Con­cerns over bu­reau­crat­ic de­lays, an un­opened state fa­cil­i­ty and the slow de­liv­ery of pub­lic as­sis­tance to vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens were among the is­sues raised by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal leader and Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les dur­ing a thanks­giv­ing ser­vice mark­ing the 138th an­niver­sary of the roy­al char­tered bor­ough.

Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son says the in­dus­try wel­comes the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to re­open Trinidad and To­ba­go’s steel mill, but warned that scrap met­al ex­ports must con­tin­ue to en­sure com­pe­ti­tion and pro­tect deal­ers from un­fair pric­ing.

Car deal­ers im­port­ing mild hy­brid ve­hi­cles will con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from tax ex­emp­tions af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo in­ter­vened, re­vers­ing a Cus­toms re­clas­si­fi­ca­tion that had sparked con­cern over the prospect of sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er ve­hi­cle prices.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA) is urg­ing so­cial me­dia com­men­ta­tors to re­frain from in­ter­fer­ing in mat­ters af­fect­ing the au­to­mo­tive in­dus­try, say­ing be­hind-the-scenes ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Gov­ern­ment se­cured tax ex­emp­tions for a range of mild hy­brid ve­hi­cles.

The cold and cal­cu­lat­ed mur­der of Shayana Ruiz, al­leged­ly stem­ming from a con­fronta­tion over mon­ey owed to her, is not sim­ply an­oth­er act of vi­o­lence, ac­cord­ing to re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah.

Ten days af­ter Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed the plight of a fam­i­ly of five in need of elec­tric­i­ty at their home, An­dri­ana Noor and her hus­band, Joseph Mulchans­ingh, say their strug­gles with so­lar pow­er units and can­dles are now over.

PNM deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu has ques­tioned whether the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) now has to fear be­ing ac­cused of be­ing a “PNM par­ty group” and be­ing tar­get­ed with Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) af­ter it re­port­ed that al­most 6,000 jobs were lost in the first quar­ter of this year.

The Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment says it is work­ing to en­sure sup­port is pro­vid­ed to cul­tur­al icon El­la An­dall, who is cur­rent­ly in the care of her son.

The po­lit­i­cal fall­out over Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to skip the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (ES­CTT) Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage on Sat­ur­day has in­ten­si­fied, with the Op­po­si­tion ac­cus­ing her of dis­re­spect­ing one of the coun­try’s most sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al ob­ser­vances.

A 23-year-old po­lice of­fi­cer is due to ap­pear be­fore the court on Mon­day charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice af­ter a po­lice-is­sued firearm, mag­a­zine and am­mu­ni­tion were re­port­ed miss­ing from the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion.

For­mer cul­ture min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell has crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she sug­gest­ed the Op­po­si­tion should in­vite Star Sab­ga and Jen­na Hadeed to per­form at fu­ture Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has launched a scathing cri­tique against her de­trac­tors, claim­ing they are “con­sumed with an ir­ra­tional ha­tred that has dri­ven them de­ranged” as she fierce­ly re­pu­di­at­ed the back­lash sur­round­ing her ab­sence from yes­ter­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day ob­ser­vances in the cap­i­tal city.