Au­gust va­ca­tions are here and bumped heads and skinned knees are in­evitable. Many can be pre­vent­ed by su­per­vis­ing chil­dren and cre­at­ing a child-safe en­vi­ron­ment. But it’s im­pos­si­ble to pre­vent every scrape and bruise. Lit­tle boys and ad­ven­tur­ous girls will get in­to trou­ble, no mat­ter what you do.

French Am­bas­sador Guil­laume Pierre opened his of­fi­cial res­i­dence in St Clair on June 24 to host a net­work­ing re­cep­tion cel­e­brat­ing 50 young women from the Young Women Em­pow­ered to Serve (YES) Lead­er­ship Pro­gramme, de­clar­ing the space a haven for wor­thy caus­es.

“I am now the Arch­bish­op of a rav­aged city which looks like the cities of Eu­rope at the end of World War II,” Arch­bish­op of Port-of-Spain An­tho­ny Pan­tin said in a ser­mon days af­ter the 1990 coup at­tempt end­ed.

There are 3 main types of di­a­betes, and as a whole, this chron­ic dis­ease af­fects so many peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Many peo­ple be­lieve that di­a­betes is per­ma­nent, and I am here to clar­i­fy the re­al­i­ty of this thought be­cause it is more nu­anced than we think. The truth is that type 2 and ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes can be re­versed, but type 1 can be bet­ter man­aged with lifestyle changes. It’s bet­ter to un­der­stand the types and what op­tions you have to make a more in­formed de­ci­sion about your health.

“Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its savour, where­with shall it be salt­ed? It is hence­forth good for noth­ing but to be cast out and to be trod­den un­der­foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill can­not be hid­den.  Nei­ther do men light a can­dle and put it un­der a bushel, but on a can­dle­stick, and it giveth light un­to all that are in the house.  Let your light so shine be­fore men that they may see your good works and glo­ri­fy your Fa­ther which is in heav­en.”

I re­cent­ly opened my home to host a gar­den par­ty for a care­ful­ly cu­rat­ed group of peo­ple who have each made a mean­ing­ful im­pact on my life. Most of them had nev­er met be­fore.

In­side the walls of the Car­rera Con­vict Prison, where he was serv­ing a five-year sen­tence af­ter be­com­ing in­volved in crime, an­oth­er pris­on­er told him: “Don’t make no buck­et jail.”

Trinidad-born, At­lanta-based nat­ur­al hair­styl­ist Kim­ber­ly James works mag­ic with her hands—and we’re “hair” for it!

Long be­fore street­lights il­lu­mi­nat­ed vil­lages or smart­phones re­placed sto­ry­telling, fear of­ten ar­rived with the night. It trav­elled on whis­pered warn­ings from grand­par­ents, flick­er­ing oil lamps and the rustling of silk cot­ton trees. At the cen­tre of many of those tales was one of the Caribbean’s most en­dur­ing su­per­nat­ur­al fig­ures—the Soucouyant.

Ameer­ah Ho­sein is plead­ing with every­one to treat oth­ers, as well as the Earth, with more re­spect and kind­ness. The 19-year-old’s lat­est short sto­ry, ti­tled To­day’s World, tack­les top­ics in­clud­ing pol­lu­tion, war, race and gen­der sep­a­ra­tion. Ul­ti­mate­ly, she wants read­ers to un­der­stand that a lit­tle change can go a long way.

If you love keep­ing your car look­ing pris­tine, you have like­ly heard the mas­sive buzz around “ce­ram­ic coat­ing.” Mar­ket­ed as the ul­ti­mate shield for your ve­hi­cle’s paint, it is a liq­uid poly­mer ap­plied to the ex­te­ri­or that chem­i­cal­ly bonds with the fac­to­ry clear coat. But is it tru­ly the mir­a­cle prod­uct it is claimed to be, or are there hid­den com­pli­ca­tions you should know about?

Vul­val itch­ing, burn­ing, dry­ness and ir­ri­ta­tion are among the most com­mon rea­sons women vis­it a gy­nae­col­o­gist. One of the fre­quent—but of­ten over­looked—caus­es is vul­val con­tact der­mati­tis, an in­flam­ma­to­ry skin re­ac­tion trig­gered by ex­po­sure to ir­ri­tants or al­ler­gens.