For Mar­sha Joseph, a 52-year-old teacher at Tacarigua Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, can­cer was nev­er out of her or­bit, as she had fam­i­ly and friends af­fect­ed by the ill­ness and close­ly fol­lowed the work of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety. How­ev­er, in 2024, it loomed large in her life. As she was on the brink of a new sea­son, in the year that she was turn­ing 50, she and her hus­band were cel­e­brat­ing their 25th wed­ding an­niver­sary, and her chil­dren were grow­ing in­to young adults, she nev­er imag­ined that she would al­so be nav­i­gat­ing a breast can­cer jour­ney.

As a gy­nae­col­o­gist, I have the priv­i­lege of car­ing for women through every stage of life—from ado­les­cence and moth­er­hood to menopause and be­yond. As this coun­try ob­served World Can­cer Day on Feb­ru­ary 4, I want­ed to share an im­por­tant mes­sage: many can­cers af­fect­ing women can be pre­vent­ed, de­tect­ed ear­ly, or treat­ed suc­cess­ful­ly if we act in a time­ly man­ner.

Trinida­di­an po­et Gilberte Jas­mine Farah (O’Sul­li­van) (1971–2026) went in­to a co­ma on Jan­u­ary 11 and died in Brighton, UK on the 25 from a mas­sive stroke hours be­fore Sea Blast, her de­but col­lec­tion, was pub­lished.

“The mo­ment be­tween ‘and the Gram­my goes to’ and hear­ing the name of your team is lit­er­al­ly breath­tak­ing. My heart skipped two beats, at least. And then when I heard ‘In­tel­li­gence’, there was this rush of adren­a­line. The first feel­ing is dis­be­lief and then in­cred­i­ble ex­cite­ment, ela­tion,” re­called 56-year-old Trinida­di­an-Cana­di­an mu­sic con­duc­tor Kwamé Ryan.

Bo­cas Lit Fest sup­port­ed The Shel­ter-A Safe House for Sur­vivors of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence through its year-end Books that Build Hope do­na­tion dri­ve, in part­ner­ship with Pa­per Based Book­shop.

Long be­fore the stage lights, the tours, and the chart place­ments, there was a lit­tle girl in To­co singing at the top of her lungs dur­ing fam­i­ly praise and wor­ship.

World Can­cer Aware­ness Day, ob­served an­nu­al­ly on Feb­ru­ary 4, seeks to raise aware­ness about can­cer and en­cour­age its pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion, and treat­ment. On this year’s World Can­cer Day, themed “Unit­ed by Unique” we are called to re­mem­ber our col­lec­tive com­mit­ment against can­cer, and the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion ac­knowl­edges every pa­tient’s unique ex­pe­ri­ences and the val­ue of peo­ple-cen­tered care de­liv­ered joint­ly by health­care providers, fam­i­lies, friends and com­mu­ni­ty.

Car­ing for some­one with can­cer takes an enor­mous amount of pa­tience and com­pas­sion, traits that phle­botomist Eliz­a­beth Atwell has learned to mas­ter over her 29 years of work­ing in the med­ical field.

One year ago, Kristo­pher Mo­hamed’s life changed in a way no teenag­er ex­pects. The for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent, on the cusp of med­ical school and adult­hood, was di­ag­nosed with Stage IV Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, a di­ag­no­sis that forced him to con­front the fear of mor­tal­i­ty far ear­li­er than most of his peers.

Pa­trons en­joyed them­selves dur­ing the 2026 Eye Slam Con­cert se­ries fi­nale at the Fla­va Vil­lage, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day.

There’s a huge chance your favourite pow­er so­ca tunes for 2026 were pro­duced by the same per­son. In fact, many be­lieve he has per­fect­ed the “for­mu­la.” From Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Still A Road Man and Machel Mon­tano’s En­core, to Mi­cal Te­ja and Patrice Roberts’ Cap­i­tal, Xplic­it­Mevon (Mevon Sood­een) is pow­er­ing through the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son.

Be­fore the book­ings, the ra­dio play and the in­ter­na­tion­al calls, San­dra Em­manuel, pop­u­lar­ly known as Queen Steam, said there were nights filled with tears, hunger and prayer.