Stu­dents who were in­volved in delin­quent and risky ac­tiv­i­ties out­side of school have been dis­ci­plined, coun­selled and rein­te­grat­ed in­to the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said on Sun­day.

The Trea­sury Di­vi­sion has re­stored its op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing an elec­tri­cal dis­rup­tion caused by a blown trans­former on Fri­day, which dam­aged equip­ment and tem­porar­i­ly af­fect­ed crit­i­cal ser­vices, in­clud­ing the en­cash­ment of Gov­ern­ment cheques.

Trinidad-born Arch­bish­op Robert Ri­vas, Arch­bish­op Emer­i­tus of Cas­tries, St Lu­cia, died peace­ful­ly in his sleep in the ear­ly hours of Sun­day at the age of 80.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment is “drunk with pow­er,” ac­cus­ing it of try­ing to in­tim­i­date In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors while pur­su­ing crime-fight­ing poli­cies he says are di­vid­ing the coun­try.

With the con­tentious Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Amend­ment) Bill head­ing to the Sen­ate this week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment is turn­ing up the heat and will not change its po­si­tion on re­ject­ing every amend­ment pro­posed by the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

The in­de­pen­dence of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors has again come un­der scruti­ny from Gov­ern­ment MPs, with two Cab­i­net min­is­ters back­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism of the Sen­ate bench and rais­ing con­cerns about what they de­scribed as a pat­tern of ob­struc­tion since Gov­ern­ment took of­fice.

Hours af­ter Ste­fan Khan­dan and Giselle Ougrah were found dead in their Pe­nal apart­ment in what po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing as a sus­pect­ed mur­der-sui­cide, Khan­dan’s sis­ter ap­pealed to the pub­lic not to judge her broth­er sole­ly on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that the cou­ple’s re­la­tion­ship had be­come in­creas­ing­ly tox­ic.

The sus­pect­ed mur­der-sui­cide in­volv­ing young Pe­nal cou­ple Ste­fan Khan­dan, 26, and Giselle Ougrah, 23, has sparked re­newed calls for fam­i­lies to act on the warn­ing signs of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­fore trou­bled re­la­tion­ships es­ca­late in­to tragedy.

For­mer House speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed says for­mer House speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George’s use of her cast­ing vote in 2017 is not com­pa­ra­ble to Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s tie-break­ing vote last Thurs­day that en­abled pas­sage of the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has dis­missed Fri­day’s protest by the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) as po­lit­i­cal the­atre, while main­tain­ing that no 10 per cent wage in­crease was ever of­fered to the union.

Nine days af­ter three po­lice posts were es­tab­lished across Trinidad, res­i­dents and work­ers in the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties say the in­creased po­lice pres­ence is pro­vid­ing some re­as­sur­ance, al­though ques­tions re­main about whether they will lead to a re­duc­tion in crime.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hil Kirk says the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion will con­tin­ue build­ing on the crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives in­tro­duced by out­go­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Rishi Singh.