This Car­ni­val sea­son, Car­ni­val Is Fash­ion 2 makes his­to­ry as it takes cen­tre stage at the icon­ic Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah Grand­stand, re­defin­ing ac­cess to one of the Caribbean’s most revered cul­tur­al plat­forms.

Jan­u­ary is Cer­vi­cal Can­cer Aware­ness Month, a time to talk open­ly about a dis­ease that is pre­ventable yet still af­fects thou­sands of women world­wide every year. Cer­vi­cal can­cer does not an­nounce it­self with ear­ly symp­toms. This is why screen­ing—the Pap smear and HPV test­ing—re­mains one of the most pow­er­ful tools in women’s health.

In­dia’s pop­u­la­tion ex­ceeds 1.4 bil­lion, near­ly half of them women. In ur­ban In­dia, more women are ed­u­cat­ed, de­lay mar­riage, and live in­de­pen­dent­ly, along­side ris­ing di­vorce rates in ma­jor cities. Mum­bai, In­dia’s fi­nan­cial cap­i­tal, is home to more than 20 mil­lion peo­ple and ranks among the world’s most dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed and ex­pen­sive ur­ban re­gions.

Of­fi­cial­ly, she has been an ac­tress for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years. But she was “thrown” in­to the the­atri­cal spot­light long be­fore that.

As the count­down to Car­ni­val in­ten­si­fies, Pas­sage to Asia is set­ting the tone for the sea­son with not one, but two high-en­er­gy, ul­tra-pre­mi­um events that promise mu­sic, in­dul­gence, and sig­na­ture flair.

Poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome (PCOS) is un­for­tu­nate­ly very com­mon among women in Trinidad and To­ba­go. One of the signs can be linked to ir­reg­u­lar pe­ri­ods, fa­cial hair, in­sulin re­sis­tance that stems from un­in­ten­tion­al weight gain and poly­cys­tic ovaries. Di­ag­no­sis tech­niques in­clude blood tests to mea­sure hor­mone lev­els, as well as ul­tra­sounds. Due to the symp­toms as­so­ci­at­ed with PCOS, it can low­er the qual­i­ty of life for women as it can im­pact dai­ly func­tions with poor body im­age, feel­ing of fa­tigue, de­pres­sion and long-term health risks such as Di­a­betes.

Grena­di­an So­ca Monarch and Peo­ple’s Choice win­ner Mud­dy (Alex Cuffie) paid a cour­tesy call on Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Roodal Mooni­lal this week at his of­fice in Tow­er C, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Wright­son Road.

Dut­ty Jab Rid­dim is a jab-dri­ven, mul­ti-artiste project root­ed in the rit­u­al, move­ment and raw ex­pres­sion of J’Ou­vert. Pro­duced by Ne­gus En­ter­tain­ment (NE), the project is in­tend­ed to sig­nal the start of mud and oil mas, draw­ing lis­ten­ers straight in­to the heart of Car­ni­val’s most pri­mal ex­pe­ri­ence.

It was a steel­pan cel­e­bra­tion at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, on Mon­day night as the young women of Holy Faith Con­vent, Pe­nal, stole the show, cap­tur­ing yet an­oth­er Na­tion­al Schools Panora­ma ti­tle in the Sec­ondary Schools cat­e­go­ry.

Rasi­ka “D Rani” Din­di­al is hope­ful that her lat­est re­lease, Pound D Damadole, could pro­pel her to the top of the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) fi­nals in 2026, mark­ing a con­fi­dent re­turn to the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter sev­er­al years away.

Mas band Pa­parazzi has is­sued a call for hope, uni­ty and con­nec­tion for Car­ni­val 2026, as the coun­try con­tin­ues to nav­i­gate a pe­ri­od of so­cial and eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty.

PRES­tige Car­ni­val 2026, themed IS­SHŌ, con­tin­ues its tra­di­tion of de­liv­er­ing a pre­mi­um, all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence while gen­er­at­ing vi­tal fund­ing for up­grades at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do.