The Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) has wel­comed and sup­port­ed the pro­posed amend­ments to the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act (RS­BA), say­ing the changes ad­vance a long-stand­ing work­ers’ agen­da.

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front, Mick­ela Pan­day, has crit­i­cised com­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ahead of to­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion, de­scrib­ing the ap­proach as ar­ro­gant and dis­mis­sive of the State’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to cit­i­zens.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has launched a scathing at­tack on the En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­cus­ing it of serv­ing the in­ter­ests of for­eign multi­na­tion­als and nar­row spe­cial in­ter­ests while un­der­min­ing lo­cal con­trac­tors and State-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo is cur­rent­ly in New York this week for a bond show, as the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bor­row up to US$1 bil­lion on the in­ter­na­tion­al cap­i­tal mar­ket.

Com­mu­ni­ty se­cu­ri­ty stake­hold­ers are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment tar­get­ed po­lice op­er­a­tions, while en­sur­ing safe­guards against abuse of pow­er, as part of their plan to in­tro­duce Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) in the fight against crime.

A Chi­nese restau­rant and bar pro­pri­etor, known for his kind­ness and gen­eros­i­ty, was found bru­tal­ly mur­dered in his busi­ness in Ste Madeleine on Sun­day night, leav­ing the com­mu­ni­ty shocked and sad­dened.

Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don has praised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment for the re­cent in­crease in traf­fic fines, as well as the in­tro­duc­tion of age lim­its for al­co­hol us­age, mar­i­jua­na con­sump­tion and gam­bling.

The Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 leg­isla­tive agen­da in­cludes a pro­posed law to hold par­ents legal­ly ac­count­able for their chil­dren’s in­volve­ment in bul­ly­ing, vi­o­lence, and re­lat­ed mis­con­duct, es­pe­cial­ly in schools. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed last week, on pre­sent­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da in Par­lia­ment for 2026, that “it is part of the broad­er pol­i­cy of this Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress ris­ing con­cerns about school vi­o­lence, gang in­flu­ence, and the lack of ef­fec­tive de­ter­rents. Par­ents must be more en­gaged in their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour, es­pe­cial­ly when schools alone can­not man­age es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence. The threat of le­gal con­se­quences may push par­ents to in­ter­vene ear­li­er in cas­es of bul­ly­ing. Un­der this bill, par­ents could face fines or penal­ties if their child is re­peat­ed­ly in­volved in bul­ly­ing or vi­o­lent acts.”

Class­es con­tin­ued as nor­mal yes­ter­day at Rio Claro East Sec­ondary School, amid as­sur­ances from Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der that en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures were in place, fol­low­ing re­cent on­line threats against the in­sti­tu­tion and its of­fi­cials.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers is adamant that this coun­try played no role in the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion to cap­ture for­mer Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro.

In­ter­na­tion­al law ex­perts are ques­tion­ing the le­gal ad­vice and its in­ter­pre­ta­tion that led At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to con­clude that the re­cent US strikes on al­leged drug boats in the Caribbean did not vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al law.

There is still no of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion on whether the Prime Min­is­ter will at­tend next month’s Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis.