There has been a stag­ger­ing 467 per cent in­crease in stu­dent ex­pul­sions over the past aca­d­e­m­ic year, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said yes­ter­day.

Ac­cu­sa­tions of bul­ly­ing have resur­faced in Par­lia­ment, with a mem­ber of the Op­po­si­tion bold­ly claim­ing that a col­league has utilised the Bud­get de­bate to do just that.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive a re­port to­day (Thurs­day) re­gard­ing a nine-year-old pupil who has been sus­pend­ed mul­ti­ple times for al­leged­ly ter­ror­iz­ing class­mates at a pri­ma­ry school in Fyz­abad.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is yet to con­firm if it is in­ves­ti­gat­ing a “high UNC of­fi­cial” for at­tempt­ing to pay a hit­man $60,000 to com­mit mur­der. How­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion Leader said the en­tire thing reeks of a hoax for po­lit­i­cal gain.

De­spite a $2 in­crease in the min­i­mum wage for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers set to take ef­fect next month, Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie has dis­closed that last year’s in­crease of $3 to $20.50 for all work­ers is not be­ing ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed.

Eleven Venezue­lan women be­lieved to have been traf­ficked were res­cued dur­ing a joint op­er­a­tion be­tween the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) on Tues­day in Cunu­pia. The sus­pects, all lo­cals, were al­so ar­rest­ed.

The 29-year-old sus­pect who was ar­rest­ed short­ly af­ter the mur­ders of ba­by Ja­da Mooti­lal and her moth­er Tara “Gee­ta” Ram­sa­roop, 34, says he is sor­ry for what he did.

Trinida­di­an na­tion­als liv­ing in Flori­da were last night brac­ing for the ar­rival of Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton.

More than a week af­ter au­top­sies re­vealed that Sarah Smith and her two chil­dren died of blunt force trau­ma to their heads, their deaths have not been of­fi­cial­ly clas­si­fied.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has called on cit­i­zens to re­ject what he de­scribed as a ris­ing tide of pop­ulism be­ing cham­pi­oned by the UNC.

Op­er­a­tions at the Port of Port-of-Spain re­turned to nor­mal yes­ter­day, but there are con­cerns that in­dus­tri­al ac­tion over the past few days could re­sult in high­er prices and short­ages. Port work­ers had tak­en in­dus­tri­al ac­tion over wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and health and safe­ty is­sues, dis­rupt­ing sev­er­al op­er­a­tions.

Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Fos­ter Cum­mings has con­firmed that stu­dents un­able to ob­tain a full CSEC cer­tifi­cate will not slip through the cracks.