Re­gion­al lead­ers di­rect­ly con­front­ed what they de­scribed as the per­cep­tion of a grow­ing “frac­ture” with­in the re­gion­al bloc dur­ing yes­ter­day’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com.

Some par­lia­men­tar­i­ans be­lieve Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pri­vate meet­ing to­day with Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio is a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment for this coun­try.

An ocelot is fight­ing for sur­vival af­ter be­ing shot and left with se­vere spinal in­juries, in what of­fi­cials are de­scrib­ing as a se­ri­ous breach of the coun­try’s en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion laws.

Mo­torists will ben­e­fit from a new grace pe­ri­od start­ing Mon­day be­fore fac­ing fines for mi­nor ve­hi­cle de­fects, Trans­port and Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our has con­firmed.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has as­sured the pub­lic that the Gov­ern­ment has no plans to re­strict cit­i­zens from shar­ing video footage of po­lice-in­volved in­ci­dents.

The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion has warned that its mem­bers may have to re­con­sid­er their sta­tus as an es­sen­tial ser­vice, in­clud­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of strike ac­tion, as mount­ing health, safe­ty, and fi­nan­cial is­sues con­tin­ue to af­fect the ser­vice.

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John has clar­i­fied that any cur­rent short­age of goods in To­ba­go is un­re­lat­ed to the MV Blue Har­mo­ny, which is sched­uled to be­gin its maid­en com­mer­cial voy­age in four days.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi has re­ject­ed claims by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der that the re­cent spike in mur­ders could have been avoid­ed had the Op­po­si­tion sup­port­ed the pro­posed Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion.

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

The moth­er of a 30-year-old North Man­zanil­la man shot and killed by po­lice has re­ject­ed the of­fi­cial ac­count of his death, claim­ing he was tar­get­ed at his home and was al­ready dead be­fore be­ing tak­en to hos­pi­tal.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has ac­knowl­edged con­cerns raised by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), say­ing a for­mal re­sponse ad­dress­ing the time­line for im­ple­ment­ing teach­ers’ new salaries has al­ready been draft­ed, signed and will be de­liv­ered in due course.

Just over a month af­ter the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said it was work­ing on re­sum­ing the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP) for its staff, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) says work­ers are frus­trat­ed as no fur­ther up­date has been pro­vid­ed.