Homi­cide de­tec­tives are yet to de­ter­mine whether a masked gun­man who killed two women at a Cou­va beau­ty spa on Wednes­day came look­ing for one of them or de­lib­er­ate­ly tar­get­ed both.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the mur­der toll has de­clined by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 46 per cent over the past two years, de­spite a re­cent spate of killings, in­clud­ing the mur­ders of two women at a Cou­va spa and at­tor­ney-at-law Tara­dath Singh this week.

Five peo­ple were ar­rest­ed dur­ing sep­a­rate an­ti-crime ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed by of­fi­cers of the South­ern and North Cen­tral Di­vi­sions on Wednes­day.

The labour move­ment will go on with its ma­jor protest march in Port-of-Spain to­day, de­spite sev­er­al re­quests from se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers to post­pone it de­spite hav­ing sought ap­proval from the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er well in ad­vance.

Days af­ter the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­SA) ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to set­tle $75 mil­lion in out­stand­ing pay­ments to mem­ber com­pa­nies, the as­so­ci­a­tion says it has re­ceived a par­tial pay­ment from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) but main­tains that the amount falls far short of what is owed.

Cu­ba’s am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Gus­ta­vo Veliz, has warned that coun­tries sup­port­ing the Unit­ed States’ po­si­tion on its eco­nom­ic em­bar­go against Cu­ba risk be­com­ing com­plic­it in a pol­i­cy that could cost lives.

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP and min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath has con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment for vot­ing against a Unit­ed Na­tions res­o­lu­tion call­ing for an end to the Unit­ed States’ eco­nom­ic em­bar­go against Cu­ba.

Ven­dors at this year’s Di­vali Na­gar are an­tic­i­pat­ing larg­er crowds than in pre­vi­ous years, say­ing the height­ened pub­lic­i­ty sur­round­ing the event over the past two weeks could at­tract peo­ple who do not nor­mal­ly at­tend the an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has crit­i­cised Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der for de­clin­ing to an­swer ques­tions about the pro­cure­ment of mo­bile units for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

For­mer Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ceron Richards has won a key de­ci­sion in his lengthy le­gal bat­tle with the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) over a pro­mo­tion.

The Privy Coun­cil will have the fi­nal say in a more than decade-long le­gal bat­tle be­tween a for­mer diplo­mat and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion over a de­nied ve­hi­cle tax ex­emp­tion.

An­tho­ny Em­rold “Broth­er Valenti­no” Phillip was yes­ter­day de­scribed as a cul­tur­al el­der whose mu­sic be­came part of the na­tion’s con­science.