Is­rael car­ried out a wave of heavy airstrikes across Syr­ia as its troops ad­vanced deep­er in­to the coun­try, draw­ing to with­in 25 kilo­me­ters (15 miles) of the cap­i­tal, a Syr­i­an op­po­si­tion war mon­i­tor said Tues­day. Is­rael de­nied its forces were ad­vanc­ing to­ward Dam­as­cus.

An­gry over the failed out­come of the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day de­scribed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as a “house slave,” as he ac­cused him of ig­nor­ing the needs of To­ba­go’s peo­ple.

When Kubair Ram­per­sad up­root­ed his fam­i­ly and moved to San Fer­nan­do to es­cape the blar­ing mu­sic from a near­by rum shop, he nev­er imag­ined their sac­ri­fices would one day pave the way for his daugh­ter, Kesh­ma Ram­per­sad, to earn an Open Schol­ar­ship in In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­o­gy (ICT).

The re­jec­tion of the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills in Par­lia­ment has left the is­land’s politi­cians and stake­hold­ers point­ing fin­gers, with some say­ing the bills’ re­turn to the House was noth­ing but a show.

The pos­si­bil­i­ty of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley not con­test­ing his Diego Mar­tin West seat again sent shock­waves through the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) yes­ter­day, but not about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Dr Amery Browne con­test­ing the Diego Mar­tin West seat in­stead. Sources ex­pressed con­cern that the Prime Min­is­ter would have left many of them blind­sided, as they thought he was go­ing to lead them in­to an­oth­er elec­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­mains silent on his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture, opt­ing not to re­spond to ques­tions about whether he will step down as Diego Mar­tin West MP—a po­si­tion he has held since 1991—or con­test the seat in the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

There will be no self-gov­ern­ment for To­ba­go, or the ti­tle of pre­mier for To­ba­go’s Chief Sec­re­tary.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) says while it re­mains open to di­a­logue with Caribbean Air­lines, there is the po­ten­tial for dis­rup­tions if the cur­rent salary ne­go­ti­a­tion stale­mate per­sists.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley did not an­nounce an elec­tion date as an­tic­i­pat­ed by the Op­po­si­tion, but he did re­veal there will be Cari­com ob­servers to mon­i­tor the elec­tion when­ev­er it is called.

A 66-year-old man from San Fer­nan­do, who chopped his nephew to death over a fam­i­ly prop­er­ty dis­pute, has been re­leased af­ter spend­ing a lit­tle over 15 years in prison.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the death of Sher­ry Ann Roet, whose de­com­pos­ing body was dis­cov­ered near a fish stall close to a tem­ple in Car­li Bay, Cou­va, yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said Jawan­za Richards, 40, of Sesame Street, Pin­to Road, Ari­ma, was re­port­ed­ly gunned down at 8.15 pm.