A ma­jor show­down is brew­ing in the pub­lic sec­tor, with both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) warn­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed 10 per cent wage set­tle­ment with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion of­fers lit­tle com­fort to oth­er em­ploy­ees in the state sec­tor.

Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein yes­ter­day de­clined to say what penal­ties await peo­ple who set off fire­works with­out a per­mit or out­side the re­strict­ed hours out­lined in leg­is­la­tion ex­pect­ed be­fore Par­lia­ment to­day. He in­stead urged the pub­lic to wait for the de­tails to be re­vealed dur­ing the de­bate, which should com­mence af­ter 1.30 pm when Par­lia­ment con­venes.

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh says he will give a rul­ing, all in one day, on the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mo­tions of priv­i­lege against the Prime Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, as well as on a mo­tion by Gov­ern­ment MP Bar­ry Padarath against PNM’s Colm Im­bert.

The Cou­va Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (CCC) is urg­ing the po­lice to al­low its 2026 fes­tiv­i­ties to run their full course.

Reg­is­tra­tion for sev­er­al ma­jor ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions opened yes­ter­day, with TU­CO ad­vis­ing all na­tion­als and nat­u­ralised cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go to come for­ward.

PDP po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke has con­firmed his sup­port for Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, leader of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions.

A pow­er­ful 7. 6-mag­ni­tude earth­quake struck late Mon­day off north­ern Japan, trig­ger­ing a tsuna­mi of up to 70 cen­time­ters (27 inch­es) in Pa­cif­ic coast com­mu­ni­ties and warn­ings of po­ten­tial­ly high­er surges, the Japan­ese Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Agency said.

The Court of Ap­peal has or­dered CEPEP Con­trac­tor East­man En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed to pay CEPEP’s le­gal costs af­ter the con­clu­sion of an ap­peal con­cern­ing the use of an Al­ter­na­tive Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion clause in the par­ties’ con­tract.

Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy met French, Ger­man and British lead­ers in Lon­don on Mon­day amid what Kyiv’s Eu­ro­pean al­lies de­scribed as a “de­ci­sive time” in the U.S.-led ef­fort to end Rus­sia’s war in Ukraine.

Po­lice and fire of­fi­cers are in­ves­ti­gat­ing a house fire in New Grant in which a 40-year-old man died last evening.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance of Der­rick Tardieu, 70, and his wife, Clari­bel Tardieu, 47, af­ter rel­a­tives re­ceived a ran­som de­mand late Sat­ur­day night. The cou­ple, who live at Blanchette Bay, Monas, were re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter a fam­i­ly friend re­ceived a dis­tress­ing voice note from a for­eign num­ber in which Der­rick said he had been kid­napped and “dey have meh and want 2.5 mil­lion US for meh re­lease.”

The Cou­va Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee is call­ing on po­lice to al­low its 2026 fes­tiv­i­ties to run their full course.