Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s use of emer­gency pow­ers, in­sist­ing that re­stric­tions im­posed un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE), in­clud­ing the con­tro­ver­sial 500-me­tre no-protest zones, are law­ful, con­sti­tu­tion­al and nec­es­sary to pro­tect na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The State of Emer­gency (SoE) has been ex­tend­ed un­til Sep­tem­ber af­ter the Gov­ern­ment se­cured a ma­jor­i­ty vote in Par­lia­ment short­ly af­ter mid­night on Thurs­day.

The Min­istry of Health has ad­vised Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als to avoid trav­el­ling to three African coun­tries af­fect­ed by an out­break of Ebo­la Bundibu­gyo virus dis­ease and warned that re­turn­ing trav­ellers from those coun­tries will face en­hanced health screen­ing and mon­i­tor­ing mea­sures.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has be­gun its probe in­to the po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing of a Par­latu­vi­er man dur­ing har­vest cel­e­bra­tions in To­ba­go on Mon­day.

The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion has be­gun in­stalling a re­versible lane con­trol sys­tem along the East­ern Main Road be­tween St. Joseph and Mt. Lam­bert as part of ef­forts to im­prove traf­fic flow and re­duce con­ges­tion along the busy cor­ri­dor.

Head of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Sylvester Williams says the di­vi­sion has record­ed a re­duc­tion in sev­er­al cat­e­gories of crime this year, al­though kid­nap­pings, break-ins and fraud have in­creased.

A 26-year-old Pa­lo Seco man is ex­pect­ed to be charged with the mur­der of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne.

Thir­ty-one as­pir­ing ac­tors show­cased their tal­ents and new­ly ac­quired skills dur­ing Cin­don Pro­duc­tions’ re­cent Learn to Act grad­u­a­tion show­case at Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do.

Po­lice say in­mates who shared a cell with mur­der ac­cused Christo­pher Ban­field, who was beat­en to death at the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, have not yet been in­ter­viewed as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent con­tin­ue.

WASA Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Dain Ma­haraj has con­demned what he de­scribed as a sec­ond brazen at­tack on the Au­thor­i­ty’s in­fra­struc­ture in less than 24 hours, fol­low­ing the theft of elec­tri­cal wiring at the Tabaquite Boost­er Sta­tion.

The na­tion is reel­ing from the trag­ic death of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, spark­ing grief and out­rage across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

A 23-year-old man from Princes Town has been re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore the court last Fri­day on charges re­lat­ed to a vi­o­lent home in­va­sion.