The pas­sage of the Fi­nance Bill 2025 through Par­lia­ment late Fri­day has sparked de­bate among the na­tion’s lead­ing econ­o­mists, as they weigh the gov­ern­ment’s need to in­crease rev­enue against the po­ten­tial fi­nan­cial bur­den on the av­er­age cit­i­zen.

What was once a joy­ful cor­ner of child­hood—the bright­ly coloured play zone at Irv­ing Park in San Fer­nan­do—has be­come a place of fear.

Two for­mer pres­i­dents of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) are open­ly crit­i­cis­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s ar­rears ne­go­ti­a­tion process, ar­gu­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not been ful­ly trans­par­ent with the pub­lic.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says ne­go­ti­a­tions are on­go­ing with Cana­di­an fer­tilis­er pro­duc­er Nu­trien Ltd., and there is op­ti­mism that urea pro­duc­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go could re­sume by the end of the year.

The Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025—com­mon­ly re­ferred to as “stand your ground” leg­is­la­tion—was passed in the Sen­ate on Fri­day night with­out amend­ments.

School fights are in­creas­ing­ly tak­ing place af­ter school hours, rather than on cam­pus, fol­low­ing the de­ploy­ment of po­lice of­fi­cers to schools, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin said.

With the fes­tive shop­ping sea­son ap­proach­ing, Ch­agua­nas au­thor­i­ties are rolling out a plan to tack­le crime, con­ges­tion and pave­ment ob­struc­tion.

A home­less man has tak­en over the chil­dren’s play zone at Irv­ing Park in San Fer­nan­do, leav­ing fam­i­lies too fright­ened to use the space.

A tar­get­ed an­ti-crime op­er­a­tion in the South­ern Di­vi­sion on Fri­day led to the ar­rest of three sus­pects as po­lice ramped up ef­forts to tack­le vi­o­lent and drug-re­lat­ed of­fences.

A 20-year-old woman was robbed and forced out of a car af­ter she board­ed a ve­hi­cle she be­lieved was le­git­i­mate trans­porta­tion ear­ly Fri­day morn­ing.

A 31-year-old man was killed and an­oth­er man wound­ed af­ter a gun­man opened fire out­side King Style Bar in San Juan on Fri­day night.

There will be a big­ger elec­torate and changes in two seats for To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly polls.