Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dis­missed pub­lic con­cerns that State se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies are mon­i­tor­ing cit­i­zens’ pri­vate phone con­ver­sa­tions, say­ing the on­ly peo­ple wor­ried about sur­veil­lance are crim­i­nals and those “suf­fer­ing from de­range­ment and para­noia.”

High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed has dis­closed her rea­sons for grant­i­ng a Pre­lim­i­nary Un­ex­plained Wealth Or­der (PU­WO) against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), for it to re­veal the fi­nanc­ing for the ren­o­va­tion and con­struc­tion of its Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain.

“Promis­es were made and promis­es are be­ing bro­ken - please eman­ci­pate these chil­dren and women and bring them home."

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has praised the in­au­gur­al Miss Afro Trinidad and To­ba­go Pageant as a fit­ting cel­e­bra­tion of African her­itage, re­mem­brance and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, com­mend­ing Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin for in­tro­duc­ing what she be­lieves can be­come a last­ing fix­ture on the coun­try’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion cal­en­dar.

A tas­sa per­for­mance and clas­si­cal In­di­an Dance dur­ing an African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tion host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) has sparked de­bate on so­cial me­dia, with some peo­ple ques­tion­ing whether it was ap­pro­pri­ate for an event com­mem­o­rat­ing the eman­ci­pa­tion of en­slaved Africans.

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young yes­ter­day quot­ed the late Bob Mar­ley in ex­tend­ing African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day greet­ings.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks the 188th an­niver­sary of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les are urg­ing cit­i­zens to ho­n­our the sac­ri­fices and re­silience of en­slaved Africans while pro­tect­ing free­doms, pur­su­ing jus­tice and con­tin­u­ing the work of build­ing a so­ci­ety root­ed in equal­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

It has now been 12 weeks since the Gov­ern­ment last held a post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing, with the most re­cent ses­sion tak­ing place on May 7, leav­ing near­ly three months with­out min­is­ters fac­ing ques­tions from jour­nal­ists on de­ci­sions tak­en at Cab­i­net ses­sions.

The San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SLRC) says it will not va­cate its Aranguez Main Road head­quar­ters de­spite a dead­line is­sued by the state-owned Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) for the Cor­po­ra­tion to leave the build­ing it has oc­cu­pied for more than 30 years.

The Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union (AWU) is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to make good on its mid-year bud­get re­view promise to in­crease their salaries and pay back­pay af­ter set­tling ne­go­ti­a­tions in 2022.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Camille Robin­son-Reg­is says she is ac­cept­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re­cent state­ment that she was "deeply hurt by racist re­marks" as an apol­o­gy to all Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans who, she says, were of­fend­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter's own past com­ments on race.

The In­dus­tri­al Court has dis­missed le­gal ac­tion tak­en by Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL) against the T&T Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) for al­leged­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ing a sick-out protest by pi­lots in 2023.