Near­ly a month af­ter 41-year-old Iyana Cas­tana­da col­lapsed and died af­ter drink­ing a cup of tea, an au­top­sy has still not been con­duct­ed.

The Ja­maican gov­ern­ment is of­fer­ing a two-mil­lion-dol­lar (One Ja­maican dol­lar = US$0.008 cents) re­ward for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest of those re­spon­si­ble for the mur­der of 14-year-old Terona Thomas in Olympic Gar­dens on the out­skirts of the cap­i­tal.

In­dia fired mis­siles in­to Pak­istani-con­trolled ter­ri­to­ry in sev­er­al lo­ca­tions ear­ly Wednes­day, killing at least 26 peo­ple in­clud­ing a child, in what Pak­istan’s leader called an act of war.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ad­dressed any doubts about her ca­pac­i­ty to lead the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the Low­er House, as­sert­ing that while her lead­er­ship may ap­pear un­der­stat­ed, it is firm­ly root­ed in ex­pe­ri­ence and un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to pub­lic ser­vice.

De­feat­ed Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Mover­ment (PNM) can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West, Faris Al-Rawi, has told par­ty sup­port­ers that there will be a dif­fi­cult po­lit­i­cal jour­ney ahead.

Less than a week af­ter their po­si­tions as deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers were re­voked by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Colm Im­bert were ap­point­ed as chair­man and vice chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les wants the Gov­ern­ment to bring the ev­i­dence to show that White­hall is un­fit for use.

Min­is­ter of De­fence, Wayne Sturge, says he and Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der, along with Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers, held talks with for­mer UNC sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen in a meet­ing that last­ed over two hours yes­ter­day.

As Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar push­es ahead with her promise to re­vive the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, the T&T Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) says there is no need for it and there are not even enough pae­di­atric nurs­es to staff the fa­cil­i­ty.

Board mem­bers from four of the coun­try’s lead­ing per­form­ing arts in­sti­tu­tions have ten­dered their res­ig­na­tions.

New­ly mint­ed Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Ravi Rati­ram, says he plans to tack­le a 60 per cent staff short­age across his min­istry, be­fore slash­ing the $7.3 bil­lion food im­port bill by $2 bil­lion.

Nine years af­ter un­der­go­ing open-heart surgery, 26-year-old Ra­keesh Roodal is now bat­tling new med­ical prob­lems that have left him de­pen­dent on oth­ers for ba­sic mo­bil­i­ty and dai­ly care.