The Sen­ate has passed leg­is­la­tion rais­ing the le­gal age for drink­ing al­co­hol and smok­ing to­bac­co in Trinidad and To­ba­go to 21, and for gam­bling and cannabis use to 25, but the Gov­ern­ment failed to at­tract a sin­gle “yes” vote from ei­ther the Op­po­si­tion or In­de­pen­dent bench­es.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors prob­ing the al­leged rob­bery of over $127,000 from a fe­male po­lice con­sta­ble at­tached to the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion have sought ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) re­gard­ing charges to be laid against her and four ac­com­plices, in­clud­ing a close male rel­a­tive.

The an­nounce­ment by fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien Ltd on Mon­day that it would be clos­ing its doors in Trinidad caught hun­dreds of em­ploy­ees by sur­prise, leav­ing them stunned, scared and more ner­vous about the fu­ture.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der says he is not par­tic­u­lar­ly both­ered by the shut­down of Nu­trien’s ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions at Point Lisas, ar­gu­ing that he still be­lieves the coun­try is in a “good place” in terms of its en­er­gy sec­tor. He claims that three en­ti­ties have al­ready reached out, show­ing in­ter­est in ac­quir­ing the busi­ness.

For­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young says Nu­trien’s de­ci­sion to close its Trinidad op­er­a­tions was un­nec­es­sary, ar­gu­ing that an arrange­ment could have been reached to keep the Point Lisas plant op­er­at­ing while al­low­ing both Nu­trien and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) to re­main prof­itable.

The Gov­ern­ment can now legal­ly be­gin Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions across Trinidad and To­ba­go, af­ter Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo pro­claimed Oc­to­ber 6 as the date on which all sec­tions of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, 2026, came in­to op­er­a­tion.

Just as Nu­trien moves to shut down its Point Lisas op­er­a­tions, leav­ing al­most 350 work­ers fac­ing re­trench­ment, the Gov­ern­ment says it is still try­ing to find a fu­ture for the com­plex.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Michael Si­mon Vic­tor de la Bastide has ques­tioned the log­ic of telling 18-year-olds they are ma­ture enough to vote, mar­ry, dri­ve, join the Po­lice Ser­vice and make oth­er ma­jor life de­ci­sions, but not ma­ture enough to de­cide whether to drink al­co­hol.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Con­rad Enill is warn­ing that more com­pa­nies could leave Trinidad and To­ba­go if the coun­try can­not guar­an­tee suf­fi­cient nat­ur­al gas sup­plies, fol­low­ing Nu­trien’s de­ci­sion to per­ma­nent­ly shut its ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions at Point Lisas.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made an­oth­er ad­just­ment to min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, trans­fer­ring four ma­jor skills and vo­ca­tion­al train­ing agen­cies from Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Min­is­ter Prakash Per­sad to Sport and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter Phillip Watts.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is call­ing on House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh to re­scind his de­ci­sion to block an Op­po­si­tion mo­tion on the coun­try’s wa­ter sup­ply.

Res­i­dents still strug­gling to re­build their lives af­ter be­ing dis­placed by the new To­ba­go air­port will be get­ting ad­di­tion­al help. Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine made the an­nounce­ment on Mon­day as he not­ed many af­fect­ed res­i­dents were not giv­en suf­fi­cient com­pen­sa­tion.