An overnight fire raced through a dor­mi­to­ry in Guyana, killing at least 19 stu­dents who were trapped and in­jur­ing sev­er­al oth­ers at a gov­ern­ment board­ing school as au­thor­i­ties probe whether it was in­ten­tion­al­ly set. All but one of the vic­tims were In­dige­nous girls, of­fi­cials said Mon­day.

For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung, busi­ness­man Steve Fer­gu­son and Unit­ed States busi­ness­man Raul Gui­ter­rez Jr have sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to ap­peal the Gov­ern­ment’s US$131.5 mil­lion (ap­prox. TT$900 mil­lion) judg­ment against them, over al­leged fraud re­lat­ed to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress at­tor­neys are as­sist­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in draft­ing a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to call Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions now—and ex­plain how coun­cil­lors’ po­si­tions stand fol­low­ing the re­cent Privy Coun­cil judg­ment.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds has told re­gion­al Po­lice Com­mis­sion­ers they must im­prove on crime-fight­ing tech­niques and look to new ways to bat­tle the scourge of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty across the Caribbean now.