Con­cerns are mount­ing over the prece­dent that could be es­tab­lished if Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s use of his cast­ing vote to pass the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill be­comes ac­cept­ed prac­tice when­ev­er Sen­ate votes are tied.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­scribed her re­cent meet­ing with act­ing Venezuela Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez as “very, very emo­tion­al,” say­ing she ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to vis­it Venezuela af­ter the two lead­ers bond­ed in that ses­sion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she will not apol­o­gise for send­ing Re­pub­lic Day greet­ings to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers, de­fend­ing the move amid crit­i­cism that she had is­sued a sep­a­rate mes­sage to par­ty mem­bers on yet an­oth­er na­tion­al hol­i­day.

A deeply hum­bled Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mar yes­ter­day ded­i­cat­ed his Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go award to the na­tion’s work­ing-class cit­i­zens.

Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh says re­ceiv­ing the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT) is both an ho­n­our and a re­minder of the ju­di­cia­ry’s du­ty to serve the peo­ple.

De­onath Ma­haraj had just stepped out­side to dis­pose of some garbage when he turned around and saw a ball of fire where his sev­en-year-old son had been ly­ing on a couch mo­ments ear­li­er.

An 81-year-old woman was res­cued by po­lice af­ter she was al­leged­ly held against her will dur­ing a home in­va­sion in St Au­gus­tine on Wednes­day night.

Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors have crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress to the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, ar­gu­ing that she missed key op­por­tu­ni­ties to ad­vance Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

The T&T Po­lice So­cial Ser­vice and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion is fac­ing a po­ten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion pay­out af­ter the Court of Ap­peal ruled that its for­mer ac­counts man­ag­er, Shami­la Mo­hammed, was con­struc­tive­ly dis­missed af­ter be­ing false­ly ac­cused of fraud and oth­er mis­con­duct.

De­spite crit­i­cism over her de­ci­sion to is­sue a spe­cial In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage di­rect­ed at mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has again used a na­tion­al hol­i­day to de­liv­er a mes­sage specif­i­cal­ly to the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship, this time on Re­pub­lic Day.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA) is call­ing on the An­tigua & Bar­bu­da gov­ern­ment to clar­i­fy a pro­posed plan to raise air pas­sen­ger tax­es for in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers. On June 24, the Gas­ton Browne-led ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­proved a US$10 in­crease in the Pas­sen­ger Head Tax for all in­ter­na­tion­al pas­sen­gers ar­riv­ing in and de­part­ing An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, in­creas­ing the tax from US$40 to US$50 per pas­sen­ger (one way). Trav­el with­in the CARI­COM re­gion will be ex­empt from this pro­posed in­crease.

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark used his cast­ing vote ear­ly this morn­ing to break a 15-15 dead­lock and se­cure pas­sage of the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, fol­low­ing a tense con­clu­sion to de­bate in the Up­per House.