The an­nu­al Pride Pa­rade wound through the streets of St Clair and Wood­brookyes­d­ter­day, car­ry­ing a mes­sage of vis­i­bil­i­ty, in­clu­sion and re­mem­brance as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ty marked the close of Pride Month un­der the theme, “One Jour­ney, Many Sto­ries.”

PNM deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu and Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les have ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of “run­ning” from pub­lic crit­i­cism af­ter she was ab­sent from Sat­ur­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions.

Trinidad and To­ba­go-born US Staff Sergeant An­gel Ram­per­sad, who was killed in Jor­dan last month, was laid to rest on Fri­day fol­low­ing a fu­ner­al at­tend­ed by New York Gov­er­nor Kathy Hochul, New York City May­or Zohran Mam­dani, US Brigadier Gen­er­al Glen Henke and oth­er dig­ni­taries.

Con­cerns over bu­reau­crat­ic de­lays, an un­opened state fa­cil­i­ty and the slow de­liv­ery of pub­lic as­sis­tance to vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens were among the is­sues raised by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal leader and Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les dur­ing a thanks­giv­ing ser­vice mark­ing the 138th an­niver­sary of the roy­al char­tered bor­ough.