Grow­ing up in a close-knit Tri­ni fam­i­ly, food was al­ways a cen­ter­ing life force for Abi­gail Bod­ing­ton. One of many chil­dren, Bod­ing­ton re­mem­bers an up­bring­ing “full of en­er­gy, love and lots of home-cooked meals”.

Stacey-Ann Noel is rewrit­ing what re­silience looks like. Di­ag­nosed with lu­pus at just 27, she is de­ter­mined not to let the chron­ic ill­ness de­fine her. She finds ways to bal­ance her flare-ups and re­main pos­i­tive, heal­ing with med­i­ta­tion and mu­sic, and draw­ing strength from her bond with her pets and her sis­ters.

From the ear­li­est mo­ments of her life, Can­dice Nasha Clarke has been in per­fect rhythm—a nat­ur­al-born dancer. She re­calls that from her pre-teen years, dance lift­ed her morale and self-es­teem. For Clarke, dance has al­ways been more than move­ment—it is con­fi­dence, heal­ing, and hope. Her acad­e­my, the Can­dice Clarke Acad­e­my of Dance (CCAD), ex­ists to give as many girls and women as pos­si­ble that same trans­for­ma­tive op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Pa­tri­cia Hale met VS Naipaul at Ox­ford in 1952, both ex­iles in dif­fer­ent ways: she from a mod­est Birm­ing­ham home, he from the heat and dis­lo­ca­tion of Trinidad. She was 19, the first in her fam­i­ly to reach uni­ver­si­ty, and the on­ly pupil from her state school to win a place at Ox­ford. He was shy, un­cer­tain, and hun­gry for recog­ni­tion. She stead­ied him with the con­fi­dence of her be­lief in him, in his work as a writer.

When Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) skip­per Nicholas Pooran and his side walked out against the Bar­ba­dos Roy­als in their last pre­lim­i­nary round Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) match-up in Bar­ba­dos last night, one of his side’s biggest fans, Adri­an Cud­joe, was watch­ing with a re­newed sense of pride in the team.

Grow­ing up in Ari­ma, Maria Bho­la Paul’s world was al­ways alive with cre­ativ­i­ty and ex­pres­sion. She at­tend­ed Cara­po RC Pri­ma­ry School, where teach­ers quick­ly no­ticed her knack for per­for­mance.

For de­sign­er and mod­el Ar­lene Hodge-Mur­ray, The Re­turn of the Di­a­monds was more than a show­case of cre­ativ­i­ty. It was a re­union—and a re­birth—of tal­ent and beau­ty that had been sti­fled dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

For two un­for­get­table nights on Au­gust 8 and 9, Queen’s Hall pulsed with mu­sic, colour and move­ment as X-Treme Dance Acad­e­my (XDA) staged Hits—A Two-Night Stage Saga. The show­case cel­e­brat­ed near­ly three decades of the acad­e­my’s best chore­og­ra­phy, blend­ing past and present rou­tines in­to an elec­tri­fy­ing spec­ta­cle of tal­ent and pas­sion.

First-time cook­book au­thor Kim­ber­ly For­rester has earned in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion with her de­but pub­li­ca­tion, Beets by Kim – 100 Beet­root Recipes, se­cur­ing nom­i­na­tions in two cat­e­gories at the 31st Gour­mand In­ter­na­tion­al World Cook­book Awards 2025. She is the on­ly en­trant from T&T to be nom­i­nat­ed in mul­ti­ple cat­e­gories this year.

On Au­gust 24, the Katzen­jam­mers Steel Or­ches­tra (KJ) cel­e­brat­ed a mile­stone in youth de­vel­op­ment, grad­u­at­ing 55 stu­dent pan play­ers from its fifth an­nu­al Pan Out Your Fullest Po­ten­tial camp.

Car­oli­na, a qui­et com­mu­ni­ty in cen­tral Trinidad, over­flowed with joy and cel­e­bra­tion on Mon­day as parish­ioners re­turned to wor­ship at the Our La­dy of Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion Church for the first time in 15 years.

In cel­e­bra­tion of Re­pub­lic Day and all it rep­re­sents—sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al pride, and the ex­tra­or­di­nary po­ten­tial of T&T’s peo­ple—four dis­tin­guished na­tion­als will be recog­nised for their out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to jour­nal­ism, film, ad­vo­ca­cy, and fash­ion.