Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed has com­plet­ed ma­jor con­struc­tion works and be­gun tran­si­tion­ing to up­grad­ed pipeline in­fra­struc­ture as part of an on­go­ing As­set In­tegri­ty Man­age­ment Pro­gramme aimed at im­prov­ing op­er­a­tional safe­ty, en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and sys­tem re­li­a­bil­i­ty.

Af­ter spend­ing near­ly a year on the side­lines with in­jury, West In­dies fast bowler Alzarri Joseph says he is ea­ger to re­turn to in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et and help lift the re­gion­al team to greater heights.

That is the lat­est ad­vice to mem­bers of the pub­lic from at­tor­ney Criston CJ Williams, who is rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­ly of Joshua Sama­roo, as emo­tions con­tin­ue to run high over the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s han­dling of the probe in­to his death in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in­ci­dent Jan­u­ary. 

Two stake­hold­ers yes­ter­day ques­tioned the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) han­dling of the Joshua Sama­roo case and again called for the full use of body cam­eras by po­lice dur­ing their op­er­a­tional du­ties.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has paid trib­ute to for­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) min­is­ter Her­bert Atwell fol­low­ing his death over the week­end, de­scrib­ing him as part of a gen­er­a­tion of po­lit­i­cal lead­ers who helped shape Trinidad and To­ba­go’s democ­ra­cy dur­ing one of its most defin­ing pe­ri­ods.

One day af­ter the Sun­day Guardian pub­lished an ar­ti­cle stat­ing that book­ing an e-ap­point­ment for a pass­port on the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty web­site takes as long as six months, the min­istry is­sued an ex­pres­sion of in­ter­est (EOI) for suit­ably qual­i­fied en­ti­ties to up­grade its pass­port por­tal.

As the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter con­tin­ues to face ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia over ques­tion­able hir­ing prac­tices at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is warn­ing Bar­ry Padarath that he is “com­ing af­ter him” when Par­lia­ment re­sumes.

Warn­ing that too many young men are falling be­hind in ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment and train­ing, Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing, Prakash Per­sad, yes­ter­day de­scribed the is­sue as a grow­ing so­cial cri­sis.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the State and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion are con­tin­u­ing in good faith, while Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Ret’d Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al main­tains that the Gov­ern­ment’s “best and fi­nal of­fer” on out­stand­ing pub­lic sec­tor ar­rears re­mains un­changed de­spite the union’s re­jec­tion of the pro­pos­al. 

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates’ po­lit­i­cal fu­ture re­mains un­cer­tain af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­lowed Par­lia­ment to be pro­rogued with­out pub­licly re­veal­ing whether she had ac­cept­ed the sen­a­tor’s res­ig­na­tion.

There is a new chair­man at the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC). For­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Jacque­line Wil­son, was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Freeport/Chick­land coun­cil­lor Anil Bali­ram is hold­ing on but still crit­i­cal and re­mains sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly and friends who are of­fer­ing con­tin­u­ous prayers for his re­cov­ery.