The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) of­fi­cial­ly ush­ered in the Car­ni­val 2026 sea­son with the open­ing of the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage last Fri­day at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, sig­nalling the start of an ex­pand­ed and vi­brant cul­tur­al of­fer­ing for the na­tion­al fes­ti­val.

At a time when the world is cry­ing out for peace, love and uni­ty — and as T&T finds it­self un­com­fort­ably close to what in­ter­na­tion­al news has de­scribed as the threat of war — Hum­ming­bird Medal re­cip­i­ent and car­ni­val band­leader Vanes­sa Forde has turned to her own “peace troop”, Clas­six Pro­duc­tions (CP), to cre­ate joy, calm and har­mo­ny.

Denise Bel­fon is de­liv­er­ing what she be­lieves is a much-need­ed so­ci­etal fix this Car­ni­val: nor­mal­is­ing com­fort, care and con­cern for men dur­ing times of stress. Her Car­ni­val 2026 fron­trun­ner, Fix You Good, ac­knowl­edges that some­times men are car­ry­ing more than they let on.

“Pieces” singer Na­dia Bat­son en­joyed an out­pour­ing of love and Car­ni­val en­er­gy from the mas­sive au­di­ence gath­ered at the Bish­op’s Food In­clu­sive Cool­er Fete, held on the school grounds on Sat­ur­day night. Bat­son re­ceived a warm and in­creas­ing­ly en­gaged re­sponse as she per­formed her many hit se­lec­tions on tracks, earn­ing—rather than de­mand­ing—a swelling cho­rus of voic­es and a sea of hands point­ed sky­ward in spir­it­ed but taste­ful rev­el­ry.

One of Ch­agua­nas’ most pop­u­lar J’Ou­vert bands, Jou­vert Junkiez, is promis­ing a pow­er­ful re­turn to the roots of Car­ni­val with its 2026 por­tray­al, Ra­ma­jay… Time to Break Away.

Staff of The Re­tail Ware­house (Christ­mas Vil­lage) (TRW) and Cook­ies N Cream Kids Stores (CNCK) turned up the glam­our on Jan­u­ary 4, step­ping out fash­ion-for­ward at Pas­sage to Asia restau­rant, Ch­agua­nas, for the com­pa­nies’ first Staff Awards and Din­ner Cer­e­mo­ny.

De­spite hav­ing to con­duct an al­most com­plete over­haul of their lay­out and lo­gis­tics in the lead-up to PRES­tige Fete 2026, the event man­age­ment team of the Alum­ni of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do says they are on track to ex­ceed past ex­pec­ta­tions with this year’s all-in­clu­sive event.

Prose fic­tion writer and hand­i­craft artiste, Vashti Bowlah, cred­its her rur­al up­bring­ing and her par­ents for her be­com­ing a pub­lished au­thor and en­tre­pre­neur.

The evo­lu­tion of cer­vi­cal can­cer man­age­ment is wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of the great­est suc­cess sto­ries in mod­ern med­i­cine, il­lus­trat­ing how pre­ven­tion, ear­ly de­tec­tion, and pub­lic health pol­i­cy can dra­mat­i­cal­ly re­duce can­cer bur­den. Yet, this suc­cess has been un­even, with pro­found dis­par­i­ties be­tween high-in­come coun­tries and many low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries (LMICs).

As the Na­tion­al Dance As­so­ci­a­tion (NDA) en­ters its 45th year, the or­gan­i­sa­tion finds it­self at a crit­i­cal junc­ture. While the as­so­ci­a­tion is re­spect­ed for its lega­cy, the mem­bers are aware that lega­cy alone can­not car­ry dance in­to the fu­ture.

To res­i­dents of tenth Street, Techi­er Vil­lage, Point Fortin, Myr­tle Mau­rice-Bai­ley, known wide­ly as Ma Bai­ley, will al­ways be one of the pil­lars of their com­mu­ni­ty.

The year 2013 saw a dras­tic change for me. It was around Au­gust or Sep­tem­ber that I was giv­en the dev­as­tat­ing news that I had cer­vi­cal can­cer. Need­less to say, I felt numb for some mo­ments un­til the enor­mi­ty of my sit­u­a­tion be­gan to sink in, and a roller­coast­er of emo­tions kicked in, the fore­most be­ing fear and anx­i­ety and, of course, hav­ing to break this heartwrench­ing news to my fam­i­ly. But it had to be done, nonethe­less.