Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the State must get val­ue for mon­ey when it comes to spon­sor­ship for cul­tur­al events, in­sist­ing that cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship must ben­e­fit com­mu­ni­ties.

Res­i­dents from sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in and around Ari­ma are call­ing for the ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), as they say the lack of a steady wa­ter sup­ply sched­ule has brought their lives to a stand­still.

Trinidad and To­ba­go cur­rent­ly has no am­bas­sador post­ed to Wash­ing­ton, DC, Venezuela or Chi­na.

The dis­cov­ery of an 82-year-old man’s body in the Usine Ste Madeleine Pond yes­ter­day has left rel­a­tives and vil­lagers heart­bro­ken, as they strug­gled to com­pre­hend the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death.

Massy Ch­agua­nas was closed to the pub­lic yes­ter­day af­ter­noon when two Fire Ser­vice ten­ders rushed to the lo­ca­tion af­ter work­ers said an in­ci­dent oc­curred in­side the es­tab­lish­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ridiculed Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship of this year’s Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions, ac­cus­ing the com­pa­ny’s own­ers of pri­vate­ly us­ing racial slurs against East In­di­an peo­ple while pub­licly fund­ing one of the coun­try’s largest In­di­an cul­tur­al and re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tions.

Claims of in­ter­nal dis­agree­ments are emerg­ing with­in the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) over its han­dling of spon­sor­ship arrange­ments for Di­vali Na­gar 2026, amid con­cerns by some board mem­bers that the de­ci­sion to bring Blue Wa­ters on board could be per­ceived as a po­lit­i­cal state­ment against the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Days af­ter re­ports emerged that sev­er­al state cor­po­rate en­ti­ties had with­drawn their spon­sor­ship from the 2026 Di­vali Na­gar, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) yes­ter­day an­nounced that Blue Wa­ters had come on board as a Di­a­mond Spon­sor for this year’s cel­e­bra­tions. And the com­pa­ny says it is proud to as­sist in pre­serv­ing T&T’s cul­tur­al lega­cy.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has ad­mit­ted that an er­ror was made in the 2027 Bud­get al­lo­ca­tion for the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA), while as­sur­ing that the au­thor­i­ty will re­ceive enough fund­ing to meet its op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es.

The Gov­ern­ment’s al­lo­ca­tion for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) Tourism and Hos­pi­tal­i­ty Sec­tor sup­port pro­gramme has been re­duced by 80 per cent for 2027, while sev­er­al tourism-re­lat­ed en­ti­ties linked to To­ba­go Car­ni­val have al­so re­ceived low­er al­lo­ca­tions.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin was ap­point­ed to act as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice from yes­ter­day un­til Wednes­day, while Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro leads a Trinidad and To­ba­go del­e­ga­tion at the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Chiefs of Po­lice (IACP) An­nu­al Con­fer­ence and Ex­po­si­tion in Or­lan­do, Flori­da.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has con­firmed re­me­di­al works on the aban­doned Good­wood mi­cro polic­ing unit will be­gin next week.