There are many chal­lenges that we go through as women as we age. Dur­ing menopause, women tend to ex­pe­ri­ence many dif­fer­ent symp­toms. Typ­i­cal­ly, women ex­pe­ri­ence menopause be­tween the ages of 45 and 55 years. Some women ex­pe­ri­ence this tran­si­tion ear­li­er or lat­er in life. Menopause can be de­fined as the end of men­stru­a­tion. Usu­al­ly, it is di­ag­nosed af­ter about one year with­out a pe­ri­od.

For many women, painful pe­ri­ods have been con­sid­ered a nor­mal part of life. Young girls are of­ten told to “bear with it,” while old­er women silent­ly tol­er­ate dis­com­fort month af­ter month. But as a gy­nae­col­o­gist, I want to make one thing very clear: se­vere or dis­abling pe­ri­od pain is not nor­mal and should nev­er be ig­nored.

Gilberte Farah O’Sul­li­van (22/12/1971–25/1 2026) was a Trinidad-born po­et, ed­u­cat­ed in Trinidad, the UK, and the US, with an MFA in Cre­ative Fic­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. Her work was pub­lished across the Caribbean, North Amer­i­ca, the UK and Aus­tralia. On Jan­u­ary 25, 2026, she died of a stroke in Brighton, sur­round­ed by her three chil­dren, Rhi­an­non (22), Sinead (Max) (19) and Conor (15). This trib­ute is of­fered by her col­leagues, writ­ers and po­ets, in memo­r­i­al.

At 33, Naki­ta Hy­atali stands as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most ver­sa­tile cre­atives, with a ca­reer span­ning fash­ion de­sign, car­ni­val pro­duc­tion, and cre­ative di­rec­tion. Her jour­ney has been shaped by pa­tience, ed­u­ca­tion, and hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence, a path she de­scribes as de­lib­er­ate rather than rushed.

As a uni­ver­si­ty fo­cused on us­ing re­search for the up­lift­ment of its com­mu­ni­ty, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine (UWI STA), the pre­mier ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tion in the re­gion, pro­duc­ing world-class schol­ars, be­lieves sci­ence should be ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic. We are pleased to present our me­dia se­ries, UWI Sci­en­tists Speak. To­day, we hear from Dr Amy Dea­con and Pro­fes­sor In­dar Ram­nar­ine from the Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy about their re­search on the Trinidad Gup­py.

Hav­ing to change the lo­ca­tion of a large-scale, all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val event is no small task, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing a sea­son when large, sought-af­ter venues are booked quick­ly and of­ten months be­fore­hand.

When it comes to her craft, Karene As­che knows where her strengths lie, and she leaves no room for weak­ness­es.

If Jah­mike “Chris­to” Bonas had not gone on In­sta­gram on a par­tic­u­lar day last year, one of his best songs may nev­er have ex­ist­ed. It was a quick DM (di­rect mes­sage) to a pro­duc­er about a con­cept that even­tu­al­ly led to the cre­ation of Doux Doux Dar­lin — one of the sweet­est tunes for the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son.

In a Car­ni­val econ­o­my dri­ven by speed—faster re­leas­es, loud­er hooks, vi­ral mo­ments mea­sured in hours rather than years—Den­zel Coutain is mov­ing de­lib­er­ate­ly against the cur­rent.

For Hilton Trinidad’s Lav­ish, the fo­cus has al­ways been less about how many peo­ple can be packed in­to a space and more about how the night flows.

Lo­cal su­per-pro­duc­er Michael “Tano” Mon­tano is back with an­oth­er groovy rid­dim set to take over the Caribbean’s air­waves. The Block­buster Rid­dim, fea­tur­ing GBM Nu­tron, Kes, Full Blown, Mi­cal Te­ja and Coutain, al­ready has the pub­lic buzzing.

Reez Mu­sic rock/fu­sion group will add to T&T's melt­ing pot mu­si­cal brew land­scape on Sat­ur­day (Jan­u­ary 31), when they per­form at an event where part pro­ceeds go to the UNICEF sup­port­ed ini­tia­tive "The Child Friend­ly Space." This fa­cil­i­tates a safe en­vi­ron­ment for mi­grant chil­dren to learn and play.