The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is fac­ing a $287 mil­lion re­duc­tion in its bud­get­ed ex­pen­di­ture for fis­cal 2027, in­clud­ing a $233 mil­lion cut in per­son­nel fund­ing, but Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath is as­sur­ing em­ploy­ees that there are no plans to re­duce the au­thor­i­ty’s es­tab­lished work­force.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty As­so­ci­a­tion (TP­SA) is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to ur­gent­ly pay up an es­ti­mat­ed $75 mil­lion in out­stand­ing pay­ments owed to 13 con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, warn­ing that con­tin­ued non-pay­ment could re­sult in se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers re­fus­ing to re­port for du­ty.

A star-stud­ded cast of lo­cal artistes, in­clud­ing Machel Mon­tano, De­stra Gar­cia, Su­perblue, Crazy and Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, will take the stage to­day to pay trib­ute to ca­lyp­so leg­end Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co.

A glimpse of Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co in his jock­ey shorts, qui­et­ly read­ing the Bible, was among the mem­o­ries Dr Hol­lis “Chalk­dust” Liv­er­pool shared as he paid trib­ute to his long­time friend and fel­low ca­lyp­son­ian dur­ing a spe­cial event at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day.

A 19-year-old work­er is call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a work­place ac­ci­dent near the Nu Iron plant at Point Lisas that re­sult­ed in the am­pu­ta­tion of part of his left lit­tle fin­ger.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has wel­comed the sub­stan­tial in­crease in fund­ing al­lo­cat­ed for fis­cal 2027 and says it is pre­pared to be­gin im­ple­ment­ing key projects as soon as the funds be­come avail­able.

An in­fra­struc­tur­al prob­lem has caused the tem­po­rary clo­sure of the re­cent­ly opened Good­wood Mi­cro Po­lice Post.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to di­vest sev­er­al state-owned en­ter­pris­es, point­ing to the fi­nan­cial de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of Trinidad Lake As­phalt Lim­it­ed (Lake As­phalt) as ev­i­dence of the risks of al­low­ing loss-mak­ing com­pa­nies to re­ly on tax­pay­er fund­ing.

Two Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) may­ors are push­ing back at Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she ac­cused Op­po­si­tion-con­trolled mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions of “mak­ing fools of them­selves” by com­plain­ing about bud­get cuts, de­spite re­ceiv­ing $490 mil­lion more than their Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) coun­ter­parts.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) has warned that nurs­es may take fur­ther ac­tion over out­stand­ing wage ar­rears and a pro­posed ten per cent wage in­crease, po­ten­tial­ly with­out warn­ing.

Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan is call­ing for the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) to be dis­band­ed af­ter his client re­mained un­de­feat­ed in an al­most two-decade le­gal bat­tle over be­ing deemed to have aban­doned her job af­ter miss­ing work for sev­er­al months be­cause of in­jury and preg­nan­cy.

The Unit­ed States has an­nounced hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in new com­mit­ments for Caribbean health care, se­cu­ri­ty and dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture, as Wash­ing­ton seeks to strength­en its strate­gic ties with the re­gion.