A pri­vate he­li­copter has joined the des­per­ate search for miss­ing To­ba­go fish­er­men David McLean and Kester Alexan­der.

The North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) has per­formed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8,400 ma­jor sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures and an­oth­er 15,000 pro­ce­dures in oth­er ar­eas, in­clud­ing den­tal ser­vices, un­der its new board and man­age­ment, with the num­bers con­tin­u­ing to rise.

Two men are cur­rent­ly miss­ing af­ter fail­ing to re­turn home from a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion near Scar­bor­ough on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

The late Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co will be ho­n­oured with a na­tion­al Cel­e­bra­tion of Life on Oc­to­ber 16, with the pub­lic in­vit­ed to pay their re­spects dur­ing two days of view­ing ahead of the cer­e­mo­ny.

The trade union move­ment has post­poned its planned mass demon­stra­tion through Port-of-Spain from Oc­to­ber 16 to Oc­to­ber 23, out of re­spect for the late ca­lyp­so icon Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co, whose state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al is sched­uled for the same day.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ques­tion­ing whether the tim­ing of Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co’s state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al on Oc­to­ber 16 is an at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to di­vert pub­lic at­ten­tion from her re­sponse to the na­tion­al Bud­get, which is sched­uled for the same day.

About 100 em­ploy­ees have been re­trenched by Pro­man Trinidad fol­low­ing a nine per cent re­duc­tion in its lo­cal work­force, deep­en­ing con­cerns about em­ploy­ment, in­vest­ment and the fu­ture of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

Work­ers at Nu­trien who are chal­leng­ing the en­hanced sev­er­ance pack­age of­fered fol­low­ing the com­pa­ny’s de­ci­sion to close its Trinidad ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions have be­gun or­gan­is­ing them­selves and seek­ing le­gal ad­vice.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed the near­ly $800 mil­lion paid to po­lice of­fi­cers in over­time over the past two years and eight months, in­sist­ing that mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) earned every dol­lar for their ef­forts in com­bat­ing crime.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is de­fend­ing near­ly $800 mil­lion in over­time pay­ments made by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) be­tween 2024 and 2026, ar­gu­ing that the ex­pen­di­ture was both nec­es­sary and jus­ti­fied in light of sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tions in crime and is like­ly to con­tin­ue as the ser­vice con­tin­ues its fight against the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has launched a scathing at­tack on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) over its promise to re­peal key pieces of leg­is­la­tion if it re­turns to of­fice, ac­cus­ing the Op­po­si­tion of putting young peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties at risk by op­pos­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing mea­sures.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has vowed to re­peal four pieces of leg­is­la­tion in­tro­duced by the Gov­ern­ment if it re­turns to of­fice fol­low­ing the next gen­er­al elec­tion.