For­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith has at­trib­uted the se­vere traf­fic con­ges­tion in and around Ch­aguara­mas fol­low­ing the “Stink n Dut­ty” fete to a lack of lead­er­ship, plan­ning and op­er­a­tional man­age­ment, rather than fail­ures by fete pro­mot­ers or rank-and-file po­lice of­fi­cers. Grif­fith said con­cerns raised by res­i­dents and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty were un­der­stand­able but ar­gued that many pa­trons re­port­ed see­ing few po­lice of­fi­cers sta­tioned at known bot­tle­neck ar­eas, along with an ap­par­ent ab­sence of se­nior su­per­vi­so­ry ranks di­rect­ing traf­fic dur­ing crit­i­cal pe­ri­ods.

An 18-year-old San­gre Grande man is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a mag­is­trate to­day to an­swer three crim­i­nal charges, the most re­cent be­ing home in­va­sion, af­ter res­i­dents of Ve­ga de Oropouche cap­tured him.

Sev­er­al ma­rine and tourism-re­lat­ed busi­ness­es in Ch­aguara­mas have been forced to close dur­ing this week’s in­ten­si­fied Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, fol­low­ing the se­vere traf­fic con­ges­tion linked to the Stink and Dut­ty fete at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas.

Calls are mount­ing for faster and more co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion be­tween the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) af­ter wa­ter is­sues ham­pered fire­fight­ers bat­tling an ear­ly-morn­ing blaze that gut­ted the Anand Low Price Su­per­mar­ket in La Ro­maine, leav­ing about 100 em­ploy­ees from the su­per­mar­ket and neigh­bour­ing Bent­ley’s VIP tem­porar­i­ly job­less.

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jear­lean John yes­ter­day dis­missed a damn­ing S&P Glob­al ves­sel his­to­ry re­port on the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny, call­ing it “in­for­ma­tion on Wikipedia,” even though it flagged mul­ti­ple safe­ty and main­te­nance-re­lat­ed de­fects re­lat­ed to the ves­sel over the past two years.

Con­tro­ver­sy fol­lowed the re­sults of Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta 2026 on Sat­ur­day night at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, af­ter sev­er­al ca­lyp­so­ni­ans with strong po­lit­i­cal and so­cial com­men­tary failed to ad­vance to the grand fi­nal of the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

Three months af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar launched the Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print, promis­ing 50,919 jobs, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jer­lean John says as­pects of the project should be­gin by mid-year.

Busi­ness cham­bers are cau­tion­ing that the de­par­ture of two of the coun­try’s largest in­dus­tri­al play­ers—ANSA McAL and Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL)—from the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) re­flects deep­er frac­tures in na­tion­al pri­vate sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

What­ev­er the weath­er out­look for this evening, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore is in­tent that “no bad breeze (can) blow” in the di­rec­tion of a resched­uled Panora­ma Medi­um Band fi­nal at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

As Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo in­ten­si­fies ef­forts to clamp down on il­le­gal gam­bling while ex­pand­ing state-reg­u­lat­ed lot­tery gam­ing to Sun­days, some booths in San Fer­nan­do re­port­ed steady busi­ness on the first week­end of the new draw sched­ule yes­ter­day.

A 20-year-old Venezue­lan woman was res­cued and two sus­pects were held fol­low­ing a re­port­ed kid­nap­ping near Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, on Fri­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied claims that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is seek­ing to in­flu­ence Wednes­day’s (Feb­ru­ary 11) elec­tion in Bar­ba­dos.