Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she was grate­ful that no one was hurt dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar fire at the ca­ble yard of the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vice of T&T (TSTT) in Laven­tille, say­ing the “reck­less” act was car­ried out by a few gang mem­bers.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ac­count for its man­age­ment of the scrap iron in­dus­try, fol­low­ing the sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack at the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT) com­pound in Laven­tille over the week­end.

Af­ter spend­ing al­most a day and a half (some 33 hours) with­out elec­tric­i­ty, sev­er­al Beetham Gar­dens, Laven­tille, res­i­dents say they are grate­ful pow­er has been re­stored, as they re­called the dif­fi­cul­ties of do­ing their dai­ly rou­tine with­out ac­cess to ap­pli­ances and the loss of hun­dreds of dol­lars in food items.

Dr Shane Mo­hammed has be­come the lat­est mem­ber to quit the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) board in a fall­out over Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship of this year’s event, af­ter sev­er­al state en­ti­ties with­drew their sup­port. He is al­so ac­cus­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion of al­low­ing an un­true claim that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar cut fund­ing for Di­vali Na­gar 2026 to go un­cor­rect­ed.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tors Faris Al-Rawi and Fos­ter Cum­mings are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to re­think its non-sup­port of this year’s Di­vali Na­gar, while chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les is ques­tion­ing the sud­den with­draw­al of state spon­sor­ship, warn­ing that the de­ci­sion could cre­ate the per­cep­tion of po­lit­i­cal re­tal­i­a­tion against cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions.

Ram­leela groups across Trinidad and To­ba­go are be­gin­ning to ben­e­fit from spon­sor­ship of more than $40,000 each from bmo­bile, as the Gov­ern­ment moves to in­crease sup­port for com­mu­ni­ty-based cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

To­ba­go has se­cured a di­rect air link with Toron­to, with Caribbean Air­lines’ in­au­gur­al flight touch­ing down at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Sun­day night as the is­land seeks to ex­pand its Cana­di­an tourism mar­ket.

Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) has added 1,000 more seats on the do­mes­tic air­bridge as it ramps up ca­pac­i­ty for this week­end’s To­ba­go Car­ni­val.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused for­mer re­gion­al lead­ers of hypocrisy, telling them to stop sup­port­ing a po­lit­i­cal sys­tem abroad that they would not want im­posed in their own coun­tries.

The Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU) has re­ject­ed claims that an agree­ment was reached to pay Port-of-Spain port work­ers’ out­stand­ing back­pay over five years.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) is call­ing for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mass res­ig­na­tion of the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) board, warn­ing that pro­longed lead­er­ship un­cer­tain­ty could un­der­mine health­care de­liv­ery, work­ers’ rights and pub­lic con­fi­dence.

The Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to trans­form the coun­try’s per­sis­tent sar­gas­sum sea­weed prob­lem in­to a po­ten­tial­ly lu­cra­tive in­dus­try, with Cab­i­net ap­prov­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a com­mer­cial arm to at­tract pri­vate in­vest­ment and de­vel­op prod­ucts for in­ter­na­tion­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and cos­met­ics mar­kets.