De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge has as­sured that there is no cause for pan­ic, even as of­fi­cers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) main­tained a vis­i­ble pres­ence out­side the US Em­bassy on Queen’s Park West up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

With just days to go be­fore To­ba­go Car­ni­val, hun­dreds of mas­quer­aders are at risk of los­ing thou­sands of dol­lars in cos­tume de­posits be­cause they are un­able to se­cure flights to the is­land.

For­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of ne­glect­ing the na­tion’s youth and ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor in its 2026 na­tion­al bud­get, warn­ing that progress made over the past decade is be­ing re­versed.

To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son has strong­ly de­fend­ed the 2026 na­tion­al Bud­get, de­scrib­ing it as a fair and bal­anced fi­nan­cial plan that will dri­ve de­vel­op­ment acrossT&T. He al­so hailed it as one of the strongest bud­gets ever pre­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les-Robin­son mis­be­haved twice in Par­lia­ment last week, lead­ing to what he de­scribed as the col­lapse of the Op­po­si­tion’s re­sponse to the 2026 Bud­get de­bate.

Be­tween 2009 and 2023, more than $6.5 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), pro­vid­ing thou­sands of low-in­come fam­i­lies with an al­ter­na­tive source of in­come.

The T&T Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day re­it­er­at­ed why it is stand­ing apart from its Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) neigh­bours by de­clin­ing to sup­port a re­gion­al po­si­tion on key se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty is­sues, in­clud­ing the grow­ing US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion.

Fish­er­men op­er­at­ing at the Port-of-Spain Whole­sale Fish Mar­ket are ques­tion­ing the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Nmde­v­co) over new lock­er fees.

It’s an aus­pi­cious time for Hin­dus across T&T, a cel­e­bra­tion of light tri­umph­ing over dark­ness. While the glow of Di­vali may have dimmed in some ar­eas, the Gan­garam fam­i­ly of Debe con­tin­ues to keep the flames of tra­di­tion burn­ing bright.

More than 11,000 peo­ple ap­plied on­line on the first day of the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve 2025, Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John con­firmed.

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has called on cit­i­zens to work to­geth­er to build a na­tion ground­ed in fair­ness, jus­tice, and op­por­tu­ni­ty, em­pha­sis­ing that no home should be left in dark­ness this Di­vali or in the days ahead. She urged com­mu­ni­ties to strength­en bonds of uni­ty and to act as bea­cons of progress for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Act­ing Pres­i­dent Wade Mark has ex­tend­ed warm greet­ings to the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty in T&T and around the world as they cel­e­brate Di­vali 2025, em­pha­siz­ing the fes­ti­val’s en­dur­ing mes­sage of light, re­silience, and uni­ty.