The State has been or­dered to pay more than $1 mil­lion to a Rio Claro Hin­du pun­dit, his wife and their three chil­dren af­ter they suc­cess­ful­ly sued for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion, claim­ing po­lice fab­ri­cat­ed mar­i­jua­na charges against them.

Near­ly 15 years af­ter 70-year-old Joan Webb was killed in a col­li­sion in­volv­ing a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle, the of­fi­cer who was dri­ving, Bri­an McKen­na, has been con­vict­ed of caus­ing death by dan­ger­ous dri­ving.

A new ex­emp­tion clause in the Gov­ern­ment’s Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026 will al­low peo­ple over 18 but un­der 21 to han­dle, sell, sup­ply or be in pos­ses­sion of al­co­hol and to­bac­co prod­ucts dur­ing their law­ful em­ploy­ment.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment says it vot­ed against the Gov­ern­ment’s sweep­ing leg­is­la­tion rais­ing the le­gal ages for al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis and gam­bling be­cause it be­lieved a Bill with such far-reach­ing con­se­quences re­quired greater scruti­ny and pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion.

Se­nior Coun­sel Lee Mer­ry says the Gov­ern­ment’s new age re­stric­tions on al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis and gam­bling, as well as its manda­to­ry iden­ti­fi­ca­tion re­quire­ments, would not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly breach cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

When the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026 comes in­to ef­fect next year, there will be po­lice of­fi­cers who may not be able to drink a beer or smoke a cig­a­rette, yet car­ry a firearm.

Clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Ger­ard Bap­tiste is not par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned that re­mov­ing re­stric­tions on re­mote gam­bling will lead to a surge in gam­bling ad­dic­tion among young peo­ple.

San Fer­nan­do bar own­ers are warn­ing that pro­posed in­creas­es to the le­gal ages for al­co­hol con­sump­tion, gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use could af­fect sales. They al­so ques­tion the sever­i­ty of the penal­ties busi­ness­es could face for break­ing the new laws.

The date was an­nounced yes­ter­day in a brief state­ment from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and was al­so post­ed on Tan­coo's so­cial me­dia ac­counts.

Trinidad and To­ba­go risks so­cial up­heaval if eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion leaves large sec­tions of the pop­u­la­tion be­hind, econ­o­mist Dr Ralph Hen­ry has warned.

Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co may have passed, but the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty is in­sist­ing that the art form he helped shape, pop­u­larise and car­ry around the world will live on.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Mu­se­um closed its Pen­ny Bank venue to the pub­lic yes­ter­day, cit­ing dif­fi­cul­ties se­cur­ing Gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate sup­port.