Deputy UNC po­lit­i­cal leader and Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John has ac­cused the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) of at­tempt­ing to cur­tail Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s free­dom of ex­pres­sion.

The west­bound lane of the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route from Ari­ma to Abat­toir Road, Port of Spain, will be opened to light mo­tor ve­hi­cles fol­low­ing an ac­ci­dent in the Aranguez area this morn­ing which caused heavy traf­fic con­ges­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of pass­ing leg­is­la­tion that could “open the door to gut­ting the Trea­sury” and al­low bil­lions of dol­lars to be squan­dered.

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark again cast his de­cid­ing vote last night in a chaot­ic end­ing to se­cure pas­sage of Gov­ern­ment’s Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Amend­ment Bill.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira says it will take “a lot more than holy wa­ter and mantras” to get him to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s Pro­cure­ment Bill, as he fired back at Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar by turn­ing her de­scrip­tion of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors as “sa­tan­ic” and “de­mon­ic” back on the Gov­ern­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) has called up­on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to with­draw her dis­parag­ing re­marks against the coun­try’s in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der has pushed back against the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) af­ter it called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to with­draw re­marks she made about in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors fol­low­ing their re­jec­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

For­mer House speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George has re­ject­ed at­tempts to cite her 2017 cast­ing votes in Par­lia­ment as a prece­dent for Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s de­cid­ing vote on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, ar­gu­ing that none of her votes de­ter­mined the fate of sub­stan­tive leg­is­la­tion.

More than a year af­ter sig­nalling in­ten­tions, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Gov­ern­ment will be mov­ing to strength­en leg­is­la­tion aimed at pro­tect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s young peo­ple from the harm­ful ef­fects of sub­stance abuse and gam­bling.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is call­ing on the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to mo­bilise thou­sands of sup­port­ers and pe­ti­tion Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo not to as­sent to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, ar­gu­ing the man­ner in which it was passed in the Sen­ate war­rants her in­ter­ven­tion.

Speak­er of the House of As­sem­bly in St Lu­cia, Claudius Fran­cis, says Sen­ate pres­i­dent Wade Mark act­ed with­in the law when he used his cast­ing vote to break a 15-15 dead­lock and se­cure pas­sage of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, al­though he ac­knowl­edged the de­ci­sion de­part­ed from es­tab­lished par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has de­scribed the late ca­lyp­so leg­end Dr Slinger Fran­cis­co, bet­ter known as the Mighty Spar­row, as one of the great in­ter­preters of Caribbean life, whose mu­sic helped gen­er­a­tions un­der­stand their cul­ture and iden­ti­ty.