The law to give sweep­ing au­thor­i­ty to the Prime Min­is­ter and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) to des­ig­nate com­mu­ni­ties as se­cu­ri­ty zones and de­ploy ex­pand­ed po­lice and mil­i­tary pow­ers has been de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is not sur­prised the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill was de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate, adding drug mafias and gang mem­bers are now hap­py.

Tem­po­rary Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor San­jiv Bood­hu has warned that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar should not be grant­ed sole au­thor­i­ty to de­clare Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs), cit­ing her past state­ments on crime and what he de­scribed as a pat­tern of con­fronta­tion­al gov­er­nance.

Hun­dreds of par­ents were forced to rush to schools yes­ter­day to col­lect their chil­dren, fol­low­ing a na­tion­wide wave of teacher ab­sen­teeism, be­lieved to be a “silent protest” over un­paid salary in­creas­es promised for this month.

Af­ter 32 years, News­day has closed its doors to the pub­lic, pub­lish­ing its fi­nal on­line edi­tion yes­ter­day.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) says it is in full sup­port of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s de­ci­sion not to sus­pend the of­fi­cers who were in­volved in the fa­tal shoot­ing of Val­sayn res­i­dent Joshua Sama­roo.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira is urg­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to en­sure Trinidad and To­ba­go does not fol­low the path of the Unit­ed States, where ten­sions and a lack of trust, par­tic­u­lar­ly with ICE of­fi­cials, con­tin­ue to strain re­la­tions be­tween law en­force­ment and the pub­lic.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul has pushed back against claims by his suc­ces­sor, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, that a new­ly se­cured US$1 bil­lion loan sig­nals strong in­ter­na­tion­al con­fi­dence in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s econ­o­my.

Pres­i­dent of the Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union (AWU), Michael Pren­tice, says he is look­ing for­ward to up­com­ing dis­cus­sions with Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dr Daryl Din­di­al as ne­go­ti­a­tions over out­stand­ing wage agree­ments con­tin­ue.

Civ­il rights at­tor­neys have filed a fed­er­al law­suit against the US gov­ern­ment on be­half of the fam­i­lies of two Trinida­di­an men who were killed when their fish­ing pirogue was blown up dur­ing one of the ear­ly mil­i­tary airstrikes off the coast of Venezuela last year.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing to re­ceive St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Ter­rance Drew, af­ter he sig­nalled in­ter­est in vis­it­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in his ca­pac­i­ty as chair of Cari­com.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) vice chair­man Dr Amery Browne launched a scathing in­dict­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the par­ty’s 70th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions at Queen’s Hall on Mon­day.