A late-night down­pour at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah brought this year’s Na­tion­al Car­ni­val King semi­fi­nal to an abrupt end.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es vice pres­i­dent, Bish­op Mau­rice Jones, has warned that the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of “sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it sym­bol­ism” in the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions risks con­se­quences that can­not eas­i­ly be re­versed.

With days to go be­fore mas­quer­aders flood the streets for Car­ni­val 2026, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) deputy chair­man Ke­van Gibbs says all signs are point­ing to a bumper sea­son.

With less than four days un­til Car­ni­val Mon­day, mas band lead­ers are re­port­ing pos­i­tive sales, with some of them com­plete­ly sold out.

De­spite the State of Emer­gency end­ing be­fore the height of the cur­rent Car­ni­val sea­son and the fail­ure of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill in Par­lia­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she ex­pects a fair­ly safe 2026 Car­ni­val.

The Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) for Diego Mar­tin are fir­ing back at Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, over her sug­ges­tion that cit­i­zens should talk to them about the traf­fic grid­lock in the af­ter­math of the Stink and Dut­ty fete in Ch­aguara­mas last Sat­ur­day.

So­ca artiste and Road March con­tender Machel Mon­tano says de­spite the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sur­pass the late Ald­wyn “Lord Kitch­en­er” Roberts for the most Road March ti­tles this year, he re­mains pri­mar­i­ly in­ter­est­ed in en­ter­tain­ing his fans.

Bri­an Lon­don bet­tered Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters in the “War” to claim his fifth Ex­tem­po Monarch crown at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will spon­sor $100,000 to­wards this year’s Schools In­tel­lec­tu­al Na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion and the Schools Na­tion­al Tas­sara­ma Com­pe­ti­tion.

The Blue Wave Har­mo­ny has been cleared to re­turn to in­ter-is­land ser­vice, the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PATT) con­firmed yes­ter­day.

The Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU) is ac­cus­ing Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) of stalling ne­go­ti­a­tions on two col­lec­tive agree­ments, near­ly two years af­ter pro­pos­als were sub­mit­ted.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA), Idi Stu­art, has giv­en Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo un­til to­mor­row to clar­i­fy when Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (RHA) work­ers will re­ceive their long-await­ed salary in­creas­es.