Pe­nal busi­ness­man Michael Ale­jan­dro Es­pana Ram­nath has been re­leased by his cap­tors af­ter a ran­som was paid, po­lice con­firmed.

The Elec­tion Sta­tis­tics slate has won all six elect­ed seats on the Phar­ma­cy Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go coun­cil, in the Feb­ru­ary 22 elec­tion at the Pro­fes­sion­al Cen­tre, Wood­brook.

Pe­nal busi­ness­man Michael Ale­jan­dro Es­pana Ram­nath has been re­leased by his cap­tors af­ter a ran­som was paid, po­lice con­firmed.

Shem Wayne Alexan­der, a 36-year-old na­tion­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go who was ex­tra­dit­ed from Ja­maica, has been sen­tenced to four years and nine months in a Unit­ed States fed­er­al prison for con­spir­ing to smug­gle more than 200 firearms from the U.S. to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John said the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny sailed for To­ba­go last night, car­ry­ing all car­go that ar­rived at the Port of Port of Spain.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­vealed that the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment has re­quest­ed a pri­vate meet­ing be­tween US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio and her to­mor­row in St Kitts and Nevis, ahead of the start of Cari­com’s ple­nary ses­sion in the af­ter­noon pe­ri­od.

The spot­light will be on US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, who is the spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guest for Cari­com’s 50th con­fer­ence in St Kitts and will ad­dress to­mor­row’s Open­ing Ple­nary ses­sion of re­gion­al lead­ers seek­ing to ad­vance shared pri­or­i­ties - in­clud­ing “deep­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion to com­bat il­lic­it traf­fick­ing, and pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic growth, health, and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty across the Caribbean.”

For­mer T&T prime min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer Ja­maican prime min­is­ter PJ Pat­ter­son have re­buked T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s clap­back at their re­cent con­cerns about the ex­pand­ed US em­bar­go against Cu­ba, point­ing out that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pre­vi­ous Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment had sup­port­ed an end to the em­bar­go.

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John yes­ter­day as­sured the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty that there is no need to pan­ic over the in­ter-is­land fer­ry ser­vice.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is yes­ter­day ques­tioned whether Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine would get any new in­for­ma­tion on the is­sue of au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go dur­ing his vis­it to St Kitts and Nevis with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Point Fortin May­or Clyde James has dis­missed re­ports that some of the biggest Bor­ough Day events have been scrapped, as­sur­ing res­i­dents and vis­i­tors that the cel­e­bra­tions are still on and will roll out as planned.

For­mer Health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is fac­ing se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence fol­low­ing claims that he pres­sured the state pro­cure­ment agency, the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NIPDEC), to give pref­er­en­tial pay­ment to a ma­jor phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny.