Just over 1,800 work­ers have been em­ployed by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture fol­low­ing the na­tion­al re­cruit­ment dri­ve launched in Oc­to­ber, as the Gov­ern­ment moves to strength­en field op­er­a­tions and ac­cel­er­ate main­te­nance work across the coun­try.

Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) say they’re do­ing their best this Christ­mas to as­sist those who lost their jobs at the hands of the Gov­ern­ment.

With Christ­mas just one day away, some liquor busi­ness­es in South Trinidad are not in good spir­its, as al­co­hol sales have plum­met­ed un­der steep du­ties.

Min­utes af­ter cash­ing a cheque for $380,000 from a bank in Siparia for his em­ploy­er, a work­er was robbed at gun­point on Mon­day.

A Bam­boo man was robbed of $2,000 in cash dur­ing a home in­va­sion on Mon­day by sev­er­al men he be­lieved to be po­lice of­fi­cers.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are be­ing car­ried out in­to an at­tempt to ex­tort a Clax­ton Bay busi­ness­man, whose chil­dren and busi­ness were threat­ened if he re­fused to pay the mon­ey as de­mand­ed.

Two women were ar­rest­ed at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San­ta Rosa, af­ter they were found at­tempt­ing to smug­gle mar­i­jua­na to an in­mate.

Po­lice said Kre­ston Phillips of Dol­ly Street, Bat­too Boule­vard and Union Road, Mara­bel­la, was shot around 8 am along Manohar Street. Of­fi­cers found Phillips ly­ing on the road­way with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds. He was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he died around 8.50 am.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne said re­cent wreck­ing and traf­fic en­force­ment ex­er­cis­es have al­ready im­proved move­ment in the cap­i­tal, as the City Cor­po­ra­tion push­es ahead with a broad­er plan to re­store or­der, clean streets and re­vi­talise pub­lic spaces.

Pan Trin­ba­go has ex­pressed deep dis­ap­point­ment at the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to de­fer the of­fi­cial im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Steel­pan on the na­tion­al Coat of Arms un­til 2031.

Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo is ac­cus­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­ing in a “drunk stu­por” and is promis­ing a “force­ful re­sponse” if Trinidad and To­ba­go al­lows the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary to use its ter­ri­to­ry as a base to at­tack Venezuela.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has de­fend­ed the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­tain the old Coat of Arms dur­ing a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od, say­ing the move is dri­ven by prac­ti­cal­i­ty and cost con­sid­er­a­tions that will save the coun­try mil­lions of dol­lars.