Hor­ror and fear rocked a com­mu­ni­ty in Ste Madeleine yes­ter­day, af­ter gun­men stormed a fam­i­ly home, killing a moth­er and her son, and crit­i­cal­ly in­jur­ing two oth­er rel­a­tives.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine have agreed to step up se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures across To­ba­go, fol­low­ing high-lev­el talks on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

De­spite some im­prove­ment in the de­tec­tion rate in the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion dis­trict, res­i­dents at a town hall meet­ing have raised con­cerns over what they de­scribed as poor re­sponse times, vis­i­bil­i­ty and the at­ti­tudes of some of­fi­cers as­signed to their com­mu­ni­ty.

Neigh­bours of 91-year-old Joyce Saun­ders say re­peat­ed at­tempts to of­fer as­sis­tance to her fam­i­ly were un­suc­cess­ful, as her el­der­ly daugh­ter of­ten met their ef­forts with hos­til­i­ty.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has com­mend­ed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice for what he de­scribed as “good work” dur­ing Thurs­day’s mul­ti-agency raid that shut down an il­le­gal quar­ry­ing and min­ing op­er­a­tion in Ari­ma.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to the death of a four-year-old girl in Sea Lots on Thurs­day af­ter­noon.

A Port-of-Spain man was ar­rest­ed on Thurs­day af­ter­noon, af­ter re­turn­ing a stolen chain to its own­er mo­ments af­ter he snatched it off her neck.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is deny­ing claims by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie that the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion spent over $120 mil­lion on ne­go­ti­a­tions for the Drag­on gas project with noth­ing to show for it.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and for­mer prime min­is­ter and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young trad­ed ac­cu­sa­tions of hypocrisy yes­ter­day over the han­dling of the Drag­on Gas project and how much de­tail of the new OFAC li­cence the oth­er was will­ing to re­veal.

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and at­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day has de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to keep Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee in her Cab­i­net.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee says he will not step down amid re­newed fraud al­le­ga­tions, in­sist­ing he is in­no­cent and call­ing on the me­dia to in­ves­ti­gate how the case resur­faced.

The cur­rent State of Emer­gency has seen a dras­tic re­duc­tion in gang-re­lat­ed homi­cides and oth­er types of vi­o­lent crime, says At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie.