Eigh­teen thou­sand lap­tops will be pro­cured for stu­dents en­ter­ing Form One when the new school term be­gins in Sep­tem­ber.

Gov­ern­ment has con­firmed that Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher will not re­turn as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, opt­ing to buy out her 66 days of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed va­ca­tion leave and not re­new her con­tract. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cab­i­net made the de­ci­sion yes­ter­day, adding that Gov­ern­ment act­ed “with­in the law.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says it was she who in­flu­enced the Min­is­ter of De­fence’s de­ci­sion to re­strict Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Vy­bz Kar­tel’s in­ter­ac­tion with school chil­dren and the me­dia when he comes to this coun­try in prepa­ra­tion for his May 31 con­cert.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin says while he has had no cor­re­spon­dence on ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or mon­i­tor­ing for the ar­rival of Ja­maican dance­hall star Vy­bz Kar­tel in T&T lat­er this month, he did agree with a draft or­der to lim­it the artiste’s pub­lic ap­pear­ances in the lead-up to the con­cert.

The 18 in­mates on death row, who are un­der the five-year time­line of the Pratt and Mor­gan land­mark case, can­not be hanged since they have ap­peals on­go­ing.

The trade union move­ment has joined forces with the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) to seek fund­ing from in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial mar­kets in a bid to restart the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is ac­cus­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young of at­tempt­ing to cre­ate “mis­chief” when he called on the Gov­ern­ment to fix what he de­scribed as a se­ri­ous over­sight in min­is­te­r­i­al as­sign­ments.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Gen­er­al Coun­cil meets in spe­cial ses­sion to­day to dis­cuss a pro­posed date for its in­ter­nal elec­tion. Par­ty sources say the date of June 25 is un­der heavy con­sid­er­a­tion.

To­day, in­sti­tu­tions, gov­ern­ments, or­gan­i­sa­tions, and in­di­vid­u­als around the globe will ob­serve World Day of the Boy Child (WD­BC) un­der the theme “Build­ing Self-es­teem in Boys: Stand Up, Be Heard, Be Seen.”

Brazil­ian con­struc­tion firm Con­struc­to­ra OAS SA will have to wait to learn the fate of its ap­peal over a judge’s de­ci­sion to set aside its al­most $850 mil­lion ar­bi­tra­tion award in re­la­tion to the Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­ten­sion project to Point Fortin.

Six months af­ter dis­card­ing thou­sands of dol­lars’ worth of fur­ni­ture and house­hold items, 82-year-old David Matu­ra is brac­ing for an­oth­er year of se­vere flood­ing in Good­man Trace, Pe­nal.

Res­i­dents of Cou­va North are voic­ing frus­tra­tion over long­stand­ing in­fra­struc­ture prob­lems and are call­ing for help from their Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Jear­lean John.