The first di­rect peace talks be­tween Rus­sia and Ukraine since the ear­ly weeks of Moscow’s 2022 in­va­sion end­ed Fri­day af­ter less than two hours, ac­cord­ing to the Turk­ish For­eign Min­istry and a se­nior Ukrain­ian of­fi­cial.

The Ve­hi­cle Main­te­nance Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (VM­COTT) is set to ex­plore new rev­enue streams and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cies as part of a re­newed strat­e­gy to strength­en its vi­a­bil­i­ty and rel­e­vance.

A 25-year-old man is hos­pi­talised af­ter he was shot while rid­ing his bi­cy­cle near a veg­etable stall in Rio Claro on Thurs­day night.

The planned re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), which was set to see the re­moval of hun­dreds of man­agers and them be­ing re­placed by 34 se­nior per­sons, has of­fi­cial­ly been scrapped.

For­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les isn’t sur­prised or both­ered that his trans­for­ma­tion plan for the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has been gut­ted. How­ev­er, he is pre­dict­ing it will lead to cor­rup­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says there will be no re­funds for prop­er­ty tax al­ready paid, de­spite ear­li­er re­marks by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo sug­gest­ing oth­er­wise.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has promised to re­lease a re­port that will ex­pose what she de­scribes as a “forex car­tel” in this coun­try.

Eigh­teen thou­sand lap­tops will be pro­cured for stu­dents en­ter­ing Form One when the new school term be­gins in Sep­tem­ber.

Gov­ern­ment has con­firmed that Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher will not re­turn as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, opt­ing to buy out her 66 days of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed va­ca­tion leave and not re­new her con­tract. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cab­i­net made the de­ci­sion yes­ter­day, adding that Gov­ern­ment act­ed “with­in the law.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says it was she who in­flu­enced the Min­is­ter of De­fence’s de­ci­sion to re­strict Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Vy­bz Kar­tel’s in­ter­ac­tion with school chil­dren and the me­dia when he comes to this coun­try in prepa­ra­tion for his May 31 con­cert.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin says while he has had no cor­re­spon­dence on ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or mon­i­tor­ing for the ar­rival of Ja­maican dance­hall star Vy­bz Kar­tel in T&T lat­er this month, he did agree with a draft or­der to lim­it the artiste’s pub­lic ap­pear­ances in the lead-up to the con­cert.

The 18 in­mates on death row, who are un­der the five-year time­line of the Pratt and Mor­gan land­mark case, can­not be hanged since they have ap­peals on­go­ing.