The Cuban for­eign min­is­ter vis­it­ed Moscow on Wednes­day as the is­land faces black­outs and se­vere fu­el short­ages wors­ened by a U.S oil em­bar­go.

While of­fi­cials of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) re­mained mum last evening on which song was in the lead for the Road March, based on what Guardian Me­dia heard at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, down­town Port-of-Spain and in San Fer­nan­do, Machel Mon­tano may have his twelfth ti­tle but was be­ing hot­ly pur­sued by Aaron “Voice” St Louis.

The pro­tec­tive agen­cies re­spon­si­ble for pre­serv­ing the safe­ty of cit­i­zens dur­ing the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions have large­ly praised the pub­lic for ob­serv­ing the reg­u­la­tions and ad­her­ing to the law.

Rev­ellers of all na­tion­al­i­ties and walks of life found it hard to be­have them­selves on Car­ni­val Tues­day as they crossed the main stage at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, ful­ly en­joy­ing the time of their lives.

So­cadrome pa­trons who sat in the stands felt short­changed yes­ter­day, as the new Car­ni­val Tues­day lay­out left some of them with lim­it­ed to no view of the ac­tion at Port-of-Spain’s al­ter­na­tive mas stage.

On­look­ers lined the bar­ri­ers along South Quay in Port-of-Spain on Car­ni­val Tues­day, as a kalei­do­scope of colour, feath­ers and se­quins flood­ed the cap­i­tal for the Pa­rade of Bands. Just af­ter 7 am yes­ter­day, be­neath over­cast skies that threat­ened to damp­en spir­its, the first large band, The Lost Tribe, made its ap­proach to the judg­ing point.

Un­der sun­ny skies, colour­ful cos­tumes glit­tered on the streets of San Fer­nan­do on Car­ni­val Tues­day—all un­der the watch­ful eye of a heavy po­lice pres­ence—as mas­quer­aders danced, waved and chipped through the sec­ond city yes­ter­day.

Two cousins from Laven­tille suf­fered se­vere in­juries dur­ing an in­ci­dent in which they were pinned be­tween two trail­ers on Car­ni­val Mon­day in Port-of-Spain.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ed­u­cate them­selves on the his­to­ry of ca­lyp­so.

A high-lev­el se­cu­ri­ty threat trig­gered the shut­down of Mid­night Mas just over an hour be­fore mid­night on Car­ni­val Mon­day in San Fer­nan­do, un­leash­ing out­rage among mas­quer­aders, band­lead­ers, ven­dors and city of­fi­cials.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin yes­ter­day ad­vised cit­i­zens to en­sure the Car­ni­val re­mains clean and safe as ac­tiv­i­ties re­lat­ed to it wind down for the rest of this week.

Con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed on Mon­day night, as of­fi­cers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) swooped down on the Cou­va Car­ni­val Cen­tre and or­dered of­fi­cials of the Cou­va Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (CCC) to shut down all op­er­a­tions with three bands still to per­form on stage.