“Pieces” singer Na­dia Bat­son en­joyed an out­pour­ing of love and Car­ni­val en­er­gy from the mas­sive au­di­ence gath­ered at the Bish­op’s Food In­clu­sive Cool­er Fete, held on the school grounds on Sat­ur­day night. Bat­son re­ceived a warm and in­creas­ing­ly en­gaged re­sponse as she per­formed her many hit se­lec­tions on tracks, earn­ing—rather than de­mand­ing—a swelling cho­rus of voic­es and a sea of hands point­ed sky­ward in spir­it­ed but taste­ful rev­el­ry.

Denise Bel­fon is de­liv­er­ing what she be­lieves is a much-need­ed so­ci­etal fix this Car­ni­val: nor­mal­is­ing com­fort, care and con­cern for men dur­ing times of stress. Her Car­ni­val 2026 fron­trun­ner, Fix You Good, ac­knowl­edges that some­times men are car­ry­ing more than they let on.

Staff of The Re­tail Ware­house (Christ­mas Vil­lage) (TRW) and Cook­ies N Cream Kids Stores (CNCK) turned up the glam­our on Jan­u­ary 4, step­ping out fash­ion-for­ward at Pas­sage to Asia restau­rant, Ch­agua­nas, for the com­pa­nies’ first Staff Awards and Din­ner Cer­e­mo­ny.

Prose fic­tion writer and hand­i­craft artiste, Vashti Bowlah, cred­its her rur­al up­bring­ing and her par­ents for her be­com­ing a pub­lished au­thor and en­tre­pre­neur.

New York, NY—Caribbean mu­sic reached a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone at Jazz at Lin­coln Cen­ter as Kesthe­Band de­liv­ered a land­mark, sold-out, two-night run at the Uni­ty Jazz Fes­ti­val—set­ting a first for so­ca mu­sic with­in the fes­ti­val’s his­to­ry.

At The Guild, lo­cat­ed at the Shoppes of Mar­aval, Richard Young is cul­ti­vat­ing more than a cre­ative space—he is nur­tur­ing an ecosys­tem where Caribbean iden­ti­ty and women’s em­pow­er­ment in­ter­sect.

To res­i­dents of tenth Street, Techi­er Vil­lage, Point Fortin, Myr­tle Mau­rice-Bai­ley, known wide­ly as Ma Bai­ley, will al­ways be one of the pil­lars of their com­mu­ni­ty.

Sav­ina Ram­nanan, known pro­fes­sion­al­ly as Sav­ina or Sav­ina Leo, is a life coach, as­trologer, and spir­i­tu­al guide whose work is root­ed in both tra­di­tion and lived ex­pe­ri­ence. Raised in a Hin­du house­hold, she cred­its her up­bring­ing with lay­ing a strong spir­i­tu­al foun­da­tion that would lat­er shape her world­view and ca­reer. As an adult, she came to recog­nise that much of what is mar­ket­ed as “New Age” spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in the West draws heav­i­ly (of­ten with­out ac­knowl­edge­ment) on Hin­du and In­dige­nous philoso­phies. Still a prac­tis­ing Hin­du, Ram­nanan ap­proach­es spir­i­tu­al­i­ty with rev­er­ence and depth and in­ter­twines it in­to her pro­fes­sion­al prac­tice.

One of Ch­agua­nas’ most pop­u­lar J’Ou­vert bands, Jou­vert Junkiez, is promis­ing a pow­er­ful re­turn to the roots of Car­ni­val with its 2026 por­tray­al, Ra­ma­jay… Time to Break Away.

As the Na­tion­al Dance As­so­ci­a­tion (NDA) en­ters its 45th year, the or­gan­i­sa­tion finds it­self at a crit­i­cal junc­ture. While the as­so­ci­a­tion is re­spect­ed for its lega­cy, the mem­bers are aware that lega­cy alone can­not car­ry dance in­to the fu­ture.

Hear­ing those words was ter­ri­fy­ing. It felt as if my en­tire world had col­lapsed since I had no un­der­stand­ing of can­cer or its treat­ments. My ini­tial re­ac­tion was the fear of dy­ing. How­ev­er, af­ter un­der­go­ing ad­di­tion­al tests and con­sult­ing with my doc­tors, I dis­cov­ered that it was Stage 2B and that there were treat­ment op­tions avail­able, in­clud­ing chemother­a­py and ra­di­a­tion.

De­spite hav­ing to con­duct an al­most com­plete over­haul of their lay­out and lo­gis­tics in the lead-up to PRES­tige Fete 2026, the event man­age­ment team of the Alum­ni of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do says they are on track to ex­ceed past ex­pec­ta­tions with this year’s all-in­clu­sive event.