The cou­ple de­tained in con­nec­tion with the death of 25-year-old Shayana Ruiz last Wednes­day have been charged with mur­der.

Three Trinidad and To­ba­go women, whose work has shaped hu­man rights, pub­lic health and ma­rine sci­ence, will be ho­n­oured by the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum of Trinidad and To­ba­go (IWFTT) at its fifth In­spi­ra­tional Women Awards Gala next month.

While the Gov­ern­ment has re­vealed its hand on a pro­posed law re­quir­ing cit­i­zens aged 16 and over to car­ry valid iden­ti­fi­ca­tion in pub­lic, it is keep­ing its cards close to its chest on the de­tails.

Hun­dreds of acres of for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Ltd sug­ar­cane lands stretch­ing from St Madeleine to Pic­ton are be­ing cleared, prompt­ing res­i­dents and farm­ers to spec­u­late that the area could be ear­marked for hous­ing, agri­cul­ture or the pro­posed Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) Da­ta Cen­tre.

For­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is con­tin­ues to dis­miss Gov­ern­ment claims that the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion al­lowed Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) com­mu­ni­ties to de­te­ri­o­rate, in­sist­ing rou­tine main­te­nance was car­ried out while she held of­fice.

Near­ly 9,500 peo­ple have ap­plied to join the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), with thou­sands turn­ing up at the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James yes­ter­day for the first phase of the re­cruit­ment process.

That was the as­sur­ance from Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen yes­ter­day as she an­nounced that the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion will re­main at MTS Plaza while ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ue on a new lease agree­ment.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty could come back to haunt it at the polls, ar­gu­ing that thou­sands of job loss­es and un­ful­filled promis­es are erod­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has urged politi­cians in Trinidad to show greater re­straint and ma­tu­ri­ty amid es­ca­lat­ing racial ten­sions. 

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen has as­sured Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS) work­ers that their out­stand­ing salaries will be paid soon.

The Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) has in­struct­ed its at­tor­neys to is­sue a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter against the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS), seek­ing to re­cov­er more than $82,000 in mem­ber­ship dues it claims were de­duct­ed from of­fi­cers’ salaries but nev­er re­mit­ted.

Mur­dered po­lice of­fi­cer PC Rom­mel Dou­glas was giv­en a mil­i­tary send-off yes­ter­day at the Mor­vant Cen­tral Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, where his fi­nal farewell was at­tend­ed by close friends, fam­i­ly mem­bers and col­leagues.