One of this coun­try’s old­est (since 1968) and top medi­um steel­bands, Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra, is on a mis­sion to achieve three key goals be­fore Panora­ma 2026, the most ur­gent be­ing se­cur­ing fund­ing to com­pete in the com­pe­ti­tion. The or­ches­tra’s oth­er goals in­clude invit­ing the com­mu­ni­ty back in­to the pa­n­yard and re­cruit­ing new play­ers.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says the re­cent high-lev­el vis­it by US Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen­er­al Dan Caine, is a pos­i­tive move for T&T. Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism by the Op­po­si­tion over the lack of trans­paren­cy and tim­ing of his vis­it, amidst es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions with Venezuela, Mooni­lal said he did not want to speak “too much” on that mat­ter, as the specifics lay with the Prime Min­is­ter and the min­is­ters with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for law en­force­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will at­tend to­day’s fu­ner­al ser­vice for mur­dered Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) coun­cil­lor Romona Vic­tor at Ir­win Park Sport­ing Com­plex in Siparia. 

With the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion re­port­ing a rise in the glob­al dis­abil­i­ty pop­u­la­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Ali­cia Lalite-Eti­enne is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to en­act long-await­ed leg­is­la­tion that gives re­al pro­tec­tion and eq­ui­ty to peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties.

Caribbean Air­lines has rolled out a free bag­gage track­ing sys­tem across its net­work fol­low­ing a phased im­ple­men­ta­tion that be­gan in No­vem­ber 2024.

The Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices con­tin­ued its na­tion­al dis­as­ter re­lief pro­gramme on Mon­day with a dis­tri­b­u­tion ex­er­cise for af­fect­ed fam­i­lies in the San­gre Grande re­gion.

Of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit con­duct­ed an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion in the North­east­ern Di­vi­sion be­tween 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Wednes­day. The ex­er­cise was su­per­vised by Snr Supt Ed­wards, Supt Eti­enne and ASP Lynch, with sup­port from the In­ter-Agency Task Force.

Every day, hun­dreds of thou­sands of trav­ellers step off planes on­ly to dis­cov­er at the bag­gage carousel their lug­gage nev­er made it. In fact, ac­cord­ing to a 2025 SI­TA Bag­gage IT In­sights Re­port, 33.4 mil­lion bags were mis­han­dled in 2024. That’s 33.4 mil­lion bags ei­ther de­layed, dam­aged, or lost/stolen. And with an­oth­er peak trav­el sea­son up­on us, lo­cal car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) is hop­ing to pro­vide some peace of mind to pas­sen­gers with the in­tro­duc­tion of its free bag­gage no­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem across its net­work. Sim­ply put, pas­sen­gers re­ceive an au­to­mat­ic email when their bag­gage is han­dled at four key points: at check-in, when it’s loaded on­to the air­craft, when it’s of­floaded from the air­craft, and when it’s on the bag­gage carousel. The sys­tem will even tell the pas­sen­ger which bag­gage carousel their lug­gage can be col­lect­ed from.

Sol­diers in Guinea-Bis­sau ap­peared on state tele­vi­sion Wednes­day say­ing they have seized pow­er in the coun­try, fol­low­ing re­ports of gun­shots near the pres­i­den­tial palace, three days af­ter na­tion­al elec­tions. The pres­i­dent told French me­dia he had been de­posed and ar­rest­ed.

The Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go said all de­ci­sions on Amer­i­can visas rest sole­ly with the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment and not with any for­eign au­thor­i­ty.

The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion and the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion have named Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Dr Ra­jeev Na­gas­sar as the first re­cip­i­ent of the Caribbean An­timi­cro­bial Re­sis­tance Lead­er­ship Award. The award was cre­at­ed in mem­o­ry of Ja­maican vet­eri­nar­i­an and pub­lic health ad­vo­cate Dr Suzan McLen­non-Miguel.

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has ini­ti­at­ed a probe in­to an in­ci­dent re­port­ed by Unit­ed States vis­i­tor Shon­tice McKen­zie, who said she faced an un­pleas­ant ex­change with an Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer up­on ar­rival at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.