Bla­ka Dan has won the first Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on com­pe­ti­tion, se­cur­ing first place with a to­tal score of 387 points and earn­ing the grand prize of $1 mil­lion. The com­pe­ti­tion, which had a to­tal bud­get of $8 mil­lion—in­clud­ing $4 mil­lion in fund­ing from the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts—award­ed $300,000 to sec­ond-place win­ner Yung Bred­da and $150,000 to third-place fin­ish­er Preedy.

The Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren’s Fund (UNICEF) warned of a mas­sive surge in child armed group re­cruit­ment in Haiti, say­ing that the on­go­ing emer­gency in the French-speak­ing Caribbean coun­try is crush­ing chil­dren’s chances of an ed­u­ca­tion and a bet­ter fu­ture as scores of young­sters are re­cruit­ed by heav­i­ly armed and vi­o­lent gangs. 

Kur­dish mil­i­tants who have waged a 40-year in­sur­gency in Turkey de­clared a cease­fire on Sat­ur­day in what could mark a sig­nif­i­cant boost to Pres­i­dent Re­cep Tayyip Er­do­gan’s gov­ern­ment, two days af­ter their im­pris­oned leader called for the group to dis­arm.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries has of­fi­cial­ly closed the 2024-2025 hunt­ing sea­son as of March 1, 2025.

The fate of a law­suit over a de­ci­sion to in­clude Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the han­dling of a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of rev­enue in the na­tion­al ac­counts is now un­clear, af­ter the Cab­i­net de­cid­ed to scrap as­pects of the probe re­lat­ed to her.

A meet­ing be­tween US of­fi­cials and Cari­com For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ters is be­ing arranged in March to dis­cuss the Trump Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s pol­i­cy to re­strict the visas of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials whose coun­tries em­ploy Cuban med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers.

A dig­i­tal bill­board in Port-of-Spain is now fea­tur­ing an ad urg­ing Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL) to re­solve out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with its pi­lots.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieves that if the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery is sold and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er be­comes prime min­is­ter, she should in­ves­ti­gate what led to such a sale.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly has with­drawn his can­di­da­cy for Ch­agua­nas West in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, cit­ing con­cerns over what he called the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) in­creas­ing­ly “di­vi­sive racial rhetoric as its cen­tral mes­sage.” He re­mains a mem­ber of the par­ty though.

The pro­duc­ers of Kam­bule say young peo­ple want to know their his­to­ry. In fact, they say they are of­ten an­gry when they do learn it be­cause they feel they should have been taught this at an ear­li­er age.

T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) PRO Val­mi­ki Ma­haraj says every­thing is run­ning “smooth­ly” for the Car­ni­val sea­son.

Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness, and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, Dr Faith Breb­nor has de­fend­ed her use of ex­ple­tives dur­ing a re­cent meet­ing with em­ploy­ees at the Pub­lic Health Ser­vices De­part­ment in Sig­nal Hill.