Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 Pow­er­Gen work­ers will re­ceive long-over­due salary pay­ments be­fore Christ­mas, fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of ne­go­ti­a­tions on a his­toric $66.1 mil­lion wage set­tle­ment.

The Di­vali Na­gar opened to the pub­lic last evening, but the first few hours saw a rel­a­tive­ly mod­est turnout, with sev­er­al booths still be­ing set up and lit­tle ac­tiv­i­ty across the fes­ti­val grounds.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­ci­sion to sup­port the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Unit­ed States’ em­bar­go against Cu­ba was not a vote against the Cuban peo­ple, but in sup­port of their right to democ­ra­cy and po­lit­i­cal free­dom, says For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion on Cu­ba, re­it­er­at­ing the coun­try can­not de­mand democ­ra­cy and free and fair elec­tions for its own cit­i­zens while re­main­ing silent when those free­doms are de­nied to peo­ple in neigh­bour­ing na­tions.

An Op­po­si­tion MP has ac­cused the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment of be­ing an­ti-re­li­gion, an­ti-Catholic Church and an­ti-Rasta­far­i­an, ar­gu­ing that pro­posed changes to cannabis laws would in­fringe on re­li­gious free­dom and pri­va­cy.

Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle has strong­ly de­nied claims that one of his rel­a­tives was among those ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack at the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T Ltd (TSTT) com­pound in Laven­tille last Sat­ur­day.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has out­lined in­creased po­lice op­er­a­tions in Cen­tral Trinidad fol­low­ing a spate of mur­ders, while de­clin­ing to say whether any­one has been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the killings.

The day­light killings of two women in­side a Cou­va beau­ty spa have left neigh­bour­ing busi­ness own­ers and res­i­dents shak­en, with many ques­tion­ing their safe­ty amid the coun­try’s ris­ing crime rate.

A French na­tion­al was held af­ter Cus­toms of­fi­cers found 3.065 kilo­grammes of co­caine in his lug­gage at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Thurs­day.

Sev­en for­eign na­tion­als, be­tween the ages of 23 and 32, have been ar­rest­ed by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) af­ter they al­leged­ly failed to pro­duce valid iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and im­mi­gra­tion doc­u­ments dur­ing a po­lice ex­er­cise at a bar in Tu­na­puna.

As thou­sands of rev­ellers hit the streets of Scar­bor­ough for J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions to­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin is warn­ing the pub­lic to avoid con­fronta­tions.

Re­stric­tions im­ple­ment­ed by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) in To­ba­go failed to stop the flow of wa­ter yes­ter­day morn­ing as thou­sands of Stink and Dut­ty pa­trons were sprayed with hoses.