Trinidad and To­ba­go ush­ered in the New Year un­der a cloud of un­cer­tain­ty yes­ter­day, as the gov­ern­ment’s No­vem­ber 2 de­ci­sion to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency (SoE) for an ad­di­tion­al three months cast a shad­ow over the up­com­ing Car­ni­val sea­son.

Busi­ness sec­tors are among T&T’s lifeblood and their fo­cus in 2026 is key to progress. Here’s what some groups project for the new year and what it con­veys about T&T’s land­scape and fu­ture—in­clud­ing the fact that there’s a loud cry for help from To­ba­go.

Hap­py New Year! 2026 will hold “in­ter­est­ing times” and Guardian Me­dia reached out to var­i­ous ex­perts and stake­hold­ers to share their views on what’s ahead for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Old Hi­lar­i­ans’ As­so­ci­a­tion of the Bish­op Anstey High School has ap­point­ed a new ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee to serve for the 2025–2027 term, with a stat­ed fo­cus on re­build­ing ac­tiv­i­ty with­in the as­so­ci­a­tion and strength­en­ing links among alum­ni and with the school.

Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go (CANPTT) has ac­cused law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties of fail­ing to prop­er­ly en­force the law fol­low­ing wide­spread re­ports of il­le­gal fire­works ac­tiv­i­ty on Old Year’s Night.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is urg­ing mo­torists to ad­here strict­ly to road traf­fic laws as new fixed penal­ty fines take ef­fect un­der amend­ments to the Ninth Sched­ule of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act.

Sev­er­al traf­fic fines were re­duced un­der a new le­gal or­der pub­lished on De­cem­ber 31, 2025, af­ter penal­ties set just days ear­li­er ex­ceed­ed lim­its pre­scribed un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act. How­ev­er most oth­er fines were in­creased.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris says sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments to pub­lic or­der are pos­si­ble with­out lan­guage he be­lieves di­min­ish­es the coun­try, as de­bate con­tin­ues over how lo­cal au­thor­i­ties should ad­dress in­dis­ci­pline and en­force­ment.

A Unit­ed States cit­i­zen was found dead at the Trinidad Hilton ear­ly this morn­ing af­ter falling from the sixth floor of the ho­tel.

Just over sev­en years af­ter it was first in­tro­duced, Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) has end­ed its “Caribbean Café” buy-on-board ser­vice as part of a broad­er ef­fort to slash op­er­at­ing costs.

The first ba­by of the New Year at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal Cam­pus was born just af­ter mid­night.

From Syd­ney to Paris to New York City, crowds rang in the new year with ex­u­ber­ant cel­e­bra­tions filled with thun­der­ous fire­works or light shows, while oth­ers took a more sub­dued ap­proach.