As T&T wel­comes 1,700 pas­sen­gers aboard the Bril­liance of the Seas cruise lin­er, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has promised a safe Car­ni­val, point­ing to low crime num­bers as proof that the streets are ready for lo­cals and tourists.

Fol­low­ing the ex­pi­ra­tion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) and the fail­ure of the pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) Bill, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the Gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-crime plan will re­main large­ly un­changed from what’s been done over the years.

The Gov­ern­ment has re­ject­ed Op­po­si­tion claims that it in­ter­fered po­lit­i­cal­ly with the re­sults of the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta held last Sat­ur­day at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

For­mer T&T track and field ath­lete and this coun­try’s first Olympic gold medal­list, Hase­ly Craw­ford, has raised noise pol­lu­tion and nui­sance con­cerns about the So­ca Brain­wash fete to be host­ed to­day at St Mary’s Col­lege Grounds, which is just me­tres away from his St Clair Not­ing that he suf­fered un­due stress dur­ing when St Mary’s Col­lege (CIC) host­ed their Fete with the Saints at the same venue on Jan­u­ary 24th, Craw­ford said he feared the same to­day.

Cul­prits at­tempt­ed to en­ter Wednes­day’s Hy­att Lime fete with fake tick­ets and coun­ter­feit hand­bands, but none were suc­cess­ful, Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (UDe­COTT) chair­man Shankar Bidaisee con­firmed yes­ter­day. There have al­so been no re­ports of cy­ber-at­tacks to ob­tain fete tick­ets.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says he can­not yet es­ti­mate the eco­nom­ic im­pact of Car­ni­val 2026 but main­tains that this year’s cel­e­bra­tions al­ready rep­re­sent an im­prove­ment on 2025, cit­ing ex­pand­ed com­mu­ni­ty events and in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty at key venues.

De­spite eas­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions in the south­ern Caribbean, tour op­er­a­tors say the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son has failed to de­liv­er growth, with some re­port­ing worse per­for­mance than in 2025. In­dus­try lead­ers warn that Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to miss op­por­tu­ni­ties to po­si­tion Car­ni­val as a mar­ketable tourism prod­uct.

This evening’s Panora­ma Large Con­ven­tion­al Band Fi­nal brings to­geth­er some of the most suc­cess­ful steel­bands in the his­to­ry of the event.

Be­fore dawn broke over the cap­i­tal, Pic­cadil­ly Greens in Port of Spain was al­ready ablaze with fire­light, rhythm, and re­sis­tance. Short­ly af­ter 4 am yes­ter­day, the an­nu­al Can­boulay re-en­act­ment, host­ed by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), un­fold­ed in dra­mat­ic fash­ion, mark­ing the pul­sat­ing start of Car­ni­val week­end.

A woman and her boyfriend were shot dead dur­ing a brazen gun at­tack near their home in Cou­va yes­ter­day. Po­lice said Amelia Her­nan­dez was killed even as she tried to pro­tect their daugh­ter.

Ques­tions re­main about the pres­ence of Unit­ed States mil­i­tary air­craft and per­son­nel in Trinidad and To­ba­go, af­ter De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge de­clined to say whether pre­vi­ous­ly ap­proved op­er­a­tions are still un­der­way.

Just af­ter mid­night, flames en­gulfed the Moru­ga home of 75-year-old pen­sion­er Bernadette Guer­rero, as neigh­bours looked on help­less­ly, pray­ing she was not in­side.