Broth­er Valenti­no, whose songs made a force­ful case for equal­i­ty, Black iden­ti­ty and the con­cerns of or­di­nary peo­ple, died yes­ter­day. He was 85.

Three years ago, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s civ­il avi­a­tion board, the Jun­ta de Aviación Civ­il (JAC), grant­ed ul­tra-low-cost car­ri­er Ara­jet Air­lines per­mis­sion to op­er­ate flights be­tween the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has promised to ac­cel­er­ate the re­place­ment of age­ing wa­ter pipelines this fi­nan­cial year, as re­cur­ring leaks con­tin­ue to dam­age roads in Diego Mar­tin and Mar­aval.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has promised to work with pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies to set­tle out­stand­ing pay­ments owed by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), ac­knowl­edg­ing that some firms went three to four years with­out be­ing paid.

New­town Boys RC Pri­ma­ry School has re­ceived five An­droid tablets, three months of up­grad­ed broad­band in­ter­net and a tro­phy, af­ter emerg­ing as the June 2026 cham­pi­on of the Flow-spon­sored Pen­na­cool.com In­ter-School Cham­pi­onship.

Di­vali Na­gar is more than a com­mer­cial event, but its eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties can help sus­tain its cul­tur­al mis­sion, says Na­tion­al Award re­cip­i­ent Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan.

Cul­tur­al groups in Fe­lic­i­ty have wel­comed bmo­bile’s de­ci­sion to redi­rect fund­ing to­wards com­mu­ni­ty Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, as the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) faces a $500,000 spon­sor­ship short­fall for this year’s Di­vali Na­gar.

There is still no con­crete open­ing date for UWI’s Pe­nal/Debe cam­pus, but Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Min­is­ter Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad says prepa­ra­tions are well un­der­way for a full launch of­fer­ing pre-uni­ver­si­ty, un­der­grad­u­ate and post­grad­u­ate pro­grammes.

Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe is cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing $10,000 a month as the Gov­ern­ment awaits a de­ter­mi­na­tion from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) on his re­mu­ner­a­tion for the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man po­si­tion.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath is in­sist­ing that all ap­proved school sup­plies and book grants have been paid, de­spite com­plaints from ap­pli­cants who re­ceived ap­proval no­tices but are still await­ing their mon­ey.

Adam’s Bagels says it is tak­ing im­me­di­ate steps to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty at its Sad­dle Road, Mar­aval, premis­es af­ter a woman was beat­en and robbed in the car park.

Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank is warn­ing that cli­mate change is no longer sim­ply an en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cern but a grow­ing threat to eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty that pol­i­cy­mak­ers and reg­u­la­tors must pre­pare for now.