Sev­er­al res­i­dents in south­west­ern Trinidad were left count­ing their loss­es yes­ter­day, af­ter a thun­der­storm as­so­ci­at­ed with an ap­proach­ing trop­i­cal wave dam­aged their homes, with some roofs al­most com­plete­ly ripped off.

For­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has crit­i­cised a Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) ini­tia­tive to have em­ploy­ees wear com­mem­o­ra­tive yel­low po­lo shirts on Fri­day (Au­gust 28), claim­ing the move in­ter­feres with the tra­di­tion of staff wear­ing the na­tion­al colours ahead of In­de­pen­dence Day on Au­gust 31.

Thir­teen years af­ter mi­grat­ing from In­dia to Trinidad and To­ba­go to work as doc­tors, Dr Milind Ku­mar and his wife, Dr Roshan Joseph, are cel­e­brat­ing their youngest daugh­ter’s aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s lead­er­ship yes­ter­day con­tin­ued its res­o­lu­tion process con­cern­ing is­sues in San Fer­nan­do East by meet­ing with sev­er­al con­stituen­cy units, in­clud­ing MP Bri­an Man­ning.

Amid deep­en­ing in­ter­nal tur­moil with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), for­mer sen­a­tor Joel Primus has re­signed from the par­ty af­ter more than 25 years, say­ing it has drift­ed away from the val­ues of in­ter­ra­cial har­mo­ny, sol­i­dar­i­ty, uni­ty and ser­vice to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that ini­tial­ly at­tract­ed him to the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The Gov­ern­ment be­lieves the po­lice should get in­volved fol­low­ing cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions made by San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning against mem­bers of his own Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), ar­gu­ing that the claims should not be over­shad­owed by the par­ty’s deep­en­ing in­ter­nal tur­moil.

The pres­sure is mount­ing on San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning fol­low­ing his pub­lic clash with his own par­ty, with an­oth­er arm of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) now crit­i­cis­ing his de­ci­sion to take the dis­pute in­to the pub­lic do­main.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day dodged ques­tions on key is­sues, in­clud­ing the on­go­ing pub­lic spat with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has been giv­en un­til Sep­tem­ber 9 to reach an am­i­ca­ble set­tle­ment over the trag­ic death of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie at Pi­geon Point beach on April 8.

Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep) work­ers in To­ba­go are call­ing for greater com­pen­sa­tion as they tran­si­tion from beau­ti­fy­ing parks to agri­cul­tur­al work.

Ven­dors at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah are large­ly un­con­cerned about the re­lo­ca­tion of this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade, say­ing they do not typ­i­cal­ly ben­e­fit from the crowds at­tend­ing the an­nu­al mil­i­tary dis­play.

Caribbean Air­lines is dis­con­tin­u­ing its di­rect Trinidad/To­ba­go-Bar­ba­dos re­turn ser­vice from Sep­tem­ber 2 as part of an on­go­ing re­view of its re­gion­al flight sched­ule.