The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go says 85 stu­dents re­spond­ed to an email sent on Thurs­day, more than 12 hours be­fore two sched­uled flights from Ja­maica, of­fer­ing dis­count­ed trav­el to T&T as Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa neared land­fall. The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com says there are 268 stu­dents cur­rent­ly reg­is­tered in Ja­maica.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers says he has been in con­stant con­tact with Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador Al­varo Sanchez Cordero as ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela es­ca­late.

Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali said the Guyana De­fence Force (GDF) and the Civ­il De­fence Com­mis­sion (CDC) are ful­ly pre­pared to sup­port Ja­maica as the coun­try braces for Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.

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

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

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.

The Bish­ops of the An­tilles Epis­co­pal Con­fer­ence (AEC) have ex­pressed deep con­cern over the re­cent build-up of naval and mil­i­tary as­sets in the South­ern Caribbean, warn­ing of its po­ten­tial im­pact on the re­gion’s so­cio-eco­nom­ic, po­lit­i­cal, and hu­man­i­tar­i­an sta­bil­i­ty.

An Op­er­a­tion Stead­fast ex­er­cise in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion led to the ar­rest of 29 per­sons and the seizure of a firearm and a quan­ti­ty of cannabis.

The Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Port of Port-of-Spain, and the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­it­ed have an­nounced joint mea­sures to man­age ves­sel traf­fic and car­go op­er­a­tions be­tween Oc­to­ber 22 and Oc­to­ber 30, 2025.

Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa strength­ened in­to a ma­jor Cat­e­go­ry 4 hur­ri­cane, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­ten­si­fy­ing to a Cat­e­go­ry 5 storm Sun­day night, un­leash­ing tor­ren­tial rain and threat­en­ing to cause cat­a­stroph­ic flood­ing in the north­ern Caribbean, in­clud­ing Haiti and Ja­maica, the U.S. Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre said.

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?”

Caribbean Air­lines says it was con­tact­ed on Oc­to­ber 23 by the Trinidad and To­ba­go High Com­mis­sion in Ja­maica and the Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing re­gard­ing pos­si­ble flight arrange­ments for Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als study­ing at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies cam­pus­es in Ja­maica, ahead of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.