Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day as­sured that his de­par­ture from pol­i­tics will not leave a lead­er­ship vac­u­um in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) or the gov­ern­ment.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive is as­sur­ing that a process of seam­less suc­ces­sion, guid­ed by its or­ga­ni­za­tion’s con­sti­tu­tion will be at play fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter and Diego Mar­tin West MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley to step down by the end of the term.

To­ba­go has record­ed its first mur­der for the year, with the vic­tim iden­ti­fied as 15-year-old Beris Joseph, a fourth-form stu­dent of Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School.

With over 126 sus­pects ar­rest­ed, 17 firearms and over 675 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion seized since the State of Emer­gency (SOE) was de­clared on Mon­day 30th De­cem­ber, 2024, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher says, ‘the fight is just get­ting start­ed.’

Hon­duras Pres­i­dent Xiomara Cas­tro ’s com­ments ear­li­er this week threat­en­ing to stop her coun­try’s co­op­er­a­tion with the U.S. mil­i­tary if Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump fol­lows through on promised mass de­por­ta­tions have gen­er­at­ed po­lit­i­cal heat at home, even as the U.S. gov­ern­ment has re­mained silent.

A two-year-old child is ward­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter in­gest­ing a poi­so­nous sub­stance at her home in Point Fortin.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has is­sued a di­rect ap­peal to hard-work­ing po­lice of­fi­cers to elim­i­nate the rogue el­e­ments from their ranks to pre­vent any un­der­min­ing of the ef­forts to re­duce crime dur­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE) and re­build pub­lic trust.

The qui­et com­mu­ni­ty of Free­man Road, St Au­gus­tine, was in the na­tion­al spot­light be­tween Jan­u­ary and May 2023, af­ter gun­men killed sev­en per­sons, in­clud­ing a moth­er of three and a preg­nant teenag­er’s hus­band.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is as­sur­ing state at­tor­neys that the Gov­ern­ment will do all it can to pro­tect them.

Three promi­nent se­nior coun­sels have been ap­point­ed to the tri­bunal which will be over­see­ing com­plaints and oth­er mat­ters re­lat­ed to the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has con­firmed he will re­tire from pol­i­tics, ho­n­our­ing a pledge he made in 2020 not to seek re-elec­tion and mark­ing the end of a 45-year ca­reer in pub­lic ser­vice.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley yes­ter­day an­nounced his planned re­tire­ment from pol­i­tics in the is­land where he was born—To­ba­go.