Broth­er Valenti­no, whose songs made a force­ful case for equal­i­ty, Black iden­ti­ty and the con­cerns of or­di­nary peo­ple, died yes­ter­day. He was 85.

Tra­cy To­bias has been for­mal­ly con­firmed as chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Ex­port-Im­port Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ex­im­Bank), as the state-owned in­sti­tu­tion en­ters a new phase of lead­er­ship fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of for­mer CEO Navin Dook­er­an last De­cem­ber.

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) pres­i­dent Dr. Kishore Shal­low be­lieves the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil’s (ICC) fi­nan­cial dis­tri­b­u­tion and bi­lat­er­al broad­cast­ing rev­enue mod­els should be re­viewed to pro­vide greater ben­e­fits for small­er crick­et­ing na­tions but in­sists the re­gion­al gov­ern­ing body re­mains com­fort­able with its cur­rent arrange­ments.

Though the Na­tion­al Trust of T&T (NT) had its Sep­tem­ber 26 out­door ac­tiv­i­ty head­lined sim­ply as an “Oropouche La­goon Tour”, its itin­er­ary en­sured that there was more than a fair share of food, thrills and triv­ia.

Our coun­try is steeped in cul­ture and tra­di­tion. Our blend of African and In­di­an in­flu­ences cre­ates a unique iden­ti­ty, set­ting us apart from many oth­er coun­tries and is­lands. Our is­land’s sto­ry stems from mi­gra­tion, coloni­sa­tion, and re­silience. Our mu­sic, food, and fes­ti­vals re­flect where we came from, the strug­gles we en­dured, and the hope for the fu­ture we are build­ing. Some tra­di­tions will last much longer than oth­ers, and some tra­di­tions may be so dat­ed that the time for change has come.