Charis Works Chris­t­ian Acad­e­my held its grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny for Stan­dard Five stu­dents on June 18, at the school’s com­pound in Tacarigua. Fea­ture speak­er Frank M Porter, ed­u­ca­tor, au­thor and min­is­ter, best known for writ­ing the icon­ic Trinidad and To­ba­go Re­pub­lic Read­ers and the Boyo and Car­la sto­ries, shared words of en­cour­age­ment with the grad­u­at­ing stu­dents.

Ad­vo­cates with Down Syn­drome ate and left no crumbs at this year’s “Fash­ion With Us” gala host­ed by the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work (DSFN). As they strut­ted down the run­way with un­de­ni­able con­fi­dence along­side pro­fes­sion­al coun­ter­parts, the mod­els proved that true style knows no bound­aries.

On June 10, Sha­ka His­lop and his wife, De­sha, cel­e­brat­ed 31 years of mar­riage. They marked the mile­stone oc­ca­sion by tak­ing pic­tures in their orig­i­nal wed­ding at­tire from three decades ago, right in their back­yard. “I can’t tell you how hard we laughed,” Sha­ka said. Those pho­tos meant even more for the leg­endary for­mer na­tion­al World Cup goal­keep­er af­ter what he’d been through. Just two years ear­li­er, a prostate can­cer di­ag­no­sis had com­plete­ly blind­sided him and his en­tire fam­i­ly.

Many par­ents know the scene all too well. A child sits in the back seat of the car or sprawls across the liv­ing room floor, ef­fort­less­ly recit­ing every word of a fast-paced tele­vi­sion com­mer­cial. Oth­ers can sing along per­fect­ly to a pop­u­lar song, com­plete with im­pec­ca­ble tim­ing and every lyric in­tact.

Lit­tle Kairo Kin­sale, age one-and-a half, flash­es a big smile as he makes his way to the Cy­cling Grand Prix, at Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre, Cou­va.

When was the last time you paid at­ten­tion to your cat’s uri­na­tion habits? Fe­line Low­er Uri­nary Tract Dis­ease (of­ten termed FLUTD) is an um­brel­la term used to de­scribe a group of prob­lems as­so­ci­at­ed with in­flam­ma­tion and ir­ri­ta­tion of the low­er uri­nary tract in cats. Clin­i­cal signs an own­er might no­tice with their cat ex­pe­ri­enc­ing FLUTD of­ten in­clude strain­ing to uri­nate, in­creased fre­quen­cy of uri­na­tion in small amounts, blood-tinged urine, or even uri­nat­ing in un­usu­al places out­side the lit­ter box.

Trinidad is home to more than 20 mud vol­ca­noes, with the vast ma­jor­i­ty oc­cu­py­ing the south­ern re­gion of the is­land. While the ex­act num­ber varies, what is cer­tain is that these ge­o­log­i­cal fea­tures hold im­mense sci­en­tif­ic, ed­u­ca­tion­al, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, and recre­ation­al im­por­tance.

Be­fore a leader can ef­fec­tive­ly lead oth­ers, they must first learn to lead them­selves. Self-aware­ness is one of the most im­por­tant qual­i­ties of ef­fec­tive lead­er­ship be­cause it al­lows in­di­vid­u­als to un­der­stand their strengths, weak­ness­es, val­ues, emo­tions, and mo­ti­va­tions.

The Bol­ly­wood Prince and the Pau­per from Pe­nal proved to be a cap­ti­vat­ing the­atri­cal pro­duc­tion that kept au­di­ences on the edge of their seats. Di­rect­ed by Crazy Catholic and pro­duced by DC Shell The­atre and Cin­don Pro­duc­tion, the play suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a six-show run at SAPA and NA­PA.

Weigh­ing in on the va­garies of ge­og­ra­phy and the chal­lenges faced by a young girl grow­ing up in hum­ble cir­cum­stances in Ma­yaro, Meguel­la Si­mon now car­ries a crown that ap­pears sim­ple to wear, borne with pride and de­ter­mi­na­tion, yet heavy with the hopes of a na­tion.

Jes­sel Brizan’s fash­ion sto­ry didn’t be­gin on a flashy run­way or through an in­her­it­ed fam­i­ly lega­cy. It be­gan sim­ply, with a teenag­er flip­ping through GQ mag­a­zines with his friends in Di­a­mond Vale, Diego Mar­tin. The styles were sharp, the trends ‘on point’, and it was all more than enough to cap­ti­vate Jes­sel for a life­time.