The po­lit­i­cal fall­out over Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to skip the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (ES­CTT) Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage on Sat­ur­day has in­ten­si­fied, with the Op­po­si­tion ac­cus­ing her of dis­re­spect­ing one of the coun­try’s most sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al ob­ser­vances.

A 23-year-old po­lice of­fi­cer is due to ap­pear be­fore the court on Mon­day charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice af­ter a po­lice-is­sued firearm, mag­a­zine and am­mu­ni­tion were re­port­ed miss­ing from the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion.

For­mer cul­ture min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell has crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she sug­gest­ed the Op­po­si­tion should in­vite Star Sab­ga and Jen­na Hadeed to per­form at fu­ture Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has launched a scathing cri­tique against her de­trac­tors, claim­ing they are “con­sumed with an ir­ra­tional ha­tred that has dri­ven them de­ranged” as she fierce­ly re­pu­di­at­ed the back­lash sur­round­ing her ab­sence from yes­ter­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day ob­ser­vances in the cap­i­tal city.

Yes­ter­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions end­ed in boos and an on-stage con­fronta­tion in­volv­ing Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin, over­shad­ow­ing ear­li­er calls for repa­ra­tions, a di­rect air link to Ghana, the re­moval of Colum­bus’ ship from the na­tion­al Coat of Arms at the Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex and the long-await­ed re­nam­ing of Ox­ford Street in ho­n­our of civ­il rights icon Kwame Ture.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee wants cit­i­zens to stand firm in the face of at­tempts by peo­ple to cre­ate a racial di­vide in the coun­try, in­sist­ing, “We are one peo­ple.”

It’s the lat­est da­ta on the coun­try’s labour force sur­vey avail­able on the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) web­site, which is re­spon­si­ble for col­lect­ing, analysing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing of­fi­cial sta­tis­tics.

De­spite be­ing pub­licly thanked by a se­nior Unit­ed States sen­a­tor for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s as­sis­tance in the cap­ture of for­mer Venezue­lan pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is main­tain­ing that this coun­try’s mil­i­tary played no role in the op­er­a­tion that led to his ar­rest.

A let­ter from First Cit­i­zens Bank (FCB) has raised ques­tions about the in­tro­duc­tion of two ad­di­tion­al en­ti­ties in­to the Gov­ern­ment’s U-Turn on­line pay­ment sys­tem just a day be­fore its planned launch, warn­ing that the re­vised arrange­ment could af­fect the cost of trans­ac­tions to cit­i­zens de­spite the bank al­ready hav­ing an e-com­merce agree­ment with the Min­istry of Trans­port.

A his­toric South Oropouche land­mark was re­duced to ash­es yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter fire de­stroyed the aban­doned post of­fice and for­mer war­den’s of­fice, with flames spread­ing to the roof of a neigh­bour­ing home where 15 peo­ple, in­clud­ing Venezue­lan mi­grants, live.

PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the par­ty will let the courts de­cide its bat­tle over a Pre­lim­i­nary Un­ex­plained Wealth Or­der linked to the fi­nanc­ing of Bal­isi­er House, as Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings vowed the op­po­si­tion would fight the case “with all its might.”

An es­caped mur­der ac­cused was shot dead by po­lice dur­ing an an­ti-crime op­er­a­tion in Vista­bel­la on Fri­day night.