Music: Last year Beyonce was named the first African-American female to headline the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California, boasting sold-out crowds of more than 70,000 it is arguably the biggest music festival in America. Comment

Bronx: A group of graduates from a Caribbean medical school are about to make a big impact on the medical landscape of the borough. This year St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada is sending 21 graduates to residencies, or post-graduate training, at three local hospitals in the borough. Comment

Jamaica: Reform and a rethinking in the way children are raised became topical to an audience in Jamaica when a government minister said boys and girls are being short-changed by parents who apply different standards — depending on their gender — resulting with stereotyped negative behavior. Comment

Music: New Jamaican reggae artiste Humbleton has added to the mix of influential reggae artists in the Caribbean island. According to Tracy-Ann “Roxxi” Chung, public relations coordinator of the Brooklyn-based PlaybookMG, Humbleton hails from the parish of Hanover. Comment

Trinidad and Tobago: Antigua The cash-strapped Antigua-based regional airline LIAT says that despite workers agreeing to a six percent salary cut, the airline is still facing a severe financial problem and may require additional salary cuts from its employees. Comment

Bronx: I grew up in a Bronx that was burning. Now, it’s building. In this construction boom, developers are pursuing major commercial and residential projects here, especially in the South Bronx. Comment

Arts & Theater: The 13th Annual Dance Parade, will be held on Saturday, May 18, with more than 10,000 paraders including students, professionals, young and old, with color, costumes, and music engaging in 80 unique styles of dance and culture. Comment

Brooklyn: As real estate prices rise, many homeowners in Brooklyn are feeling the heat, as real estate fraud, intense harassment of homeowners to sell their homes and over development in which multi-story buildings are beside one-family houses have also increased to alarming levels. Comments (1)

Viewpoints: For many, owning a home or piece of real estate is a dream come true. It is generally the single most important and largest investment we make in our lifetime. We take out mortgages which we have to repay over a very lengthy period of time, sometimes up to 30 years. For the lucky few, they would have been gifted their real estate through a will from a family member or friend. Comment

Food: Brooklyn’s premier beer and wine fest returns this year at a new time and a new location. Tap+Cork: Brooklyn Beer & Wine Fest will host its seventh annual event on Saturday, May 25, 2019, at Kings Theater in Brooklyn. More than 1,700 festival-goers are expected to descend upon the day -long event, which combines the experience of grand tastings with a block party atmosphere. Comment

Jamaica: Flush with shame and criticism about the way they treated colonial era West Indian migrants authorities in England earlier this month announced plans to compensate nationals who were forcibly deported back home or were denied health care and other basic services because they were misclassified as illegals but the amounts being proffered appear set to trigger yet another controversy over the so-called Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants. Comment

Books: They said it would never work. He married up too high. She was a gold-digger and he didn’t realize it yet. She wanted a Daddy figure; he was Mama’s Boy. Neither was good enough for the other, so they said it wouldn’t work. And in the new novel, “Before We Were Wicked” by Eric Jerome Dickey… they were right. Comment

St Vincent: The Brooklyn-based, Vincentian group, Friends of Sion Hill, Inc. on Saturday, April 13 bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award on former West Indies fast bowler Winston Davis at a gala honor ceremony at the Friends of Crown Heights Educational Center in Brooklyn. Comment

Brooklyn: New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams on Tuesday denounce what he characterized as Hudson Yard’s “wealthy-focused business practices,” which includes “many cashless businesses and the unsavory use of the EB-5 program to claim funds intended for economically distressed areas.” Comment

Arts & Theater: Trevor Smith says he is known as the grandmaster of kite making in Guyana. “Making kites come with three phases. I love making kites…I have a passion for preparing my frames, and at the end of process, I feel joy when I see what I have accumulated from honest work,” said the street vendor, who has become a permanent fixture at the corner of Regent and Camp streets, in the capital city of Georgetown, during the Easter season. Comment

Brooklyn: Ten rent-stabilized tenants on Tuesday filed a complaint in Kings County (Brooklyn) Supreme Court alleging that their landlord, the Shasho family, has engaged in long-term tenant harassment and illegal housing practices in an effort to push tenants out of their rent-stabilized apartments in Brooklyn’s gentrifying Prospect-Lefferts Garden neighborhood. Comment

Trinidad and Tobago: The Trinis ill-treated their Bajan hosts by handing them a 24-14 thumping to win gold in the Under-19 Boys’ Water Polo final at the 34th CARIFTA Aquatics Championships over the weekend. Comment

St Vincent: The Friends of Sion Hill, Inc., a Brooklyn-based, Vincentian community group, on Saturday, April 13 honored Vincentian centenarian Mitchinson “Mitchie” James with its Longevity Award. Comment

Sports: The new Cricket West Indies Board (CWI) has fired the entire West Indies selection panel and a three-man committee will select the regional team for the upcoming International Council (ICC) World Cup in England starting at the end of May 2019. Comment

Haiti: NEW YORK (AP) — A second federal judge has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from forcing tens of thousands of Haitians to return to their native country. Comment

Movies: Despite being saddled with a couple of generic American names, John Smith’s (Marcel Ruiz) life story has been anything but boring. It’s just too bad that the shy, 14-year-old has been too embarrassed to share it. Comment

Movies: Fast Color (PG-13 for violence and brief profanity) Sci-fi thriller about a woman (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) forced to abandon her family and go on the run by a sheriff (David Strathairn) who discovers she has superpowers. With Lorraine Toussaint, Saniyya Sidney and Christopher Denham. Comment

West Indies fast bowler Alzarri Joseph grabbed 6 wickets for 12 runs to record the best-ever figures in Indian Premier League (IPL) history, as he made a sensational start to his IPL career by firing Mumbai Indians to a 4-run victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad recently. Comment

Sports: Barbados were crowned West Indies Women’s Twenty20 Blaze and the regional women’s double-crown champions following an unbroken third-wicket stand between world-rated all-rounder Deandra Dottin and West Indies women’s teammate Kycia Knight, which formalized an eight-wicket victory over Guyana at the Guyana National Stadium recently. Comment

Trinidad and Tobago: Barbados The Convener of the Barbados Bar Association’s Human Rights’ Committee, Lalu Hanuman, has expressed concern over a move by the government to implement legislation making it more difficult for people to be granted bail. Comment

A female couple in the Cayman Islands decided that if at first they couldn’t succeed, they would try again. Motivated by that popular adage one year after they were refused application and permission to marry, a re-trial of the procedure proved successful allowing them to amend the laws of the British territory. Their successful request was approved when Chief Justice Anthony Smellie ruled that the practice of denying applications for same-sex unions were in violation of the constitution. Comment

Jamaica: Unlike neighbors in the eastern Caribbean that revel with abandon prior to 40 days of fastidious sacrifice and dedication to their Christian conviction related to the Lenten season, the end of the period and the arrival of Easter, Jamaicans are ready for Bacchanal Jamaica a high energy, national soca celebration in the land of reggae. Comment

Sports: Newly elected Cricket West Indies (CWI) President, Ricky Skerrit has announced a “shake-up” of the selection policy which could pave the way for past players like Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, and Sunil Narine who have not featured in in the One-Day International team in recent years to have a chance to play at being selected for the World Cup. Comment