Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is promis­ing a ma­jor over­haul and re­form of the prison sys­tem, in­clud­ing send­ing in the De­fence Force to mon­i­tor ac­tiv­i­ty in­side and out­side the coun­try’s pris­ons.

While the Prime Min­is­ter is yet to com­ment on her re­cent re­as­sign­ment of min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, Min­is­ter in the Hous­ing Min­istry Anil Roberts says the move fol­lowed rec­om­men­da­tions from with­in the Cab­i­net, which took place weeks ago. He is dis­miss­ing any no­tion that it was a sur­prise shake-up.

Plac­ing the Na­tion­al Self Help Com­mis­sion (NSHC) un­der the Prime Min­is­ter’s au­thor­i­ty en­sures that ur­gent fi­nan­cial, le­gal, and op­er­a­tional mat­ters—stem­ming from grave mil­lion-dol­lar chal­lenges found at the NSHC—are ad­dressed speed­i­ly.

Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try at the Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences, UWI St Au­gus­tine, Dr Ger­ard Hutchin­son, says the St Ann’s Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal is in ur­gent need of at­ten­tion.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says Gov­ern­ment will be mov­ing to im­me­di­ate­ly re­view the ex­ist­ing pow­er pur­chase agree­ments with Pow­er­gen and Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed (TGU).

Even as the two po­lice of­fi­cers who re­port­ed­ly res­cued eight-year-old Abi­gail Joseph from the East Dry Riv­er (EDR) on Sun­day were be­ing com­mend­ed yes­ter­day, res­i­dents of Harpe Place in Port-of-Spain called for home­town hero Dil­lon Ram­sey to al­so be recog­nised for his brav­ery.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Cor­po­ra­tion says it will be­gin de­liv­er­ing more than 51,000 so­cial wel­fare cheques to­day, af­ter it re­ceived them from the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices yes­ter­day.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA) is urg­ing the Min­istry of Health to in­clude crit­i­cal sight-sav­ing med­ica­tions for glau­co­ma and di­a­bet­ic retinopa­thy on the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP) drug list.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the theft of a white MAN truck which was stolen from TCL Ltd com­pound in Clax­ton Bay on Sun­day night. The truck which be­longs to Oron­co Ser­vices Ltd was found aban­doned near the Wa­ter­loo Cre­ma­tion site.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is stand­ing by his po­si­tion that cer­tain young of­fend­ers should be tried as adults, ar­gu­ing that their ac­tions and in­tent in com­mit­ting se­ri­ous crimes re­flect adult-lev­el de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

A High Court judge has freed a man of the mur­der of a po­lice­woman and her fam­i­ly, which took place 18 years ago, while his co-ac­cused re­mains charged with mur­der.

The Child­hood Jus­tice Col­lec­tive (CJC) has crit­i­cised pro­pos­als to try child of­fend­ers as adults, say­ing the ap­proach mis­un­der­stands child de­vel­op­ment and vi­o­lates na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al law.