The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front has re­leased its Gen­er­al Elec­tion man­i­festo out­lin­ing a $2.5 bil­lion in­vest­ment plan cen­tred on pub­lic safe­ty, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, youth em­pow­er­ment, and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

The mur­der of an autis­tic teenag­er in Bar­rack­pore, the killing of a nurse in Carlsen Field, and the brazen as­sas­si­na­tion out­side Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port have all cap­tured the at­ten­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who has pledged a com­bi­na­tion of hard­line tac­tics and so­cial in­ter­ven­tions to com­bat the crime wave grip­ping Trinidad and To­ba­go.

De­spite a re­cent call by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for Trinidad and To­ba­go to “com­plete its in­de­pen­dence” by sev­er­ing ties with the Unit­ed King­dom’s Privy Coun­cil, there re­mains strong op­po­si­tion on the ground to such a move.

As Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) con­firmed it was con­tin­u­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with Niger­ian en­er­gy com­pa­ny Oan­do to restart the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery, Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get made it clear that any deal signed close to the gen­er­al elec­tion “will not be ho­n­oured” by a fu­ture UNC gov­ern­ment.

Less than a week af­ter teach­ers ac­cept­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s five per cent of­fer for a four-year pe­ri­od, an­oth­er union has ac­cept­ed the of­fer.

As Gen­er­al Elec­tion 2025 draws near­er, some of the so-called small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties say they are un­fazed and unim­pressed by Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany’s re­cent­ly pub­lished elec­tion poll.

Af­ter the start of Spe­cial Vot­ing ex­er­cis­es on Mon­day, the elec­tion "drums" are beat­ing long and loud as par­ties com­plete fin­ish­ing touch­es to elec­tion day ma­chin­ery - the ul­ti­mate key to vic­to­ry in next Mon­day's Gen­er­al Elec­tion. And in­tense ver­bal en­cour­age­ment from the plat­forms is all part of the "or­ders" be­ing giv­en to­wards this. Here's what you may have missed:

One man is in po­lice cus­tody and is ex­pect­ed to be charged af­ter two sis­ters were chopped dur­ing a home in­va­sion in To­ba­go ear­ly Mon­day morn­ing.

“No one van­ish­es in thin air,” lament­ed An­tho­ny Hen­wood, the broth­er of 56-year-old Mar­lon Hen­wood, who has been miss­ing for over a month.

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke says To­ba­go could gen­er­ate over $3 tril­lion from its un­tapped nat­ur­al re­sources—if on­ly it con­trolled them—and cre­ate bil­lion­aires on the is­land.

Eight ma­jor trade unions and as­so­ci­a­tions have dis­tanced them­selves from the cur­rent wave of po­lit­i­cal en­dorse­ments, de­clar­ing their in­de­pen­dence and stat­ing clear­ly that they will not sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Eight months af­ter re­lo­cat­ing to Riv­er Road, Cunu­pia, to es­cape the dead­ly vi­o­lence which took over the St Au­gus­tine com­mu­ni­ty, a fa­ther and son were ex­e­cut­ed in a bru­tal gang-style shoot­ing ear­ly yes­ter­day.