A male pas­sen­ger ar­riv­ing at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port from New York has been charged af­ter Cus­toms of­fi­cers al­leged­ly found a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion in his pos­ses­sion.

A 25-year-old St Anns welder is the coun­try’s lat­est mur­der vic­tim as he was gunned down by men wear­ing po­lice caps and tac­ti­cal gear on Thurs­day af­ter­noon.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge has con­firmed that this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade will pro­ceed as planned de­spite a se­ries of bomb threats that placed se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies across Trinidad and To­ba­go on high alert on Wednes­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is urg­ing cit­i­zens to re­main calm and car­ry on with their dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties, fol­low­ing a wave of bomb threats re­port­ed across Trinidad and To­ba­go on Wednes­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­firmed that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns were be­hind Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s re­cent emer­gency leave but has de­clined to dis­close what those con­cerns were, even as ques­tions con­tin­ue over his sud­den de­par­ture from the coun­try dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

Dozens of cur­rent and for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, in­clud­ing Cab­i­net min­is­ters, Op­po­si­tion MPs and in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, have been named by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for fail­ing to file de­c­la­ra­tions of their in­come, as­sets, li­a­bil­i­ties and reg­is­tra­ble in­ter­ests.

Pub­lic ex­changes of al­le­ga­tions and counter-al­le­ga­tions will not re­solve the is­sues fac­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, Op­po­si­tion chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has warned.

De­spite Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les' warn­ing that pub­lic ex­changes of al­le­ga­tions and counter-al­le­ga­tions would not re­solve the is­sues fac­ing the par­ty's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive last night is­sued a sharply word­ed state­ment crit­i­cis­ing MP Bri­an Man­ning, in­clud­ing on his per­for­mance as the area's rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has se­cured an ear­ly ship­ment of 8,000 pass­port book­lets, pro­vid­ing some re­lief to what sources at the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion have de­scribed as a dan­ger­ous­ly de­plet­ed na­tion­al stock.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs is re­ject­ing sug­ges­tions that the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed 30 new po­lice posts to be joint­ly run by po­lice and army per­son­nel are sim­ply Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) un­der an­oth­er name.

Three home in­va­sions with­in a mat­ter of hours on Wednes­day morn­ing have pushed the num­ber of such in­ci­dents re­port­ed this year to 210, as ban­dits tar­get­ed homes in Bar­rack­pore, To­ba­go and Diego Mar­tin, po­lice said.

A To­ba­go busi­ness­man was awak­ened by a gun butt to his head on Wednes­day morn­ing as five ban­dits stormed his home on Bagatelle No 1, Calder Hall, steal­ing cash, bank cards and elec­tron­ics be­fore mak­ing their es­cape.