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”.

Band­lead­ers praised the Ch­agua­nas Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee for its de­ci­sion to erect a stage for this year’s cel­e­bra­tions.

Scores of spec­ta­tors and rev­ellers came out in their num­bers as J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions kicked off in San­gre Grande yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Three house fires, which oc­curred in a week, in­clud­ing one which led to the death of a home­own­er, have reignit­ed calls for a fire sta­tion in the Princes Town/Moru­ga dis­trict. The lat­est blaze left An­tho­ny Ja­cob, his wife, and 12-year-old son count­ing their loss­es af­ter the up­per floor of their Fifth Com­pa­ny Vil­lage home was de­stroyed while they were at church on Car­ni­val Sun­day.