That was my first thought as the group stepped off the beat­en path and in­to the rain­for­est, greet­ed by views of an open, over­cast sky, lush green moun­tains, and tow­er­ing vines and trees that dwarfed even my col­league Aidan, who stands over six feet tall.

Sev­en­teen years lat­er, rain or shine, the mem­bers of Al­ma Caribena (Caribbean Soul) are keep­ing the sweet parang flame burn­ing every chance they get.

When you hear the words “in­te­ri­or de­sign,” do you im­me­di­ate­ly pic­ture lux­u­ry homes, im­port­ed fur­ni­ture, and bud­gets far out of reach for the av­er­age cit­i­zen?

The Ju­ly and Au­gust hol­i­day pe­ri­od is one of the most an­tic­i­pat­ed times of the year. It is a sea­son for trav­el, fam­i­ly gath­er­ings, beach trips and much-need­ed rest. Af­ter months of work, dead­lines and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, many peo­ple wel­come the op­por­tu­ni­ty to slow down.

We are now ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the won­der-filled age of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI)—com­put­er sys­tems de­vel­oped to per­form tasks that typ­i­cal­ly re­quire hu­man in­tel­li­gence, with ap­pli­ca­tions that have rev­o­lu­tionised the way we ac­cess so­lu­tions to dai­ly life chal­lenges. Through AI, sig­nif­i­cant break­throughs are be­ing wit­nessed in al­most every in­dus­try.

We’re on­ly halfway through the year, but for those who cel­e­brate Christ­mas in Ju­ly, it’s the most won­der­ful time!

At one point in lo­cal his­to­ry, cin­e­mas stood as the undis­put­ed hall­marks of en­ter­tain­ment and leisure.

The sub­jec­tiv­i­ty of art knows no bounds, a les­son that Jared Hunte learned when he was just about 15 years old.

Kervin Solomon is a mod­ern-day ex­am­ple of David, who de­feat­ed Go­liath as de­scribed in bib­li­cal times, and of a young boy who achieved his dreams by de­sign.

John Thomas, who is known for his su­perb op­er­at­ic Broad­way mu­si­cals, will present an­oth­er of his mas­ter­pieces, ti­tled Show­time, at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s. The pro­duc­tion, which will run to­mor­row and Sun­day, promis­es to be a grand night of opera.

We see them un­der the bright lights, killing it on stage and dom­i­nat­ing our air­waves. In their down­time, just like you and me, they en­joy pop­ping in their head­phones or lis­ten­ing to their favourite songs on a long dri­ve. It is easy to for­get that the peo­ple who make the sound­tracks to our lives have their own per­son­al sound­tracks too.

Car­ni­val rhythms fused with sport­ing en­er­gy as the TRIBE group of bands pre­sent­ed their 2027 cos­tume se­lec­tion in World Cup style at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, bring­ing the foot­ball fren­zy to pa­trons in an ac­tion-packed spec­ta­cle of colour and ex­cite­ment.