Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s soft­er ap­proach to­ward Venezuela’s Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez is be­ing viewed by an­a­lysts as an ef­fort to mend strained re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, with both sides po­ten­tial­ly ben­e­fit­ing from clos­er co­op­er­a­tion.

Some Venezue­lans liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go are hope­ful that stronger re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries will lead to im­prove­ments for mem­bers of the Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed that her moth­er-in-law and two grand­nephews are Venezue­lan.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety is ap­peal­ing for stronger cor­po­rate and donor sup­port, as it seeks to raise $2 mil­lion for a new am­bu­lance and $500,000 to stage its 71st Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val, while un­der­tak­ing a broad­er ef­fort to se­cure the fu­ture of the long-run­ning event.

Four men have been mur­dered in Mor­vant since Tues­day morn­ing, with the lat­est killing oc­cur­ring at around 5 am yes­ter­day.

On the same day the T&T Prison Ser­vice be­gan re­leas­ing de­tainees held un­der the State of Emer­gency, two men were killed in an al­leged shootout af­ter po­lice at­tempt­ed to de­tain them un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) yes­ter­day.

A 36-year-old man was shot and killed yes­ter­day, dur­ing an al­leged ex­change of gun­fire with mem­bers of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit (AEU) at a house in Cara­pichaima.

The Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion will pro­vide sup­port to a To­ba­go teenag­er re­cent­ly ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with his rel­a­tive’s death.

Stu­dents in­volved in school fights could face crim­i­nal charges if po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­cov­er suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence, In­spec­tor Kurt Cal­len­der has warned.

The Ju­di­cia­ry is seek­ing to close a le­gal loop­hole al­leged­ly be­ing used by some mo­torists to evade traf­fic tick­ets.

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) mem­bers are be­ing urged to ac­cept the Gov­ern­ment’s fi­nal wage of­fer, as econ­o­mists weigh the coun­try’s se­vere fi­nan­cial con­straints against the de­clin­ing val­ue of mon­ey owed to work­ers af­ter eight years of ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment will move to over­haul the coun­try’s out­dat­ed sys­tem for ap­prov­ing med­ica­tions, ques­tion­ing why drugs al­ready ap­proved by in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised reg­u­la­tors should face lengthy de­lays be­fore reach­ing pa­tients in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Op­po­si­tion MP and for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of us­ing her re­cent com­ments on stu­dent dis­ci­pline as a dis­trac­tion from fail­ures with­in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.