Japan’s par­lia­ment elect­ed ul­tra­con­ser­v­a­tive Sanae Takaichi as the coun­try’s first fe­male prime min­is­ter Tues­day, a day af­ter her strug­gling par­ty struck a coali­tion deal with a new part­ner ex­pect­ed to pull her gov­ern­ing bloc fur­ther to the right.

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (MoRDLG) re­port­ed min­i­mal im­pact from the trop­i­cal wave that passed over Trinidad and To­ba­go on Sun­day. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has since dis­con­tin­ued the Ad­verse Weath­er Alert as weath­er con­di­tions have im­proved across most ar­eas.

The Prime Min­is­ter has bro­ken her si­lence on the high alert adopt­ed by law en­force­ment of­fi­cials in the coun­try af­ter a se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­so­ry from the US Em­bassy to its cit­i­zens, as­sur­ing the pop­u­la­tion that she and her Gov­ern­ment are “work­ing qui­et­ly and de­ci­sive­ly to keep you safe.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dis­missed con­cerns that Trinidad and To­ba­go could lose re­gion­al back­ing for its bid to sit on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, say­ing she does not care if oth­er coun­tries with­draw their sup­port.

The moth­er of Chad “Char­po” Joseph, one of two lo­cal men killed in a US airstrike sup­pos­ed­ly tar­get­ing nar­co-traf­fick­ers, says she is putting the Gov­ern­ment in God’s hands.

Re­gion­al po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Pe­ter Wick­ham has warned that the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion may be ven­tur­ing in­to dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry, ap­pear­ing to en­dorse ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings as part of its crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy.

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple have ap­plied to the Gov­ern­ment’s new­ly launched on­line em­ploy­ment plat­form, in what Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said is a clear sign that cit­i­zens are ready to work.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has con­firmed that he has re­ceived a pre­lim­i­nary re­port from the com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to as­sess the fea­si­bil­i­ty of restart­ing the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

A prison of­fi­cer de­tained un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency had been re­ceiv­ing CEPEP con­tracts from a com­pa­ny formed in his name. A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion can con­firm that for­mer Ras­ta City gang leader Cedric “Burkie” Burke and his fam­i­ly re­ceived at least $1 mil­lion from two com­pa­nies that were award­ed CEPEP con­tracts.

Just over a year ago, 11-year-old Sky­lar Wait­he was a live­ly, en­er­getic stu­dent with a pas­sion for singing. Then, al­most overnight, Sky­lar’s life changed. Ac­cord­ing to her moth­er, Leigh Kirk, it be­gan last Sep­tem­ber when Sky­lar start­ed hav­ing fre­quent headaches and vom­it­ing.

Forty peo­ple, in­clud­ing four chil­dren, were res­cued by fire of­fi­cers on Sun­day night af­ter they were trapped af­ter a riv­er lev­el rose pre­vent­ing them from leav­ing a hik­ing trail in Blan­chisseuse.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the deaths of two ba­bies who died two days apart at their homes in Point Fortin and Guapo.