Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s claims of cor­rup­tion with­in the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion—in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions that for­eign­ers paid up to $50,000 for work per­mits and as much as $250,000 for cit­i­zen­ship doc­u­ments—have trig­gered fresh po­lit­i­cal back­lash, with for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­mand­ing why no ar­rests or charges have fol­lowed if au­thor­i­ties tru­ly pos­sess ev­i­dence of a large-scale rack­et.

Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj says pris­on­ers will be re­quired to suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete manda­to­ry re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes be­fore they can seek ear­ly re­lease on pa­role.

The Board of Man­age­ment of Holy Name Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, has an­nounced an in­de­pen­dent re­view process fol­low­ing re­cent pub­lic con­cerns and ex­pe­ri­ences shared in re­la­tion to al­le­ga­tions against prin­ci­pal Sis­ter Re­nee Hall.

Weeks af­ter re­ports of miss­ing equip­ment raised con­cerns about se­cu­ri­ty laps­es at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, May­or Robert Par­ris now says at least one key piece of equip­ment was nev­er miss­ing, while an­oth­er was sim­ply mis­placed.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­pares for a more tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven and en­er­gy-con­scious fu­ture, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) has launched its SPARK Ini­tia­tive—School Part­ner­ship for Aware­ness, Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty & Knowl­edge—aimed at ex­pos­ing sec­ondary school stu­dents to mod­ern elec­tric­i­ty sys­tems and emerg­ing ca­reers in the en­er­gy sec­tor as part of its 80th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions.

Fif­teen mem­bers of the Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) have filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion against the State over the al­leged fail­ure to pay them a month­ly spe­cial du­ty al­lowance for vary­ing pe­ri­ods.

The Court of Ap­peal has dis­missed an ap­peal brought by home­own­ers Leslie Ann Rahim-Pe­ters and Lar­ry Pe­ters against the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, up­hold­ing a High Court rul­ing that re­ject­ed their neg­li­gence claim for struc­tur­al dam­age to their home.

The Court of Ap­peal has thrown out a le­gal chal­lenge by for­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment of­fi­cer Tim­o­thy Mal­oney, rul­ing against his claim that the De­fence Force un­fair­ly blocked his pro­mo­tion be­fore re­tire­ment.

Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen is de­fend­ing the state-owned com­pa­ny’s de­ci­sion to end its 21-year re­la­tion­ship with in­ter­na­tion­al rat­ings agency Moody’s, in­sist­ing the move does not re­flect any re­treat from trans­paren­cy or in­de­pen­dent scruti­ny.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor and econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs says she is hope­ful lin­ger­ing ques­tions sur­round­ing the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (NGC) de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue its re­la­tion­ship with Moody’s In­vestors Ser­vice will be ad­dressed dur­ing the up­com­ing mid-year bud­get re­view.

Venezue­lan par­lia­men­tar­i­an Án­gel Tor­tolero is de­fend­ing his coun­try’s lat­est move seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for an oil spill that orig­i­nat­ed in T&T two weeks ago.

Diego Mar­tin May­or Ake­li­ah Glas­gow-Warn­er is rais­ing con­cerns over se­vere traf­fic dis­rup­tion and in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing caused by a large-scale med­ical out­reach ini­tia­tive in Co­corite.