Cari­com Chair Dr Ter­rance Drew will make an of­fi­cial vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go this week to meet with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and mem­bers of her team, against the back­drop of re­cent ten­sion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and some oth­er Cari­com mem­ber states.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) has ex­pressed con­cern over Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s de­ci­sion not to sus­pend of­fi­cers in­volved in the fa­tal shoot­ing of Joshua Sama­roo, a Val­sayn res­i­dent, in St Au­gus­tine. The in­ci­dent al­so left an­oth­er per­son maimed fol­low­ing a po­lice chase.

The MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny car­go fer­ry is ex­pect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost trade and busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture has said.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has wel­comed the de­feat of the Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment 2026 Bill in the Sen­ate, de­scrib­ing the out­come as a sign that democ­ra­cy re­mains in­tact in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has urged law­mak­ers not to aban­don the pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs), warn­ing that the de­ci­sion risks giv­ing crim­i­nals “the up­per hand” and un­der­min­ing pub­lic safe­ty.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has wel­comed the vote by in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors that de­feat­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to es­tab­lish Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs), say­ing the out­come demon­strat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards are work­ing as in­tend­ed.

The law to give sweep­ing au­thor­i­ty to the Prime Min­is­ter and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) to des­ig­nate com­mu­ni­ties as se­cu­ri­ty zones and de­ploy ex­pand­ed po­lice and mil­i­tary pow­ers has been de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is not sur­prised the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill was de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate, adding drug mafias and gang mem­bers are now hap­py.

Tem­po­rary Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor San­jiv Bood­hu has warned that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar should not be grant­ed sole au­thor­i­ty to de­clare Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs), cit­ing her past state­ments on crime and what he de­scribed as a pat­tern of con­fronta­tion­al gov­er­nance.

Hun­dreds of par­ents were forced to rush to schools yes­ter­day to col­lect their chil­dren, fol­low­ing a na­tion­wide wave of teacher ab­sen­teeism, be­lieved to be a “silent protest” over un­paid salary in­creas­es promised for this month.

Af­ter 32 years, News­day has closed its doors to the pub­lic, pub­lish­ing its fi­nal on­line edi­tion yes­ter­day.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) says it is in full sup­port of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s de­ci­sion not to sus­pend the of­fi­cers who were in­volved in the fa­tal shoot­ing of Val­sayn res­i­dent Joshua Sama­roo.