Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke has fi­nal­ly bro­ken months of si­lence on his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture to pub­licly de­clare his sup­port for Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP). It is a dra­mat­ic turn for the man who once led the PDP to a his­toric land­slide vic­to­ry, on­ly to watch the par­ty col­lapse af­ter a bit­ter fall­out with Au­gus­tine him­self.

Two po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts say Wat­son Duke’s sud­den sup­port of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) may not give the par­ty the boost he be­lieves it will. While both agree his en­dorse­ment is sig­nif­i­cant, they warn that the re­al test is not Duke’s words but whether he still has a vot­er base that can in­flu­ence the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions.

A young cou­ple ex­changed mar­i­tal vows at Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle yes­ter­day as the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs hand­ed out 36 cer­tifi­cates to new­ly ap­point­ed mar­riage of­fi­cers, mark­ing what the Gov­ern­ment de­scribed as a sig­nif­i­cant step to­ward clear­ing a years-long ad­min­is­tra­tive back­log.

The Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty has do­nat­ed just over $200,000 to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in sup­port of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund.

Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Elec­tions have of­fi­cial­ly re­ceived their Writs of Elec­tion, mark­ing the for­mal start of the elec­toral process ahead of polling day on Jan­u­ary 12, 2026.

For­mer Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme con­trac­tor East­man En­ter­pris­es Ltd has suf­fered an­oth­er le­gal blow af­ter it was or­dered to pay the com­pa­ny’s le­gal costs af­ter the con­clu­sion of an ap­peal on the use of an Al­ter­na­tive Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion clause in both par­ties’ con­tract.

Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein is de­fend­ing his min­istry’s ex­pen­di­ture on an event to dis­trib­ute li­cences to 36 new mar­riage of­fi­cers.

A ma­jor show­down is brew­ing in the pub­lic sec­tor, with both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) warn­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed 10 per cent wage set­tle­ment with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion of­fers lit­tle com­fort to oth­er em­ploy­ees in the state sec­tor.

Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein yes­ter­day de­clined to say what penal­ties await peo­ple who set off fire­works with­out a per­mit or out­side the re­strict­ed hours out­lined in leg­is­la­tion ex­pect­ed be­fore Par­lia­ment to­day. He in­stead urged the pub­lic to wait for the de­tails to be re­vealed dur­ing the de­bate, which should com­mence af­ter 1.30 pm when Par­lia­ment con­venes.

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh says he will give a rul­ing, all in one day, on the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mo­tions of priv­i­lege against the Prime Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, as well as on a mo­tion by Gov­ern­ment MP Bar­ry Padarath against PNM’s Colm Im­bert.

The Cou­va Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (CCC) is urg­ing the po­lice to al­low its 2026 fes­tiv­i­ties to run their full course.

Reg­is­tra­tion for sev­er­al ma­jor ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions opened yes­ter­day, with TU­CO ad­vis­ing all na­tion­als and nat­u­ralised cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go to come for­ward.