The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion has tem­porar­i­ly opened the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route to pri­vate mo­torists in re­sponse to to­day’s trans­porta­tion chal­lenges.

Two ban­dits were ar­rest­ed short­ly af­ter they robbed two peo­ple in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents, hours apart, in down­town Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day.

The High Court has de­ter­mined that the Eco-In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of To­ba­go (E-ID­COT) is not ex­empt from the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA).

Com­muters trav­el­ling out of San­gre Grande this morn­ing who de­pend­ed on maxi taxis for trans­porta­tion were forced to use PTSC bus­es, sev­en-seater taxis and com­mer­cial taxis as maxi taxi op­er­a­tors be­gan a three-day protest to­day.

A chick­en­pox out­break af­fect­ing health­care work­ers at San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal has raised con­cerns about work­place safe­ty, staffing pres­sures, and em­ploy­ee wel­fare with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pub­lic health­care sys­tem.

Homi­cide de­tec­tives were kept busy overnight with six mur­ders record­ed in South Trinidad, in­clud­ing a dou­ble and triple killing.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says it ful­ly sup­ports the use of body-worn cam­eras and has al­ready be­gun the pro­cure­ment process, invit­ing firms to ex­press in­ter­est in sup­ply­ing the tech­nol­o­gy as part of a broad­er push to mod­ernise polic­ing.

Com­muters faced sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tions this morn­ing as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion be­gan a three-day protest over is­sues in­clud­ing speed lim­its.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,000 maxi taxi op­er­a­tors—the lifeblood of the na­tion’s pub­lic trans­port sys­tem – will come to a planned halt to­day in protest of long-stand­ing griev­ances.

Ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers are call­ing for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion from the Gov­ern­ment as con­cerns mount over planned in­dus­tri­al ac­tion by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors, warn­ing of se­ri­ous con­se­quences for stu­dents sit­ting na­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tions.

With the start of to­day’s planned strike by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors across the coun­try, mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty fear it could bring wide­spread dis­rup­tion to busi­ness­es and es­sen­tial ser­vices across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Law en­force­ment sources say that while the po­lice are close­ly mon­i­tor­ing any in­crease in gang ac­tiv­i­ty and vi­o­lent at­tacks, there has been no in­tel­li­gence to sug­gest that crim­i­nal fac­tions have agreed to a truce or are unit­ing in a bid to tar­get the au­thor­i­ties.