Ex­tem­po artistes lit up the stage in Ch­agua­nas on Mon­day night, de­liv­er­ing not on­ly sharp wit and lyri­cal bril­liance but al­so a pas­sion­ate call for the art­form to reach even greater heights.

Gov­ern­ment has plead­ed “no cen­sor­ship”, and state-owned Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) has apol­o­gised to view­ers for the loss of au­dio dur­ing for­mer Ca­lyp­so Monarch Helon Fran­cis’s per­for­mance at Sun­day’s Di­manche Gras show—but Fran­cis is not con­vinced.

Ca­lyp­son­ian Ter­ri Lyons reaped the bless­ings of her hard work, ded­i­ca­tion and faith in God as she was crowned the 2026 Ca­lyp­so Monarch yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was out ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing en­joy­ing J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in Bar­rack­pore.

Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau and the Port-of-Spain CID were kept busy on Car­ni­val Mon­day as a 19-year-old man was killed and two peo­ple were shot in two sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in Wood­brook and Ari­api­ta Av­enue, St James.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says the po­lice would be main­tain­ing max­i­mum na­tion­wide cov­er­age through­out the Car­ni­val sea­son and warned that due to the height­ened po­lice pres­ence, crim­i­nals would be dealt with by the po­lice.

Record Car­ni­val King Cur­tis Eu­stace has strong­ly crit­i­cised the T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) for its or­gan­i­sa­tion of this year’s Car­ni­val King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion.

As the say­ing so of­ten goes, “Car­ni­val is Woman”, and Car­ni­val Mon­day 2026 was cer­tain­ly no dif­fer­ent.

En­core, Cyah Be­have and Road Man were the mas­quer­aders’ and spec­ta­tors’ three top choic­es for the 2026 Road March ti­tle at yes­ter­day’s Car­ni­val Mon­day cel­e­bra­tions in down­town Port-of-Spain.

The most fre­quent­ly asked ques­tion by se­cu­ri­ty, pa­trons and ven­dors at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah stage on Car­ni­val Mon­day was, “Where are the mas bands?”

Un­der the cov­er of dark­ness, com­peti­tors in this year’s J’Ou­vert King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion con­verged on South Quay, Port-of-Spain, haul­ing tow­er­ing cos­tumes and elab­o­rate props for one of Car­ni­val’s most bit­ing show­cas­es of so­cial com­men­tary. By the time the first bands be­gan to move, mas­quer­aders had al­ready trained their satire on lo­cal politi­cians, ris­ing tax­es, traf­fic penal­ties, and even world lead­ers, us­ing tra­di­tion­al mas to lam­poon the head­lines dom­i­nat­ing na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion.

San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val may have been short of $200,000 this year, but mas­quer­aders, young and old, slim and volup­tuous, be­came liv­ing brush­es, splash­ing the city’s grey can­vas with ri­otous paint, mud and pow­der. In the south­ern dawn, J’Ou­vert blos­somed, wild and un­bro­ken, across the as­phalt in what San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris be­lieves was the “biggest J’Ou­vert in the coun­try”.