Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day has called for ur­gent ac­tion over con­di­tions at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) at Mt Hope, de­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion as a health­care sys­tem “in deep cri­sis”.

U.S. au­thor­i­ties charged for­mer Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro with con­spir­ing to tor­ture his fel­low cit­i­zens in or­der to main­tain his hold on pow­er. The new in­dict­ment, un­sealed Thurs­day, adds pres­sure on the oust­ed au­thor­i­tar­i­an leader al­ready fight­ing drug traf­fick­ing of­fens­es.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is con­tin­u­ing ef­forts to re­solve the dis­coloured wa­ter af­fect­ing con­sumers in parts of north, cen­tral and south Trinidad, as­sur­ing the is­sue is tem­po­rary.

Res­i­dents of St James say they have been forced to cope with brown and, in some cas­es, al­most black wa­ter flow­ing from their taps since the week­end, dis­rupt­ing dai­ly life and rais­ing con­cerns about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the heads of spe­cial op­er­a­tions across the coun­try’s sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts will be put in place “soon,” as she warned crim­i­nals to leave ar­eas where the new mea­sures will be im­ple­ment­ed.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) al­ready knows which ar­eas will re­ceive greater at­ten­tion un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, but he is not pre­pared to dis­close where those op­er­a­tions will be fo­cused.

Al­though the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act is now in force, the Op­po­si­tion re­mains un­con­vinced that the Gov­ern­ment has a plan to tack­le crime.

Neisha Ramkissoon, who spent six months in de­ten­tion with­out be­ing charged dur­ing last year’s State of Emer­gency (SoE), is con­cerned that the new Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion could cre­ate an­oth­er av­enue for peo­ple to be held with­out charge.

To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son has ac­cused the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) of be­ing “in ca­hoots” with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), point­ing to con­tro­ver­sial changes to To­ba­go’s elec­toral bound­aries over the years as the ba­sis for his claim.

The Op­po­si­tion has called for the ur­gent con­ven­ing of Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Or­ders Com­mit­tee, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of re­duc­ing Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions to “a par­lia­men­tary cha­rade” by cur­tail­ing Op­po­si­tion ques­tions and block­ing sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions.

Af­ter weeks of pub­lic dis­agree­ment over par­ty pro­ce­dures, San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning says there is no love lost be­tween him and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

Two broth­ers who lost their fa­ther, their home and al­most a year of school­ing are back in the class­room this week, af­ter good Samar­i­tans and two gov­ern­ment min­is­ters gave them a chance to get their ed­u­ca­tion back on track.