Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says in­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­sid­er­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that both in­sid­ers and out­siders were in­volved in a sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack at a Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) com­pound in Laven­tille on Sat­ur­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion of spend­ing $114 mil­lion on en­ter­tain­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter’s house­hold ex­pens­es and con­fer­ences over ten years, vow­ing that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) will no longer be used as a “slush fund for the lav­ish lifestyles of those who treat­ed them­selves as em­per­ors.”

That was the re­minder from Hand in Hand Foun­da­tion vice-pres­i­dent Ger­ard Coutain, who urged mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices to pri­ori­tise their health and en­sure they get reg­u­lar med­ical check­ups.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she has no prob­lem con­tin­u­ing to com­mute from South Trinidad to Port-of-Spain fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion against un­der­tak­ing what is be­ing de­scribed as cost­ly re­pairs to make the PM’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence suit­able for her oc­cu­pa­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has vowed to car­ry out her own in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the lev­el of de­te­ri­o­ra­tion that has ren­dered the of­fi­cial res­i­dence of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) at the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James un­in­hab­it­able.

Hilton has con­firmed that it con­tin­ues to man­age the State-owned Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre un­der a new­ly signed agree­ment, say­ing it is “busi­ness as usu­al” at the ho­tel.

Two fam­i­lies are count­ing their bless­ings af­ter the floor sep­a­rat­ing their up­per- and low­er-lev­el apart­ments in Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) Build­ing Three on Ja­madar Street, San Fer­nan­do, col­lapsed in the ear­ly hours of yes­ter­day. The col­lapse, which oc­curred around 1 am, sent the bed­room floor­ing, along with a bed and oth­er fur­ni­ture, crash­ing in­to the down­stairs apart­ment. No in­juries were re­port­ed.

One month be­fore it was con­firmed that the T&T Prison Ser­vice (TTPrS) had paid over close to $1 bil­lion in over­time over the past ten years—an in­ter­nal com­mu­nique de­tail­ing pay­ment dis­crep­an­cies point­ing to an al­leged over­time scan­dal sur­faced and has led to a re­view of the cur­rent over­time pol­i­cy.

For more than 800 work­ers re­trenched be­tween Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber, the loss of a job has brought far more than fi­nan­cial un­cer­tain­ty. For some, it has trig­gered de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety at­tacks and se­ri­ous health com­pli­ca­tions, while oth­ers are seek­ing coun­selling to cope with the emo­tion­al toll of sud­den­ly los­ing their liveli­hoods.

For the first time, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 2027 Na­tion­al Pop­u­la­tion and Hous­ing Cen­sus will col­lect da­ta on mi­grants, street dwellers and crime, as the coun­try pre­pares for a na­tion­wide ex­er­cise backed by a $50 mil­lion in­vest­ment and ex­pect­ed to cre­ate 3,500 tem­po­rary jobs.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the Gov­ern­ment has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to di­rect­ly re­spond to claims that this coun­try is in a re­ces­sion, not­ing that she was not pleased with the lack of clear mes­sag­ing on the is­sue.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to the mur­der of an Ari­ma woman out­side her home yes­ter­day morn­ing.