Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has dis­tanced the par­ty from al­le­ga­tions of gang af­fil­i­a­tion, in­tim­i­da­tion, bul­ly­ing, ex­tor­tion and threats that have prompt­ed a ma­jor shake-up with­in the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA).

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s spe­cial In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers is draw­ing crit­i­cism from promi­nent voic­es with­in the In­do-Trinida­di­an and Hin­du com­mu­ni­ties, with for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Suni­ty Ma­haraj and Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj warn­ing that her rhetoric risks deep­en­ing racial di­vi­sions.

While the term of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar runs un­til June 2028, there is no word yet on the fu­ture of the par­ty’s Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive (Na­tex), whose two-year term ex­pired in June.

With schools set to re­open next week, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe is de­mand­ing an­swers from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion over the readi­ness of school fa­cil­i­ties, rais­ing con­cerns about what he de­scribed as a “late start” to main­te­nance works on some build­ings.

The Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) of Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary is call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to ur­gent­ly ad­dress what it says are se­ri­ous health and safe­ty con­cerns at the school, just days be­fore the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gins.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) To­ba­go Of­fi­cer De­on Ro­driguez has warned that teach­ers would not en­ter mouldy class­rooms when the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gins on Mon­day.

Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) is head­ing in­to more sec­ondary school class­rooms this aca­d­e­m­ic year, with Forms One and Two stu­dents get­ting ac­cess to an AI-pow­ered tu­tor called “Chris.”

The long-de­layed Preysal Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and Palmiste Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School are among the ed­u­ca­tion projects Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee says are pri­or­i­ties for com­ple­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man and MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les is de­mand­ing an­swers from Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, over what he has de­scribed as a po­ten­tial mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar scan­dal in­volv­ing Wi­Pay and the Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The To­ba­go Youth Coun­cil is ques­tion­ing whether the $500 ba­by grant be­ing of­fered by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) is suf­fi­cient to en­cour­age young peo­ple to be­come par­ents.

Po­lice in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion say they have record­ed a no­tice­able in­crease in cop­per theft, in­clud­ing the theft of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ca­bles, and are step­ping up po­lice ac­tiv­i­ties to curb fur­ther van­dal­ism and theft of valu­able equip­ment.

Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing Unit (EMU) man­ag­er Lawrence Hinds says the unit has op­er­at­ed at just 50 per cent staffing ca­pac­i­ty since its in­cep­tion but in­sists man­pow­er short­ages were not re­spon­si­ble for the es­cape of the coun­try’s first con­vict­ed hu­man traf­fick­er, Michael An­tho­ny Smith.