Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day not­ed that over the last sev­en months, Gov­ern­ment has al­ready brought 13 pieces of leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment and an­oth­er three were to be de­bat­ed yes­ter­day.

Venezue­lan ad­vo­cates say near­ly 20 Venezue­lan mi­grants have been is­sued de­por­ta­tion or­ders for il­le­gal en­try since De­cem­ber, af­ter ap­proach­ing Im­mi­gra­tion of­fices for in­for­ma­tion on the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion pro­gramme.

The Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed mea­sure to ease the im­pact of the strict road traf­fic fines in­tro­duced at the start of the year moved a step clos­er to im­ple­men­ta­tion yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the pas­sage of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic (Amend­ment) Bill in the Low­er House. The leg­is­la­tion comes af­ter many penal­ties were dou­bled, spark­ing wide­spread pub­lic con­cern.

The Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries Min­istry has re­quest­ed an au­dit in­to the Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Home­stead (YAHP) pro­gramme fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of cer­tain cost is­sues—and Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein has di­rect­ed PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les' queries on it to for­mer Youth De­vel­op­ment min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings.

The Op­po­si­tion is an­tic­i­pat­ing a wave of law­suits against the State from nu­mer­ous peo­ple de­tained but not charged un­der the cur­rent na­tion­al State of Emer­gency (SoE).

As the Gov­ern­ment moves to im­ple­ment Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) af­ter the State of Emer­gency (SoE) ex­pires on Jan­u­ary 31, res­i­dents of Rich­plain in Diego Mar­tin say their com­mu­ni­ty does not re­quire such in­ter­ven­tion. Still, some con­cede that the stig­ma of the area be­ing a crime hotspot and its as­so­ci­a­tion with the late Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr could make its in­clu­sion like­ly.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne has warned that the cap­i­tal city could face se­ri­ous san­i­ta­tion chal­lenges fol­low­ing Car­ni­val 2026, as deep cuts to the City Cor­po­ra­tion’s bud­get and the clo­sure of CEPEP threat­en the tra­di­tion­al post-Car­ni­val clean-up op­er­a­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the law to pro­vide To­ba­go with au­ton­o­my will be brought to Par­lia­ment this fis­cal year.

At the 17th sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment ob­served a minute of si­lence on the re­cent death of for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Tu­na­puna MP and min­is­ter Dr Ed­ward “Ed­die” Hart.

Two ac­ci­dents mo­ments apart along the east­bound lane of the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way (CRH) in San Juan, yes­ter­day caused a ma­jor traf­fic night­mare for mo­torists.

Has­si­na Mathu­ra, who was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured when a bus rolled over her left arm in Palmyra, re­mains in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, af­ter un­der­go­ing re­con­struc­tive surgery.

A po­lice sting op­er­a­tion to ap­pre­hend sev­er­al sus­pects fol­low­ing a Face­book Mar­ket­place trans­ac­tion re­sult­ed in two peo­ple be­ing killed and a third hav­ing to be hos­pi­talised yes­ter­day.