Rel­a­tives of Michael Ale­jan­dro Es­pana Ram­nath, who was ab­duct­ed while re­turn­ing to his home in Pe­nal on Tues­day night, had not heard from his cap­tors up to last evening, po­lice said.

With Car­ni­val days away, the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) has is­sued an un­usu­al pub­lic state­ment dis­tanc­ing it­self from pol­i­tics and re­ject­ing claims that Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta is be­ing used as a po­lit­i­cal plat­form.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day as­sured that since her ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sumed of­fice in April last year, no pub­lic ser­vants have been dis­missed.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says a barge has been se­cured to move car­go to To­ba­go as an in­ter­im mea­sure while re­pair work on the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny con­tin­ues.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice is be­gin­ning to fill the equip­ment gap with the ar­rival in the coun­try of six new fire trucks, al­though some re­sources re­main stretched across the coun­try.

The gov­ern­ment is set to spend just over $5 mil­lion on short-term con­tract­ed work­ers un­der the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces Pro­gramme, as prepa­ra­tions for Car­ni­val 2026 in­ten­si­fy, with pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of both new and ex­ist­ing mu­nic­i­pal work­ers now un­der close scruti­ny.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der an­nounced that 7,324 mi­grant chil­dren have been reg­is­tered in Trinidad and To­ba­go as part of the on­go­ing mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion pro­gramme.

Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste is urg­ing mi­grants and work­ers to re­port cas­es of work­place ex­ploita­tion, af­ter a reg­is­tered Venezue­lan mi­grant, Suyin Escalona Salazar, al­leged she was dis­missed and de­nied wages fol­low­ing three months of work at a Gulf City restau­rant.

Par­ents of Rio Claro East Sec­ondary School stu­dents staged a protest out­side the school yes­ter­day, vow­ing they will not rest un­til the per­son re­spon­si­ble for a se­ries of vi­o­lent on­line threats is ar­rest­ed.

Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field says that while dis­tract­ed dri­ving re­mains a con­cern, re­duc­ing speed lim­its should take prece­dence over in­tro­duc­ing new reg­u­la­tions on mo­bile and wind­screen-mount­ed de­vices.

With just ten days un­til mas­quer­aders take the streets, San Fer­nan­do stake­hold­ers be­lieve there is still time for ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to re­store com­pe­ti­tion and strength­en Car­ni­val in San Fer­nan­do, even as the city grap­ples with the ef­fects of a re­duced sub­ven­tion.

A Mt Lam­bert cou­ple who op­er­ate a mi­ni-mart from their home have been charged with mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing, af­ter al­le­ga­tions they were sell­ing drugs to school­child­ren.