Alake Pil­grim, a Trinida­di­an writer, burst on­to the lit­er­ary scene in 2022 when her chil­dren’s book, Zo and the For­est of Se­crets, was pub­lished by the British Book Awards Chil­dren’s Book Pub­lish­er of the Year, Knights Of Me­dia, to great ac­claim. The first of two in a se­ries (book two will be out in 2024), Zo was cho­sen for the World Book Day Book Club 2022 and short­list­ed for the 2022 Caribbean Bo­cas Lit Fest Chil­dren’s Book Prize. The au­dio­book is nar­rat­ed by Janique Charles, the T&T ac­tress and singer who plays Nala in The Li­on King Lon­don.

Thy­roid dis­ease is a rel­a­tive­ly com­mon prob­lem in dogs. While it is usu­al­ly treat­able, learn­ing that your dog has a thy­roid con­di­tion is un­der­stand­ably con­cern­ing.

Ti­tled Re­nais­sance to de­note tri­umphant pas­sage through the pan­dem­ic, the Bird­song Acad­e­my’s an­nu­al Camp Clos­ing Con­cert host­ed at Queen’s Hall last Thurs­day es­tab­lished be­yond all rea­son­able doubt, the 50-year-old steel­pan or­gan­i­sa­tion’s un­de­ni­able stature as a mod­el in­sti­tu­tion in the field of mu­sic per­for­mance and ed­u­ca­tion.

As ear­ly as 1992, Chan­tal Es­delle’s out­stand­ing steel­pan’s per­for­mances were be­ing rec­og­nized. She was the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­on Pan Soloist at Pan is Beau­ti­ful VI, Na­tion­al Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, joint cham­pi­on with Liam Teague. It is a mo­ment she re­calls to this day and she re­mains proud­ly the first fe­male and youngest com­peti­tor to win this award.

Shireen Pol­lard is the Man­ag­er of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence (GBV) Unit, and is one of the civil­ians in the Unit which is staffed with both civil­ians and po­lice of­fi­cers.

This Sun­day the Guardian Book­shelf fea­tures Caron As­gar­ali, an au­thor who is a gun vi­o­lence sur­vivor.

Com­pas­sion­ate ser­vice cou­pled with in­no­v­a­tive re­search-dri­ven tech­niques equate the se­cret to suc­cess for any or­gan­i­sa­tion, more­so one in the health­care field ad­dress­ing the per­turb­ing chal­lenges of hair loss and skin­care.

Nar­cis­sism, a per­son­al­i­ty trait char­ac­ter­ized by an in­flat­ed sense of self-im­por­tance, a con­stant need for ad­mi­ra­tion, and a lack of em­pa­thy, can of­ten go un­no­ticed un­til its ef­fects be­come ap­par­ent in re­la­tion­ships and in­ter­ac­tions. Rec­og­niz­ing a nar­cis­sist is es­sen­tial for main­tain­ing healthy bound­aries and pro­tect­ing your emo­tion­al well-be­ing.

Au­gust is an im­por­tant month in T&T, a month flanked by the cel­e­bra­tions of our Eman­ci­pa­tion and In­de­pen­dence. It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on how far we have come from the struc­tur­al op­pres­sions of en­slave­ment and col­o­niza­tion, and how far we have left to go.

Ahead of the re­cent Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions, Bel­mont fash­ion de­sign­er Saleem Samuel un­veiled his lat­est col­lec­tion, Sinai, at Mara­cas Beach. In­spired by the rich colours and beau­ty of the moun­tains, Saleem in­cor­po­rat­ed those el­e­ments in out­fits for day to evening wear.

The La Brea com­mu­ni­ty has been told to do bet­ter in or­der to be­come more aware of his­to­ry and its in­flu­ences on the path go­ing for­ward.

In­testi­nal block­age, al­so known as bow­el ob­struc­tion, is a par­tial or com­plete block­age of the in­testines, which pre­vents the pas­sage of solids and liq­uids through the gas­troin­testi­nal tract. When nu­tri­ents and wa­ter are no longer be­ing ab­sorbed, the dog can be­come mal­nour­ished and de­hy­drat­ed. Block­ages can al­so de­crease blood flow and cause de­te­ri­o­ra­tion to por­tions of the in­testines, as tis­sue dies. Fur­ther­more, an ob­struc­tion can press on the in­testines, which can be very painful and even cause in­testi­nal rup­ture or in­flam­ma­tion of the ab­domen (peri­toni­tis).