Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Kristi Noem on Thurs­day linked the seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela to the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s coun­ter­drug ef­forts in Latin Amer­i­ca as ten­sions es­ca­late with the gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has re­port­ed its first ma­jor suc­cess us­ing its new­ly in­stalled radar sys­tem, re­cov­er­ing more than $171 mil­lion in mar­i­jua­na dur­ing an op­er­a­tion in the Ca­roni Swamp.

The U.S. Em­bassy in Port of Spain, in part­ner­ship with Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand, has do­nat­ed com­put­ers and ed­u­ca­tion­al equip­ment to Wa­ter­loo Sec­ondary School as part of the Hu­man­i­tar­i­an As­sis­tance Pro­gram.

One man was ar­rest­ed, a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion were seized, and sev­er­al fixed penal­ty no­tices were is­sued dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Fes­tive Shield ex­er­cis­es in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion be­tween Tues­day night and Wednes­day.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris called on cit­i­zens not to for­get un­em­ployed res­i­dents as the city marked the start of the Christ­mas sea­son with the light­ing of a 46-foot tree fit­ted with 30,000 LED lights on Wednes­day night.

Two ma­jor in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions were ex­e­cut­ed by units in the South­ern and South-West­ern Di­vi­sions on Tues­day and Wednes­day. The ex­er­cis­es tar­get­ed pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers, il­le­gal firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, and nar­cotics and were con­duct­ed in line with TTPS poli­cies and the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2025.

The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion has launched the Traf­fic War­den Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route Com­pli­ance Unit to strength­en en­force­ment and im­prove traf­fic man­age­ment along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go is urg­ing par­ents and guardians to main­tain the safe­ty prac­tices that pro­tect­ed chil­dren dur­ing the school term as the Christ­mas and New Year hol­i­days ap­proach.

Op­po­si­tion Leader and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has paid trib­ute to Fer­die Fer­reira, de­scrib­ing his pass­ing as a “pro­found loss” for Trinidad and To­ba­go and the PNM.

Sources say no mo­tion was brought to re­strict for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment chair­man Stu­art Young from speak­ing with­out the bless­ing of par­ty lead­er­ship, de­spite ru­mours cir­cu­lat­ing be­fore the par­ty’s gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing on Wednes­day.

As ten­sions be­tween the US and Venezuela con­tin­ue to rise, Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo is ac­cus­ing both T&T and Guayana of al­low­ing them­selves to be used by the Amer­i­cans to launch an at­tack against Venezuela.

Fer­reira, re­gard­ed as one of the par­ty’s most en­dur­ing voic­es and a well-known po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor, was re­mem­bered to­day by Port of Spain North, St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young, who de­scribed him as “a PNM gi­ant and a pa­tri­ot”.