For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ac­cused the gov­ern­ment of us­ing dis­trac­tions to di­vert at­ten­tion from wors­en­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, af­ter fig­ures from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) showed rough­ly 6,000 jobs were lost in the first quar­ter of 2026.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of us­ing a re­cent­ly an­nounced joint po­lice and mil­i­tary se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive as a means of rein­tro­duc­ing a pre­vi­ous­ly pro­posed se­cu­ri­ty mod­el, while rais­ing con­cerns about fund­ing, im­ple­men­ta­tion and the role of the mil­i­tary.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced that 30 joint army-po­lice posts will be es­tab­lished across Trinidad and To­ba­go over the next four months, as the Gov­ern­ment moves to ex­pand its se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Trade unions and econ­o­mists are sound­ing the alarm over Trinidad and To­ba­go’s em­ploy­ment out­look, af­ter of­fi­cial da­ta showed near­ly 6,000 jobs dis­ap­peared in the first three months of 2026, warn­ing that the im­pact stretch­es far be­yond the labour mar­ket and in­to house­holds, busi­ness­es and the wider econ­o­my.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is look­ing for­ward to what she de­scribed as “round two” of at­tempts to boo her on In­de­pen­dence Day, as po­lit­i­cal ten­sions con­tin­ue to sim­mer fol­low­ing her ab­sence from the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (ES­CTT) flag­ship Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage cel­e­bra­tions over the week­end.

While Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) min­is­ters have fol­lowed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in at­tack­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) af­ter Africa Eman­ci­pa­tion Day is­sues, PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has called on the PM to stop dis­tract­ing the pub­lic with “crazy rant­i­ng” and an­swer mount­ing ques­tions on na­tion­al is­sues, in­clud­ing job­less­ness.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of pos­ing “a great dan­ger to the so­cial and racial sta­bil­i­ty of this coun­try,” as he con­tin­ues his crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies and ap­proach.

Af­ter op­er­at­ing for al­most a year with less fund­ing than re­quest­ed, the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion is con­sid­er­ing changes to its garbage col­lec­tion sys­tem as it tries to bal­ance ser­vice de­liv­ery with its avail­able re­sources.

Hun­dreds of hope­ful Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­cruits braved blis­ter­ing heat, traf­fic grid­lock and hours of wait­ing in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day, un­de­terred by the coun­try’s vi­o­lent crime cri­sis as they pur­sued an op­por­tu­ni­ty to join the TTPS.

The Kwame Ture Ed­u­ca­tion and De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre has wel­comed the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion’s de­ci­sion to re­name Ox­ford Street as Kwame Ture Street, de­scrib­ing it as a his­toric recog­ni­tion of one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most in­flu­en­tial sons.

The San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SLRC) re­mains in lim­bo over the fu­ture of its Aranguez Main Road head­quar­ters, with chair­man Richard Wal­cott say­ing there has been no com­mu­ni­ca­tion from ei­ther the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment or the State-owned Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) since as­sur­ances were giv­en that the mat­ter would be re­solved.

Re­porters With­out Bor­ders (RSF), a glob­al press free­dom or­gan­i­sa­tion, is warn­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­de­pen­dent me­dia sec­tor is fac­ing grow­ing fi­nan­cial pres­sure, as gov­ern­ment ad­ver­tis­ing re­mains sus­pend­ed.