Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ny Beck­les says she will seek the post of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal leader when the par­ty holds its elec­tion con­ven­tion on June 29 - and all speak­ers at the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil last night sup­port­ed that po­si­tion.

For­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les yes­ter­day slammed his suc­ces­sor, Bar­ry Padarath, over the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to scrap the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion’s Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) trans­for­ma­tion plan.

This was the ad­vice from the T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) yes­ter­day, as it is­sued a Yel­low Lev­el Ad­verse Weath­er Alert for T&T, which comes in­to ef­fect at 6 pm to­day un­til 6 pm to­mor­row.

Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon, has or­dered an au­dit in­to all po­lice uni­forms, ve­hi­cles and com­put­ers be­long­ing to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

The Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed to “re­strain” Vy­bz Kar­tel from per­form­ing some songs deemed to be vul­gar when he vis­its this coun­try lat­er this month for a con­cert. It is al­so con­sid­er­ing in­sti­tut­ing an age lim­it for those at­tend­ing the event. The de­ci­sion comes as the Ja­maican dance­hall artiste, re­al name, Adid­ja Palmer, said he had no is­sue with the re­stric­tions be­ing im­posed on him in T&T.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist and for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) Prof Ramesh De­osaran says the Gov­ern­ment has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make clear its stance on the re­sump­tion of the death penal­ty.

T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin is con­cerned that the re-in­tro­duc­tion of the lap­top pro­gramme by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment could lead to mis­use and what he called aca­d­e­m­ic dis­hon­esty.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo be­lieves the Prime Min­is­ter has been pel­lu­cid on Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on prop­er­ty tax re­funds for those who have al­ready paid.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen says she is in­tro­duc­ing a sig­nif­i­cant change in the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy re­gard­ing dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and shel­ter alerts.

Com­ing off a dead­ly year of dengue fever out­breaks, Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has as­sured the pub­lic that all chem­i­cals, equip­ment and ma­chin­ery re­quired for mos­qui­to erad­i­ca­tion are avail­able.

A Car­ni­val con­sul­ta­tion in Scar­bor­ough on Thurs­day night brought a clear mes­sage that To­ba­go’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val needs bet­ter plan­ning, stronger poli­cies, and ear­li­er ex­e­cu­tion.

The car parts pro­pri­etor was iden­ti­fied as Mario Maraj, 37, of Rod­ney Road, Or­ange­field Road, Cara­pichaima, while the sec­ond de­ceased, be­lieved to be one of the sus­pects, re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to yes­ter­day.