Car­lene Bruno has been can­cer-free for 14 years–a long way from the dev­as­tat­ed woman who in Jan­u­ary 2011 had screamed and cried un­con­trol­lably in the bath­room of a US hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch 2020 and hat-trick Re­gion­al Queen of Queens Monarch (2022, 2023, 2024), Ter­ri Lyons, is no stranger to the spot­light. A tal­ent­ed, charis­mat­ic, and vi­brant prod­uct of en­ter­tain­ment roy­al­ty, she car­ries for­ward the lega­cy of her late moth­er, singer and per­former Dionne Phillips, and her fa­ther, 10-time Road March ti­tle hold­er and mul­ti­ple So­ca Monarch cham­pi­on Austin “Su­perblue” Lyons.

In the qui­et vil­lage of Fe­lic­i­ty, cen­tral Trinidad, where the name it­self means “hap­pi­ness”, a young girl grew up ra­di­ant­ly op­ti­mistic, mir­ror­ing the essence of her vil­lage.

Breast health and aware­ness are not of­ten dis­cussed in re­la­tion to ado­les­cence or the teenage years. Yet, this stage—typ­i­cal­ly be­tween ages 10 or 11 and 17 or 18—is when girls ex­pe­ri­ence some of the most sig­nif­i­cant phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al changes of their lives.

Tsit­si Dan­garem­b­ga was born in 1959 in Mu­toko, a rur­al dis­trict of gran­ite hills and small farms in north­east­ern Zim­bab­we, near the bor­der with Mozam­bique. At the time, it was South­ern Rhode­sia, a British colony ruled by a white set­tler mi­nor­i­ty. Pow­er lay in the hands of a few thou­sand Eu­ro­peans who con­trolled the land, the schools, and the vote, while mil­lions of Africans lived un­der laws that con­fined them to re­serves and labour com­pounds.

Tri­cia Thomp­son’s jour­ney has tak­en many un­ex­pect­ed turns, and she has carved out a niche in a part of the fit­ness world that few peo­ple fo­cus on or rep­re­sent. When Thomp­son set out for Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty (FIU) in Mi­a­mi many years ago, she imag­ined a fu­ture in law. But mid­way through her stud­ies, she dis­cov­ered mar­ket­ing—a field that played to her love of writ­ing and cre­ativ­i­ty. Af­ter com­plet­ing her de­gree in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion with a fo­cus on Mar­ket­ing, she re­turned to Trinidad and con­fi­dent­ly stepped in­to the cor­po­rate world as an ex­port man­ag­er in the mar­ket­ing in­dus­try, where she thrived for sev­en years.

“I had two imag­i­nary friends, Say-Day and Ad­dah. We had an out­house, and I would go there, afraid, and I would tell my friends, ‘I’m meant for great­ness. I will live in lux­u­ry. I’ll cook nice, nice food on a big, big fan­cy ta­ble. You’ll see,’” she re­called nos­tal­gi­cal­ly.

Through­out the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed T&T Restau­rant Week (TTRW) 2025, restau­rants across the coun­try opened their doors to food lovers in search of their next “foodgasm”—all at a dis­count­ed price. Menus this year spanned a world of flavours, pulling in­spi­ra­tion from both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al cuisines: Chi­nese, Ital­ian, Japan­ese, In­di­an, and be­yond.

The In­spi­ra­tional Women’s Fo­rum of T&T host­ed its 4th an­nu­al Gala Awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Hy­att Re­gency on Tues­day, Oc­to­ber 30.

The sweet sounds of parang will echo through Buenos Ayres to­mor­row as par­ran­deros show­case “El Poder de La Par­ran­da”—The Pow­er of Parang—at the sec­ond stop of the 2025 Parang Fes­ti­val host­ed by the Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NPATT).

Un­der a canopy of blos­som­ing beau­ty and Caribbean rhythm, the third an­nu­al Caribbean Cul­tur­al Diplo­mats Ex­pe­ri­ence un­fold­ed like a liv­ing love let­ter to the re­gion’s cre­ative bril­liance.

Gas­par­il­lo-born mu­sic icon Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine is set to light up Di­wali at Times Square in New York City on Sun­day, bring­ing the spir­it and sound of T&T to one of the world’s most icon­ic stages.