Plunged in­to a gov­ern­ment shut­down, the U.S. is con­fronting a fresh cy­cle of un­cer­tain­ty af­ter Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Con­gress failed to strike an agree­ment to keep gov­ern­ment pro­grams and ser­vices run­ning by Wednes­day’s dead­line.

As this coun­try grap­ples with one of the high­est brain drain rates in the re­gion, the Trin­ba­go Di­as­po­ra Out­reach Net­work (TDON) is tak­ing steps to re­con­nect na­tion­als abroad with the event, Home­com­ing 2025.

Three months af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared the Drag­on gas deal “dead” —and five months af­ter re­vok­ing two Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cences to ex­plore the Drag­on and Cocuina-Man­akin fields in Venezue­lan wa­ters—the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment has re­versed its de­ci­sion.

Fol­low­ing his meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day, US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio’s of­fice re­leased the fol­low­ing state­ment:

The En­er­gy Cham­ber has wel­comed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio sup­ports the ap­proval of the rel­e­vant Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cences to be­gin dis­cus­sions with Venezuela to­ward de­vel­op­ing its cross-bor­der hy­dro­car­bons.

De­spite cell jam­mers and tight­ened se­cu­ri­ty, crim­i­nals are us­ing drones to by­pass T&T’s pris­ons of­fi­cials, smug­gling cig­a­rettes, phones and drugs in­to the sys­tem. This sit­u­a­tion has prompt­ed ex­perts to call for ad­vanced tech­no­log­i­cal de­fences for the coun­try’s pris­ons.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der has is­sued pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders for three more al­leged gang mem­bers.

Po­lice say teacher and fi­nan­cial con­sul­tant Ko­mal Ma­haraj, who was re­port­ed miss­ing for a sec­ond time last Fri­day, was hid­ing out in the Pi­ar­co ho­tel he was found in on Mon­day.

A lack of up­dates on sev­er­al in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to al­leged com­plic­i­ty by se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ac­cused of hu­man traf­fick­ing is list­ed as one of the ma­jor rea­sons why Trinidad and To­ba­go does not ful­ly meet the min­i­mum stan­dards for elim­i­nat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing, ac­cord­ing to the US State De­part­ment’s 2025 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons (TIP) Re­port.

One day af­ter the clo­sure of the Break­fast Shed, cooks who once worked there have sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to fight back, with three ven­dors threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion against the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott). At the same time, politi­cians across the di­vide are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to step in and pre­serve what they de­scribe as a cul­tur­al land­mark.

The 2026 bud­get must de­tail arrange­ments for the set­tle­ment of pub­lic ser­vants’ ne­go­ti­a­tions and ad­dress the out­stand­ing 12 per cent wage in­crease for Port Au­thor­i­ty work­ers, says Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne is re­veal­ing that two city garbage trucks were de­lib­er­ate­ly sab­o­taged, an in­ci­dent that has in­ten­si­fied the city’s long­stand­ing san­i­ta­tion chal­lenges. At a press con­fer­ence at City Hall yes­ter­day, Al­leyne said mo­tor oil had been poured in­to the ra­di­a­tors of the trucks in May, ren­der­ing them non-func­tion­al. The sab­o­tage was doc­u­ment­ed in a June 2025 re­port by the city’s trans­port and cleans­ing de­part­ment and has been re­ferred to the city po­lice for ur­gent in­ves­ti­ga­tion.