Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali has paid trib­ute to ca­lyp­so leg­end the Mighty Spar­row, de­scrib­ing his death as the end of an era in Caribbean mu­sic and cul­ture.

The num­ber of con­firmed cas­es of Ebo­la virus in Con­go has surged past 8,000, as the coun­try runs out of health work­ers to con­tain the dead­ly dis­ease.

The Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go says Trinidad and To­ba­go has tak­en a ma­jor step in strength­en­ing re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion against nar­co-ter­ror­ism by join­ing the Unit­ed States in des­ig­nat­ing 25 crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions as for­eign ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is call­ing on the Op­po­si­tion PNM to mo­bilise thou­sands of sup­port­ers and pe­ti­tion Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo not to as­sent to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, ar­gu­ing that the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing its pas­sage in the Sen­ate war­rant her in­ter­ven­tion.

Slinger Fran­cis­co, the leg­endary ca­lyp­son­ian known across the Caribbean and around the world as The Mighty Spar­row, has died at the age of 91.

Trib­utes con­tin­ue to pour in for ca­lyp­so icon Slinger “The Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co, with na­tion­al and re­gion­al lead­ers, artistes and cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions mourn­ing the loss of one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most in­flu­en­tial cul­tur­al fig­ures.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley have con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to re­ject fu­ture amend­ments pro­posed by the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, with Beck­les warn­ing that the move could sig­nal an at­tempt to re­shape the In­de­pen­dent bench in the Gov­ern­ment’s favour.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath says the four North East­ern Col­lege (NEC) stu­dents in­volved in a fight that went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia on the open­ing day of the school term re­main sus­pend­ed.

The fa­ther of an al­leged home in­trud­er who was shot and killed by a prison of­fi­cer in Freeport on Thurs­day night has apol­o­gised to the of­fi­cer, say­ing he har­bours no re­sent­ment but can­not un­der­stand how his on­ly son, Javon Hamil­ton, be­came in­volved in a home in­va­sion.

As the Sen­ate re­turns to­day to de­bate an­oth­er bill that could re­sult in a 15-15 dead­lock, for­mer Sen­ate pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith has weighed in on the ex­er­cise of a cast­ing vote in the Up­per House.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee has de­scribed the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) as a “big slush fund” un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, nam­ing sev­er­al com­pa­nies he said re­ceived mil­lions of dol­lars in con­tracts, in­clud­ing one linked to PNM as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary and San Fer­nan­do Deputy May­or Pa­tri­cia Alex­is.

A 12-year-old boy and his eight-year-old broth­er have lost their fa­ther, their home and al­most a year of school­ing. Now, their moth­er is plead­ing for help to se­cure a trans­fer so the boys can re­turn to the class­room and re­build their lives.