Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers say the ar­rest of sev­er­al Trinida­di­an men and a Venezue­lan na­tion­al at sea, who were al­leged­ly on their way to col­lect a ship­ment of guns and il­le­gal drugs bound for this coun­try, is be­ing viewed as a ma­jor break­through in the fight against crime.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar (Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man) to name the at­tor­ney with “close ties to the UNC Gov­ern­ment” who is de­mand­ing cer­tain ques­tion­able hir­ings—so much so that it has re­sult­ed in re­port­ed death threats against De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge.

There are calls for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter a woman, who did not know she was preg­nant, wait­ed two hours for an am­bu­lance that al­leged­ly nev­er ar­rived as she went in­to labour at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence. The new­born ba­by boy died soon af­ter be­ing born.

A 33-year-old Table­land man lost his life at Ma­yaro Beach on Sat­ur­day, turn­ing what was meant to be a joy­ful week­end re­union in­to a scene of heart­break for a group of fam­i­lies.

Nigel Du­doon could swim, but that did not save him from drown­ing dur­ing a fam­i­ly lime at Colum­bus Bay on Sat­ur­day. Now his griev­ing rel­a­tives are urg­ing oth­ers to be cau­tious when vis­it­ing the beach.

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young has called on the Gov­ern­ment and the cur­rent board of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of TT (NGC) to say whether NGC was suc­cess­ful in the lit­i­ga­tion against Su­per In­dus­tri­al Ser­vices (SIS) re­lat­ed to the Beetham Waste­water Plant.

Gen­er­al Man­ag­er and CEO of CEPEP Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, Kei­th Ed­dy, has is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi over al­leged defama­tion, de­mand­ing a pub­lic apol­o­gy, with­draw­al of al­le­ga­tions, and com­pen­sa­tion.

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (WASA) is urg­ing the pub­lic to mon­i­tor its so­cial me­dia chan­nels for up­dates on the an­nu­al shut­down of the Point Lisas De­sali­na­tion Plant, which be­gins to­day.

While the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) has wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­place this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions with a Na­tion­al Day of Prayer, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) ex­pressed con­cern over the tim­ing of the an­nounce­ment.

Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein is ac­cus­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of “cre­at­ing mis­chief” re­gard­ing the can­cel­la­tion of the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade. He claims the Op­po­si­tion is look­ing for a hid­den mo­tive be­hind the de­ci­sion that sim­ply does not ex­ist.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA) has praised the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ban noisy fire­works on In­de­pen­dence Day, de­scrib­ing it as a cru­cial step to­ward pro­tect­ing the rights and dig­ni­ty of blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired cit­i­zens.

Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) is urg­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to redi­rect the more than $2 mil­lion saved from the can­cel­la­tion of In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions to as­sist pig farm­ers who have been se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by the out­break of Porcine Re­pro­duc­tive and Res­pi­ra­to­ry Syn­drome (PRRS).