and Sport.

A Wood­land man was robbed of $2,500 in cash when he went to pur­chase two cat­tle that had been ad­ver­tised for sale in an on­line group called Bulls and Cows of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

A Port-of-Spain man was shot in the left knee dur­ing a botched trans­ac­tion in La Hor­quet­ta, in­volv­ing the sale of gold which had been or­gan­ised via an on­line ad­ver­tise­ment.

A 14-year-old boy re­mained in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing shot by his cousin as the two were play­ing with a gun they found.