A heat­ed dis­pute es­ca­lat­ed in­to fa­tal gun­fire as 30-year-old Nichol­son Bowen, al­so known as “Bal­co”, was shot and killed near his home in Lendore Vil­lage on Fri­day evening.

Ju­nior Cleary, of LP 22 Dibe Road, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James, was found suf­fer­ing from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds around 10:50 pm on Benares Street. Re­spond­ing of­fi­cers from the St James Po­lice Sta­tion dis­cov­ered Cleary ly­ing on the pave­ment, gasp­ing for breath. He had a se­vere head wound, with blood flow­ing from his left tem­ple and nasal area.

What was meant to be a night of cel­e­bra­tion quick­ly turned in­to a ter­ri­fy­ing or­deal for three young men, who were am­bushed and shot at while at­tend­ing a house par­ty in Mal­oney on Fri­day night.

Al­most a month af­ter be­ing lured in­to an am­bush and doused with acid, 21-year-old hair­dress­er Jessie James says she still can­not find it in her heart to for­give the women who at­tacked her.

The Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), the coun­try’s top in­tel­li­gence unit, has been at the cen­tre of con­tro­ver­sy for months—ac­cused of plot­ting to over­throw the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, stock­pil­ing mil­i­tary-grade weapons, and hir­ing in­di­vid­u­als linked to a cult.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la San­jiv Bood­hu says he wants a so­ci­ety where elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives ad­vo­cate “from the trench­es, rather than from an ivory tow­er.” He was speak­ing dur­ing his cam­paign launch in San­gre Grande on Fri­day evening.

As the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate in T&T in­ten­si­fies ahead of the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith says his par­ty will present its can­di­dates with­in a week.

With elec­tion cam­paign­ing in­ten­si­fy­ing ahead of next month’s gen­er­al elec­tion, con­tro­ver­sy has erupt­ed over for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­ber Wendy Lewis, who claims she served as for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning’s per­son­al pro­to­col of­fi­cer.

Lisa Agard has re­signed from her po­si­tion as Chair­man of the North­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA). Con­firm­ing the news to Guardian Me­dia when asked when ex­act­ly she re­signed, Agard briefly said, “Oh, weeks now,” but de­clined to com­ment fur­ther on her fu­ture plans.

Leader of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der will take on Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young for the Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West seat.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s pro­pos­al for a new Min­istry of Ef­fi­cien­cy and Im­ple­men­ta­tion has sparked mixed re­ac­tions from po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts, with ques­tions be­ing asked about its nov­el­ty and ne­ces­si­ty.

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an yes­ter­day hailed the “diplo­mat­ic suc­cess” of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) for se­cur­ing a meet­ing with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio so ear­ly in the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.