The Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has is­sued a pub­lic ap­peal high­light­ing what it de­scribes as long­stand­ing is­sues af­fect­ing pris­ons across Trinidad and To­ba­go, call­ing for im­prove­ments to staffing, in­fra­struc­ture, equip­ment and work­ing con­di­tions.

Po­lice are try­ing to iden­ti­fy a man whose de­com­pos­ing body was found float­ing in the St Joseph Riv­er yes­ter­day, as in­ves­ti­ga­tors work to de­ter­mine how he died.

The Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) has an­nounced sweep­ing changes to its School-Based As­sess­ment (SBA) sys­tem, with tra­di­tion­al SBAs set to be phased out for sev­er­al non-prac­ti­cal Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) and Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) sub­jects be­gin­ning in 2027.

A vis­it by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der to a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) de­vel­op­ment in Mal­oney Gar­dens was in­tend­ed to ad­dress res­i­dents’ long­stand­ing con­cerns. How­ev­er, it quick­ly be­came po­lit­i­cal, with the min­is­ter blam­ing the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion for many of the prob­lems raised by res­i­dents and the res­i­dents push­ing back ver­bal­ly.

More than 200 work­ers are fac­ing months of un­cer­tain­ty as Nestlé Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sale process moves in­to its next phase, with the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) re­veal­ing that an in­ter­na­tion­al firm in Switzer­land will over­see the trans­ac­tion while dairy farm­ers con­tin­ue to voice fears over the fu­ture of the lo­cal milk in­dus­try.

The State has been or­dered to pay over $100,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a fe­male bounc­er, who was as­sault­ed and ma­li­cious­ly pros­e­cut­ed af­ter she at­tempt­ed to stop a pair of plain clothes po­lice of­fi­cers from en­ter­ing a night­club with­out pay­ing the $60 cov­er charge.

A Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­man has lost more than $1.3 mil­lion, af­ter his com­mer­cial bank ac­count was al­leged­ly hacked in what busi­ness lead­ers say re­flects a grow­ing threat of so­phis­ti­cat­ed on­line bank­ing fraud in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The rhythm of Or­isha drums, songs of praise and the voic­es of some of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lead­ing cul­tur­al fig­ures filled the air yes­ter­day as fam­i­ly, friends, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and mem­bers of the artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty gath­ered at the Mor­vant Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre to cel­e­brate the ex­tra­or­di­nary life of cul­tur­al icon Bill “Paul” Trot­man.

To­bag­o­ni­ans are be­ing urged to do­nate at least 1,000 re­lief items to­day as the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) launch­es a marathon dri­ve to as­sist earth­quake-rav­aged Venezuela.

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) says it is con­tin­u­ing to man­age wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion across north east Trinidad as the Hol­lis Reser­voir grad­u­al­ly recharges fol­low­ing im­proved in­flows.

The State has raised con­cerns about the re­sources re­quired to mon­i­tor busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve while they re­main un­der house ar­rest as their ap­peal is be­ing con­sid­ered. The Hadeeds were or­dered re­leased on house ar­rest yes­ter­day by three ap­peal court judges but re­mained be­hind bars af­ter a late-night stay re­quest by at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the State.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­pressed con­do­lences fol­low­ing the pass­ing of crick­et leg­end Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, de­scrib­ing him as one of the Caribbean’s most dis­tin­guished sons and a glob­al sport­ing icon.