The Car­ni­val sea­son usu­al­ly in­cludes al­co­hol con­sump­tion. Oc­ca­sion­al drink­ing may be part of cul­tur­al and so­cial events, but ex­cess al­co­hol in­take can neg­a­tive­ly im­pact women’s health. As women, we process al­co­hol dif­fer­ent­ly, which leads to stronger ef­fects with small­er amounts.

For years, Rox­anne Oma­lo was best known for her com­mand­ing pres­ence on the Car­ni­val stage—a four-time Car­ni­val Queen (2018, 2020, 2024, 2025) whose poise, con­fi­dence, and sto­ry­telling cap­tured au­di­ences and cel­e­brat­ed cul­ture.

Fresh off a sea­son of in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim and cul­tur­al tri­umph, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s own Kes The Band is prepar­ing to car­ry the sound of the Caribbean across Eu­rope with the launch of their Roots, Rock, So­ca Tour, be­gin­ning April 30.

The na­tion’s pro­tec­tors trad­ed uni­forms for stage lights and ser­vice weapons for mi­cro­phones when the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion host­ed its 4th An­nu­al Pro­tec­tive Arms Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s.

So­ca sen­sa­tion Machel Mon­tano of­fi­cial­ly launched his much-an­tic­i­pat­ed al­bum, En­core, on Feb­ru­ary 6, de­light­ing fans with not on­ly the mu­sic but al­so be­hind-the-scenes in­sights in­to the cre­ative process.

By now, the en­tire pop­u­la­tion knows what’s on Aaron “Voice” St Louis’ mind: Woman and woman and rum. His lat­est song Cyah Be­have is now among the 2026 Car­ni­val an­thems, and he has even hint­ed at en­ter­ing the Road March race. But the in­fec­tious tune’s jour­ney start­ed just one month be­fore its even­tu­al re­lease date. In fact, it did not even be­gin in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Avril Alexan­der hails from south Trinidad, and while her larg­er-than-life cre­ative tal­ent may have gone large­ly un­no­ticed at home in her ear­ly years, the in­ter­na­tion­al stage quick­ly recog­nised her gift.

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.

Can­cer touch­es al­most every fam­i­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go, of­ten qui­et­ly, some­times sud­den­ly, but al­ways pro­found­ly. Be­hind the sta­tis­tics, screen­ing cam­paigns and fundrais­ing dri­ves are in­di­vid­u­als who have car­ried the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of steer­ing in­sti­tu­tions through grief, hope, lim­it­ed re­sources and grow­ing pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tion. One such in­di­vid­ual is Robert Du­mas, for­mer chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety, whose tenure co­in­cid­ed with an ex­pand­ing na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion about can­cer pre­ven­tion, pa­tient sup­port and the role of civ­il so­ci­ety in pub­lic health.

“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.

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.

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.