Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lat­est en­gage­ment with Venezuela could sig­nal the be­gin­ning of a thaw in re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries fol­low­ing a pe­ri­od of height­ened diplo­mat­ic ten­sions that dis­rupt­ed en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion.

Cou­va South MP Bar­ry Padarath has brand­ed crit­ics of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage as “pre­ten­tious, spine­less in­di­vid­u­als,” as he came to the de­fence of her con­tro­ver­sial ad­dress to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers.

With the start of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year just days away, par­ents and busi­ness­es on High Street, San Fer­nan­do, have mixed views on the back-to-school sea­son.

Days be­fore the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gins, To­bag­o­ni­ans are ques­tion­ing Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s cri­te­ria to ap­prove book grants and why the dis­burse­ment is be­ing done so late.

Of­fi­cials from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) vis­it­ed schools yes­ter­day to see first­hand the con­di­tion of fa­cil­i­ties ahead of the start of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year next week.

Three years af­ter po­lice searched the home and of­fice of To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Zor­isha Hack­ett as part of its au­dio­gate probe, the High Court has ruled the po­lice act­ed il­le­gal­ly.

Two days af­ter Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der re­voked the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) is­sued against dance­hall artiste Joseph “Medz Boss” Ol­liviere on Au­gust 24, his at­tor­neys filed an ur­gent bail ap­pli­ca­tion in the Port-of-Spain High Court, along with a re­quest for an ex­pe­dit­ed hear­ing.

Three for­eign­ers were ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice seized ap­prox­i­mate­ly 416.5 kilo­grammes of co­caine, worth an es­ti­mat­ed $193.5 mil­lion, con­cealed in­side four back­hoe tyres at a Long­denville busi­ness­place.

The trau­ma of be­ing held at gun­point dur­ing a home in­va­sion con­tin­ued to haunt two el­der­ly friends yes­ter­day, days af­ter they were robbed of their pen­sion mon­ey and car in Mayo.

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) is now sig­nalling a will­ing­ness to find com­mon ground with the Gov­ern­ment over bil­lions of dol­lars in out­stand­ing wage ar­rears, af­ter pre­vi­ous­ly hold­ing firm on its de­mand for a greater cash com­po­nent.

Some 20,000 dai­ly-rat­ed pub­lic-sec­tor work­ers could be­gin re­ceiv­ing their new salaries this month af­ter Cab­i­net rat­i­fied a ten per cent wage agree­ment be­tween the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) will dis­burse more than $600,000 in back­pay to par­ents un­der its new ba­by grant pro­gramme.