Janay Bernard, Miss Barataria, was crowned Lit­tle Miss Pleas­antville Queen 2026 at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 17, fol­low­ing an evening show­cas­ing tal­ent, con­fi­dence, poise and el­e­gance.

Dr Tonya Abra­ham is set­ting her­self a tall task—to ac­tive­ly tack­le men­tal health in young peo­ple.

The use of the “home name” has been a nor­mal part of every­day life for Trin­bag­o­ni­ans for decades. Most of us are prob­a­bly more close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with our home names, of­ten link­ing our “gov­ern­ment name” to se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tions or “get­ting in trou­ble”. But did you know that the home name was steeped in West African prac­tice and be­lief? Our African an­ces­tors be­lieved that a per­son’s true name holds deep spir­i­tu­al pow­er and con­nects di­rect­ly to their soul, so a “fake iden­ti­ty” was a way to pro­tect chil­dren from the evil eye, neg­a­tiv­i­ty, jumbies and for­est spir­its.

For 55 years, Pan Trin­ba­go has stood at the heart of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s steel­band move­ment, help­ing to pre­serve, pro­mote and ad­vance the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. As the or­gan­i­sa­tion cel­e­brates its 55th an­niver­sary in 2026, it is re­flect­ing on a lega­cy built on re­silience, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and the work of those who laid the foun­da­tions for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Pork ribs plat­ed like a starfish, topped with lo­cal kim­chi. A de­served chef’s kiss not on­ly for its pre­sen­ta­tion, but al­so for what could be eas­i­ly de­fined by the lat­est pop­u­lar food term “ten­dernism”, as the meat came off the bone with gen­tle per­sua­sion of the fork.

Imag­ine tak­ing time off work, wait­ing in a long line, and pay­ing for your ve­hi­cle’s manda­to­ry bi-an­nu­al ve­hi­cle in­spec­tion, on­ly to be flat­ly turned away be­fore the in­spec­tor even looks at your brakes. It is a high­ly frus­trat­ing re­al­i­ty for many dri­vers in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and it usu­al­ly comes down to a sin­gle, tiny ty­po on their pa­per­work: con­fus­ing the num­ber “1” for the let­ter “I”, or the num­ber “0” for the let­ter “O”.

Shar­lan Bai­ley’s re­sem­blance to his fa­ther, Win­ston Bai­ley, is so strik­ing that peo­ple of­ten do a dou­ble take when­ev­er he takes the stage. As Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month comes to a close, the late Mighty Shad­ow re­turns to the spot­light through the eyes and mem­o­ry of his son.

Some­times we can de­vel­op anx­i­ety be­cause a build-up of in­flam­ma­tion in the body can lead to detri­men­tal health out­comes. It makes us won­der when we eat a meal or snack, “Is this caus­ing in­flam­ma­tion in my body?”

The As­tor John­son Reper­to­ry Dance The­atre pre­sent­ed Branch­es at Queen’s Hall from Fri­day Oc­to­ber 2, to Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 4.

The Make It Hap­pen Net­work (MIH) host­ed Be­com­ing 3 on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 17, at the NA­PA Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain.

As ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence-gen­er­at­ed art be­comes in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish from hu­man-made work, the time and ef­fort be­hind a piece of tra­di­tion­al art can be easy to over­look. For artist Sarah Belle-Smythe, cap­tur­ing the in­tri­cate de­tails of her work can take hours, some­times even days.

The abil­i­ty to cre­ate beau­ti­ful art­work man­i­fest­ed it­self in her ear­ly child­hood and has fol­lowed her around ever since. The art ed­u­ca­tor and vi­su­al artist told We Art, “It’s al­most as though I just couldn’t get away from it. I loved art as a child,” a love she be­lieves she in­her­it­ed from her grand­moth­er, ce­ram­ic and vi­su­al artist Bar­bara Fe­lice.