Cul­tur­al groups in Fe­lic­i­ty have wel­comed bmo­bile’s de­ci­sion to redi­rect fund­ing to­wards com­mu­ni­ty Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, as the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) faces a $500,000 spon­sor­ship short­fall for this year’s Di­vali Na­gar.

There is still no con­crete open­ing date for UWI’s Pe­nal/Debe cam­pus, but Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Min­is­ter Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad says prepa­ra­tions are well un­der­way for a full launch of­fer­ing pre-uni­ver­si­ty, un­der­grad­u­ate and post­grad­u­ate pro­grammes.

Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe is cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing $10,000 a month as the Gov­ern­ment awaits a de­ter­mi­na­tion from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) on his re­mu­ner­a­tion for the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man po­si­tion.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath is in­sist­ing that all ap­proved school sup­plies and book grants have been paid, de­spite com­plaints from ap­pli­cants who re­ceived ap­proval no­tices but are still await­ing their mon­ey.

Adam’s Bagels says it is tak­ing im­me­di­ate steps to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty at its Sad­dle Road, Mar­aval, premis­es af­ter a woman was beat­en and robbed in the car park.

Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank is warn­ing that cli­mate change is no longer sim­ply an en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cern but a grow­ing threat to eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty that pol­i­cy­mak­ers and reg­u­la­tors must pre­pare for now.

Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen has cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing fol­low­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of a search war­rant by the po­lice at his Gulf View, San Fer­nan­do, res­i­dence on Mon­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie have de­clined to com­ment on the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of re­sort­ing to po­lit­i­cal in­sults and per­son­al at­tacks in­stead of ad­dress­ing what she de­scribes as Trinidad and To­ba­go's wors­en­ing eco­nom­ic cri­sis.

The Ju­di­cia­ry and the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers are urg­ing re­spect for due process and the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence as Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen re­mains un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for cor­rup­tion.

Mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion, in­clud­ing leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, say they are wait­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen to pro­ceed with­out mak­ing any pub­lic com­ments to en­sure the mat­ter can con­tin­ue with­out in­ter­fer­ence or hin­drance.

One day af­ter threat­en­ing to fire “lazy” pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has vowed to up­root what she de­scribes as a “swine cul­ture” en­trenched in Trinidad and To­ba­go by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).