Hid­den in the front of your neck, just be­low the Adam’s ap­ple, lies a small, but­ter­fly-shaped gland weigh­ing bare­ly 20 grams. The thy­roid is one of the most pow­er­ful or­gans in the hu­man body, qui­et­ly reg­u­lat­ing en­er­gy, me­tab­o­lism, mood, fer­til­i­ty, growth and even the rhythm of the heart.

For an artiste who emerged from the streets of Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain, with an un­mis­tak­able sound and un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly Caribbean en­er­gy, Yung Bred­da con­tin­ues to make his mark on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

In the heart of Ch­agua­nas, where cul­tur­al mem­o­ry and artis­tic ex­pres­sion of­ten in­ter­sect, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) re­cent­ly trans­formed its Her­itage Cen­tre in­to a space of sto­ry­telling, re­flec­tion and lit­er­ary cel­e­bra­tion.

In 2019, a Trinidad and To­ba­go mar­tial artist set out on what he be­lieved was a per­son­al jour­ney of sur­vival, re­new­al and cul­tur­al dis­cov­ery. Sev­en years lat­er, that path has led him across the At­lantic and deep in­to the tra­di­tion­al pow­er struc­tures of north­ern Ghana, where he is now prepar­ing to be for­mal­ly coro­nat­ed as a chief in the Mam­prugu King­dom.

Love may write the vows, but log­ic en­forces the terms. In a world where emo­tion dri­ves our de­ci­sions and ro­mance is glo­ri­fied in books, songs, and sil­ver screens, it’s easy to for­get that mar­riage, at its core, is as much a busi­ness as it is a union of hearts.

As a reg­is­tered di­etit­ian nu­tri­tion­ist, one of the biggest mis­con­cep­tions I en­counter is the be­lief that di­et­ing is the an­swer to long-term health. Every­one is search­ing for the next quick fix and cut­ting carbs, skip­ping meals or detox­ing while elim­i­nat­ing en­tire food groups. Re­stric­tions al­ways fail over time and can al­so lead to the yo-yo ef­fect, leav­ing you in emo­tion­al, phys­i­cal and fi­nan­cial loss.

For many women, painful pe­ri­ods may be caused by a com­mon yet of­ten over­looked con­di­tion known as ade­no­myosis.

Tucked away in cen­tral Trinidad is one of the coun­try’s most un­der­stat­ed tourist at­trac­tions, a site that stands as both a spir­i­tu­al land­mark and a strik­ing ex­am­ple of In­di­an artistry and crafts­man­ship.

Is there a Men­sa mem­ber who loves roti, pelau, so­ca and ca­lyp­so? Yes — and his name is Jadon Pri­eto. Born to T&T par­ents in the US, the sev­en-year-old ge­nius is ex­cit­ed to be part of the glob­al so­ci­ety that cel­e­brates and nur­tures peo­ple with in­cred­i­bly high IQs.

This book is not for the faint of heart or light of head. It is not mealie-mouthed nor a provider of con­so­la­to­ry plat­i­tudes. In­deed, I un­der­went many Ho­r­a­tio mo­ments in its read­ing when I was un­com­fort­ably re­mind­ed of the lim­i­ta­tions of my own philo­soph­i­cal dream­ing.

It is a com­mon au­to­mo­tive myth passed down through gen­er­a­tions of dri­vers: if your car is run­ning hot, just pour some tap wa­ter in­to the ra­di­a­tor and keep dri­ving. While adding wa­ter in an ab­solute, strand­ed-on-the-high­way emer­gency is mar­gin­al­ly bet­ter than let­ting your en­gine com­plete­ly melt down, us­ing plain wa­ter as your pri­ma­ry cool­ing flu­id is a guar­an­teed recipe for me­chan­i­cal dis­as­ter.

When Akim Mur­ray earned his un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree in Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er En­gi­neer­ing two years ago, he dreamed of cre­at­ing more ef­fi­cient In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) sys­tems that would ben­e­fit gen­er­a­tions.