Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi has warned that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will mount a le­gal chal­lenge against any at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment an­oth­er State of Emer­gency (SoE) once the cur­rent one ex­pires next week.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne says he has lit­tle con­fi­dence that pro­posed talks be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez will pro­duce any mean­ing­ful out­come.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­c­la­ra­tion that she “loves” Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, cou­pled with her sug­ges­tion that the two could meet at the Unit­ed Na­tions lat­er this month, has sparked ques­tions in that coun­try about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ne­go­ti­at­ing po­si­tion with Cara­cas on en­er­gy mat­ters.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s soft­er ap­proach to­ward Venezuela’s Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez is be­ing viewed by an­a­lysts as an ef­fort to mend strained re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, with both sides po­ten­tial­ly ben­e­fit­ing from clos­er co­op­er­a­tion.

Some Venezue­lans liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go are hope­ful that stronger re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries will lead to im­prove­ments for mem­bers of the Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed that her moth­er-in-law and two grand­nephews are Venezue­lan.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety is ap­peal­ing for stronger cor­po­rate and donor sup­port, as it seeks to raise $2 mil­lion for a new am­bu­lance and $500,000 to stage its 71st Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val, while un­der­tak­ing a broad­er ef­fort to se­cure the fu­ture of the long-run­ning event.

Four men have been mur­dered in Mor­vant since Tues­day morn­ing, with the lat­est killing oc­cur­ring at around 5 am yes­ter­day.

On the same day the T&T Prison Ser­vice be­gan re­leas­ing de­tainees held un­der the State of Emer­gency, two men were killed in an al­leged shootout af­ter po­lice at­tempt­ed to de­tain them un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) yes­ter­day.

A 36-year-old man was shot and killed yes­ter­day, dur­ing an al­leged ex­change of gun­fire with mem­bers of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit (AEU) at a house in Cara­pichaima.

The Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion will pro­vide sup­port to a To­ba­go teenag­er re­cent­ly ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with his rel­a­tive’s death.

Stu­dents in­volved in school fights could face crim­i­nal charges if po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­cov­er suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence, In­spec­tor Kurt Cal­len­der has warned.

The Ju­di­cia­ry is seek­ing to close a le­gal loop­hole al­leged­ly be­ing used by some mo­torists to evade traf­fic tick­ets.