Few years in dancehall burned as hot as 2007. Mavado was turning gully pain into hymns, Vybz Kartel had broken from the Alliance and was firing back at his former bredren over every big riddim, and a Bermudian newcomer was crossing over to radio stations far beyond Kingston.[#item_full_content]
Some years in dancehall drift by. 2006 did not. A Jamaican deejay sat at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, a dance with whirling hair took over every street session from Kingston to Brooklyn, and a teenage producer named Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor started building the riddims that would soundtrack a generation.[#item_full_content]
2005 was the year dancehall seemed to be everywhere at once. Sean Paul was cooking up the biggest single of his career, a Marley son was carrying Kingston’s harsh truths to the Grammys, and a teenager from Barbados was riding a riddim-style clap onto American radio.[#item_full_content]
The voice behind “It Wasn’t Me” was shaped in the US Marine Corps. Shaggy, born Orville Richard Burrell in Kingston on October 22, 1968, spent four years in the Marines before music became his job.[#item_full_content]
Tems wrote “What You Need” seven years ago while getting through a breakup. On October 21, 2026, that same song logged its 30th week on the Billboard Hot 100.[#item_full_content]
Spice went back to school dressed in blue from head to toe. The dancehall star wore St Catherine High School’s colours when she returned to collect a Philanthropist Award from her alma mater, a nod to the place where she says her story really started.[#item_full_content]
The most unexpected moment on Yung Miami’s debut solo album comes right at the very end.[#item_full_content]
Deputy Director of Tourism Chantelle Richardson presents to 200 travel professionals as ATB advances its UK market priorities for 2027
LONDON (Oct. 22, 2026) — The Anguilla Tourist Board (ATB) strengthened its engagement with the United Kingdom’s luxury travel market at Virtuoso On Tour London 2026, where Deputy Director of Tourism Chantelle Richardson delivered a destination presentation to 200 travel professionals during the event’s lunch program.
Virtuoso On Tour London, held Oct. 20-21, brought together Virtuoso travel advisors and preferred partners to exchange industry insights, explore evolving luxury travel preferences and build business relationships. For Anguilla, it provided an opportunity to deepen established partnerships, develop new trade connections and increase destination awareness among advisors serving discerning travelers.
“The United Kingdom remains an important source market within Anguilla’s international marketing strategy,” Richardson said. “Virtuoso On Tour London provided a valuable platform to showcase our distinctive tourism offerings and engage directly with travel advisors whose expertise and recommendations influence their clients’ travel decisions. Our priority is to advance these relationships into sustained interest, bookings and meaningful economic benefits for Anguilla.”
Richardson’s presentation highlighted the island’s pristine beaches, luxury villas, award-winning accommodations, exceptional culinary experiences, wellness offerings and personalized hospitality. Throughout the presentation, she showcased Anguilla’s appeal to couples, honeymooners, families and travelers seeking privacy and a deeper connection with the destination.
The London engagement formed part of the ATB’s wider international marketing and trade program, which has broadened trade relationships across priority source markets.
During the visit, Richardson also met with Hamilton Public Relations Ltd. and Ignite Sales & Marketing, the ATB’s U.K. representation partners, whose appointments took effect Oct. 1, 2026. Discussions covered destination updates, strategic priorities for 2027 and opportunities to align public relations, sales and marketing activity to strengthen Anguilla’s positioning in the U.K.
“As we advance our global marketing priorities, our focus remains on reinforcing Anguilla’s position as a premier luxury Caribbean destination, distinguished by its warm hospitality, outstanding cuisine, authentic experiences and unparalleled natural beauty,” Richardson said. “Close collaboration with our in-market partners is essential to ensuring that our activities are strategically aligned, commercially focused and accountable for measurable results.”
The ATB’s targeted trade engagement is designed to generate tangible outcomes through stronger advisor relationships, destination recommendations, bookings and visitor spending. That trade activity, in turn, supports Anguilla’s hotels, villas, restaurants, transportation providers, attractions and other tourism businesses.
The approach also aims to build year-round demand, strengthen Anguilla’s competitiveness and advance responsible tourism growth that protects the island’s identity and natural assets.
Chantelle Richardson, deputy director of tourism for the Anguilla Tourist Board, addresses travel advisors at Virtuoso On Tour London, held Oct. 20-21, 2026.
News Americas Now, NY, NY, Oct. 22, 2026: Guyanese President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali and U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Wednesday signed a joint declaration at the Pentagon that locks Guyana further into Washington’s military campaign across the Caribbean – a campaign that has now killed at least 238 people in strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels since it began in September 2025.
The declaration commits Guyana to deeper U.S. military training in multidomain operations, including air and maritime interdiction, and confirms that the Pentagon has reviewed – and is taking “very seriously” – Guyana’s own request for American support in what Hegseth called “combined kinetic and lethal counter-narcotics operations.” That is the same category of strike that has sunk more than two dozen vessels in Caribbean and Pacific waters over the past 13 months, killing people the administration has labeled narco-terrorists without publicly producing evidence in most individual cases – a campaign lawmakers from both U.S. parties have questioned on legal grounds.
Hegseth billed the agreement as an extension of “President Trump’s Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine,” a phrase that sounds like policy but functions more like cover: it has already been stretched to justify a threat to retake the Panama Canal by force and talk of land strikes inside Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico, with no fixed rule for when Washington escalates and when it doesn’t.
For Guyana, which is part of the US’ Shield of the Americas, that ambiguity isn’t academic. It sits next to Venezuela, which continues to claim Guyana’s oil-rich Essequibo region despite a pending World Court case and has already branded the growing U.S. military footprint near that border an “unhappy provocation.” Georgetown has leaned on American backing as leverage in that standoff for more than two years – but not everyone in Guyana is convinced the trade-off is clean.
The Guyanese president said there’s been a lot of talk about security and stability for a long time.
“The things that are critical for stability in the region, sustainable [for] long-term prosperity and stability, are the very things you’re pursuing – a region that’s free from narco-trafficking, free from international actors that are bad for the region, free from terrorism and free from any thinking from any group or cell anywhere in the world that this is a region where they can find a home,” Ali said, adding that he looks forward to working more closely with the United States.
“This is the era of action; this is the era of leadership; this is the era of domination and commitment, and we’re very happy to be part of this partnership,” he said. “We look forward to working with you in a stronger way.”
APNU’s Aubrey Norton last year said he remains unconvinced by Washington’s underlying justification for the wider campaign. “I have seen no evidence to help me arrive at a conclusion” that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is linked to narco-trafficking, as the U.S. claims, Norton said, adding that Guyana should be “very careful with who and what we support.” His APNU coalition has separately pressed for more transparency and parliamentary oversight on the string of military agreements Georgetown has signed with Washington this year.
None of that showed up in Tuesday’s exchange at the Pentagon. Hegseth called Ali’s regional leadership “indispensable”;””; Ali called it “the era of action” and promised to keep working “in a stronger way” with Washington. What neither man addressed: how much of Guyana’s defense posture is now being shaped by a campaign whose death toll keeps climbing, and whose legal footing its own neighbors, allies, and opposition are still waiting to see.
By Felicia J. Persaud
News Americas Now, NY, NY, Thurs. Oct. 22, 2026: A few weeks ago, News Americas Now received a reporting grant from URL Media that sent me down a path I thought I understood. We proposed examining the economic impact of immigration enforcement on Black Caribbean immigrant families.
I expected to find lost wages, mounting legal bills, and struggling businesses. I found all of that. But after interviewing immigrant families, advocates, attorneys, and researchers, I discovered something much bigger. America may detain or deport one immigrant at a time. But the economic consequences are rarely confined to one person. They move through marriages and households. They reach U.S.-citizen spouses and children. They reach businesses, churches and communities. Sometimes, they travel thousands of miles beyond America’s borders.
I saw that clearly in Minneapolis, where Haitian-born U.S. citizen Choupa Charlemagne and his American-born wife, Kelsey, are raising four children. The couple told me they are also helping support at least 11 Haitian relatives and friends who have lost work authorization or face immigration proceedings.
Two young Haitian men they helped establish lives in America now face immigration court and thousands of dollars in legal fees. Kelsey returned to work. She and Choupa started a car-rental business. They launched fundraisers to help cover legal costs and prepare for the possibility that family members may have to relocate.
“We’re literally hanging by a thread here,” Kelsey told me. But then Choupa told me something that expanded the story beyond
America’s borders. Before this financial crisis, he had been helping a cousin in Haiti attend law school. As the expenses facing his family in America mounted, that assistance had to stop. His cousin could not continue his second year. “All of that stops now because now I have more pressing situations on my hands,” Choupa said. That stopped me.
I had begun this reporting thinking about the economic consequences of immigration enforcement inside America. But another consequence was unfolding in Haiti. One family’s immigration crisis in Minnesota had reached a university student thousands of miles away. And theirs is hardly the only ripple.
In Pennsylvania, Omara is now supporting herself and her two U.S.-citizen children after her husband, Haitian-born Pastor Molis Augustave, was deported to Haiti on September 24th. Before his detention, she told me, he helped support her financially through nursing school and cared for their children.
“His absence has made everything very much harder,” she said. Jossie Flor Sapunar of We Are CASA told me housing is often among the first pressures families confront. Rent that once came from two incomes suddenly must be paid with one. Then comes food, childcare, transportation, and immigration attorneys. The consequences don’t stop at the front door.
My reporting uncovered immigrant-owned businesses struggling after workers lost authorization to work, while other businesses have been affected as frightened immigrant customers stay home. Immigration Research Initiative director David Dyssegaard Kallick told me the damage can reach U.S.-born workers as businesses
lose employees and customers reduce spending.
I began this reporting because a URL Media grant gave News Americas Now an opportunity to investigate the economic impact of immigration enforcement on Black Caribbean families. I finished it wondering whether we have been calculating that impact incorrectly.
We count the immigrant detained; we count the immigrant deported. But do we count the spouse who returns to work? The child who suddenly needs childcare? The relative absorbing another household’s bills? The business losing workers and customers? The family in Haiti losing remittances? The student who can no longer afford university?
Immigration status may belong to one person, but its economic consequences do not. And that leaves a question America should be asking whenever another deportation becomes simply one more number: Who really pays when America deports an immigrant?
Felicia J. Persaud is the founder and publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com, the only daily syndicated newswire and digital platform dedicated exclusively to Caribbean Diaspora and Black immigrant news across the Americas.