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.

Of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­cov­ered two stolen ve­hi­cles dur­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in the San­gre Grande Dis­trict last Fri­day.

AM­CHAM T&T Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Ni­rad Tewarie has en­gaged in high-lev­el dis­cus­sions with Un­der Sec­re­tary for Trade and For­eign Agri­cul­tur­al Af­fairs at the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Agri­cul­ture (US­DA), Luke Lind­berg, on the is­sue of tar­iffs im­posed on petro­chem­i­cal ex­ports from Trinidad and To­ba­go to the Unit­ed States.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has ad­dressed crit­i­cism sur­round­ing the polic­ing of protests dur­ing the SOE, re­ject­ing claims that of­fi­cers have treat­ed some demon­stra­tions dif­fer­ent­ly from oth­ers.

Two men have died and three oth­ers were in­jured fol­low­ing a shoot­ing in Mal­ick on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says any de­ci­sion on whether to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency (SOE) rests with the Gov­ern­ment, as he de­fend­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s han­dling of crime, protests and pub­lic se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.