Nurse Jocelyn Bowen has sued former President Arthur NR Robinson for assault and slander, accusing him of slapping her at President’s House on November 2, 2000.

WHILE the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) and various regional corporations were looking to coordinate with the Ministry of Works and Transport, to provide disaster relief for persons affected by heavy rains yesterday, the ministry was ironically forced to deal with major flooding of its own.

IT RAINED in the country for most of the day yesterday. And the showers brought with it flooding, landslides, miles of traffic jam along the east/west corridor and frustration for motorists and pedestrians alike.

ESCAPED convict Ricardo Mahadeo, 21, stopped by a bar on Wednesday night to drink a Mackeson stout, which he loved, because he did not know when next he would drink it. Not long afterwards, Mahadeo was dead, shot by police officers.

GOVERNMENT yesterday intensified its crackdown on lawlessness on the nation’s roads by announcing that the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving will be outlawed in Trinidad and Tobago.

The three workers who were injured and hospitalised after an explosion on Wednesday at a TT Electricity Commission (TTEC) Sub-Station have been discharged.

FOR the second time in the life of her two-month-old Government, Prime Minister Kamla Persad- Bissessar immediately dispatched all of her MPs into their respective constituencies to assess the damage caused by yesterday’s flooding. This was disclosed by Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair at 2.30 pm. Before the start of the briefing, press secretary Garvin Nicholas expressed the Government’s gratitude to the small group of reporters who braved the flooding in Port-of- Spain to attend the conference.

AN EXPLOSION at a TT Electricity Commission (TTEC) substation in Port-of-Spain left three workers injured and parts of downtown Port-of-Spain in complete darkness for almost two hours yesterday afternoon.

AUTOPSIES on the dismembered and decapitated bodies of Dianne Williams, 37, and her son Shaquille Morgan, eight, revealed that Williams died as a result of shock and haemorrhaging consistent with multiple gunshot and chop wounds while her son was killed by multiple chop wounds.

After three months in office, Chief Executive Officer of the Water and Sewerage Authority, Andrew Smith has resigned, and appointed to act in the position is former Public Utilities Minister Ganga Singh.

REMEDIAL works to correct flaws on houses constructed by the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) under the Patrick Manning-led PNM administration could cost up to about $130 million.

UNDISPUTED Calypso King of the World, the Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco) underwent emergency surgery on Sunday, after collapsing at a concert in Maryland, USA. Sparrow, 75, had to be rushed by ambulance to Montgomery General Hospital in Maryland, where he underwent emergency surgery.

THE TOBAGO House of Assembly (THA) is yet to finalise the lease arrangements for four lots of land given to the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha’s Tobago Hindu Society (THS) arm, for construction of a temple, as the THA received an application for that piece of land from another Hindu group.

THERE is no honeymoon whatsoever for the country’s newly elected councillors, as less than 24 hours after Monday’s Local Government Election, 134 councillors were put on notice by Health Minister Therese Baptiste-Cornelis that their first major assignment would be to work together to stop the Dengue Fever outbreak.

INVESTIGATIONS are continuing into an accident on Sunday which claimed the life of a 66-year-old pensioner. According to a police report, Stella Luchin of Montrose, Chaguanas was pronounced dead-on-arrival at Couva Health Centre shortly after the accident.

HEALTH Minister Therese Baptiste-Cornelis has revealed that the procedure for recruiting both Cuban and local doctors was being reviewed given the recent resignations of two Cuban doctors and defection of a Cuban doctor to Miami.

KARON WILLIAMS, 34, younger sister of Dianne Williams, 37, whose mutilated and headless body was found last week Wednesday at the Forres Park dump in Claxton Bay, along with the headless body of her (Dianne’s) son Shaquille Morgan, eight, yesterday ran out of the Forensic Science Centre in St James, screaming after she viewed her sister’s skeletal head.

AS THE country marked the 20th anniversary of the Jamaat al Muslimeen’s failed coup on July 27, 1990, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday said never again should a small group of dissidents believe the only way to air their discontent is through violence and terror.

PARTISANSHIP often takes the place of innovative leadership as members of parliament are often unwilling to change the status quo even if it is in the best interest of the country, Member of Parliament for Antigua and Barbuda Gisele Isaac-Arindell said yesterday.

PART of the roadside along the Penal Rock Road in Moruga is quickly becoming a “popular” dump site and angry residents are calling on the authority to intervene and stop persons from disposing their garbage there.