The Gov­ern­ment is aim­ing to slash T&T’s hefty US$2.5 bil­lion food im­port bill by ramp­ing up agri­cul­tur­al ex­ports, with a tar­get of earn­ing TT$1 bil­lion through the sale of agri­cul­tur­al com­modi­ties to for­eign mar­kets.

A day af­ter he was at­tacked with a piece of wood at a bar in La Brea, Dil­lon Joe­field un­der­went emer­gency surgery at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

As the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment pre­pares for its June 18 mid-year Bud­get re­view, mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty are call­ing for firm pol­i­cy di­rec­tion on the fis­cal deficit, the for­eign ex­change short­age, ease of do­ing busi­ness, and per­sis­tent in­ef­fi­cien­cies at the ports that con­tin­ue to im­pact small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs).

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says the Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of the small and medi­um en­ter­prise (SME) sec­tor, de­spite what he de­scribed as a dif­fi­cult lega­cy left by the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

As the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment (UNC) pre­pares to dis­trib­ute lap­tops to stu­dents across the coun­try from Sep­tem­ber, ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Ken­neth Sur­ratt, is call­ing for ex­pand­ed ac­cess to dig­i­tal learn­ing tools in schools.

The Ju­di­cia­ry has come un­der sharp crit­i­cism from the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) for its re­sponse to con­cerns about vir­tu­al court hear­ings be­ing con­duct­ed from po­lice sta­tions.

An an­ti-crime ex­er­cise con­duct­ed in the Fyz­abad dis­trict on Thurs­day morn­ing re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of three men and the seizure of il­le­gal drugs, am­mu­ni­tion, and a firearm.

Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali an­nounced Sat­ur­day that some 20,000 acres of new farm­land on the Es­se­qui­bo coast, Re­gion Two will be­come avail­able for small-scale farm­ers to ad­dress the long-stand­ing is­sue of high rental costs.

Many of Adid­ja “Vy­bz Kar­tel” Palmer fans were sore­ly dis­ap­point­ed yes­ter­day when the dance­hall star failed to take the stage, so in­stead one woman took it up­on her­self to take the stage.

Months of an­tic­i­pa­tion and plan­ning came to an an­ti-cli­mac­tic end on Sun­day morn­ing as scores of pa­trons of the One Caribbean Mu­sic (OCM) fes­ti­val left the show's venue - the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah - in no­tice­ably low­er spir­its than when they ar­rived.

At least 31 peo­ple were killed and over 150 were wound­ed on Sun­day while on their way to re­ceive food in the Gaza Strip, ac­cord­ing to health of­fi­cials and mul­ti­ple wit­ness­es. The wit­ness­es said Is­raeli forces fired on crowds around a kilo­me­tre (1,000 yards) from an aid site run by an Is­raeli-backed foun­da­tion.

Four peo­ple, in­clud­ing a child, died on Sat­ur­day night af­ter the dri­ver of a ve­hi­cle lost con­trol and crashed off the south­bound lane of the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way near the Clax­ton Bay over­pass.