The wider Caribbean has of­fered to be­come in­ter­me­di­aries be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela amid their cur­rent height­ened ten­sions and the mil­i­tary build-up in the re­gion, which has trig­gered deep con­cerns about the threat of war, and has now prompt­ed moves to pre­vent it.

The ar­rival of the USS Grave­ly in Port-of-Spain just af­ter 9 am yes­ter­day cre­at­ed a stir among cu­ri­ous on­look­ers who be­lieved it was not too late for the Gov­ern­ment to adopt a neu­tral po­si­tion in the ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says Rishi Sama­roo and Chad ‘Char­po’ Joseph, two Trinidad and To­ba­go men whose rel­a­tives be­lieve were killed in a US airstrike, may not be dead but could be miss­ing.

Mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed to help al­le­vi­ate de­lays that are ex­pect­ed to be caused by the pres­ence of USS Grave­ly at the Port of Port-of-Spain this week.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says Trinidad and To­ba­go is ready to as­sist its stu­dents in Ja­maica as Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa ap­proach­es and even af­ter it de­parts, de­spite claims that the Gov­ern­ment failed to bring stu­dents home on time.

Ja­maican cit­i­zens and of­fi­cials are brac­ing for what may be the strongest hur­ri­cane they have faced in decades.

Thou­sands of mas­quer­aders flood­ed the Claude Noel High­way on Sun­day as the Pa­rade of the Bands took full con­trol of To­ba­go Car­ni­val, de­liv­er­ing a high-en­er­gy street ex­pe­ri­ence that moved with lit­tle de­lay and en­joyed strong crowd sup­port from start to fin­ish.

To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (TEMA) Di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art says au­thor­i­ties will shut down il­le­gal night par­ties at sea im­me­di­ate­ly, fol­low­ing the sink­ing of an­oth­er ves­sel at No Man’s Land on Sat­ur­day night.

Just hours be­fore the ar­rival of a Unit­ed States war­ship in Trinidad amid ris­ing ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the US, Se­nior Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Co­or­di­na­tor at the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Jer­ry David, posed a sober­ing ques­tion to Red Cross vol­un­teers: “Are you ready to help in times of con­flict?”

The John E Sab­ga Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion is sound­ing the alarm over what it de­scribes as a wor­ry­ing in­crease in pan­cre­at­ic can­cer in Trinidad and To­ba­go, even among young women, as it re­news calls for stronger ad­vo­ca­cy, ear­ly de­tec­tion, and ro­bust gov­ern­ment-led da­ta col­lec­tion.

Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh will this morn­ing present Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 Bud­get in the Sen­ate as he pi­lots the de­bate of the pack­age there.

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has re­ject­ed the 2026 Bud­get, de­scrib­ing it as a “be­tray­al of the peo­ple’s trust” and a con­tin­u­a­tion of what it called the Gov­ern­ment’s “cam­paign of de­cep­tion”.