A 40-year-old man who was re­cent­ly re­leased from prison was killed in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing in St Joseph on Sun­day af­ter­noon.

A sta­tis­tic re­leased re­cent­ly should stop every pol­i­cy­mak­er, busi­ness leader and cit­i­zen in their tracks.

Since the end of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, a dis­tinct week­end rit­u­al has tak­en hold across Trinidad and To­ba­go. From Ari­ma to Cou­va to the board­walk in Ch­aguara­mas and oth­er parts of Trinidad, the ex­plo­sion of 5K road races has be­come a sta­ple of lo­cal fit­ness cul­ture. Dri­ven by cor­po­rate spon­sor­ships, so­cial and health is­sues, and the dopamine hit of a fin­ish­er’s medal, these events have gal­va­nized thou­sands of cit­i­zens to step out and move. This thriv­ing race scene demon­strates a pow­er­ful, col­lec­tive de­sire for well­ness across our twin-is­land re­pub­lic. Yet, look past the en­er­gy of race-day self­ies, and a stark para­dox emerges: our na­tion­al health met­rics for Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases are wor­ry­ing.

There are eas­i­er ways to spend a hol­i­day than hik­ing through freez­ing tem­per­a­tures, gasp­ing for breath at 12,500 feet above sea lev­el and stand­ing with­in sight of one of the most ac­tive vol­ca­noes in the world.

Can Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump re­strain not on­ly his own ad­min­is­tra­tion, but al­so Amer­i­ca’s clos­est al­ly, Is­rael, and its Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu, from un­der­min­ing the Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) signed with Iran? This ques­tion now lies at the cen­tre of whether the re­gion can fi­nal­ly move away from pro­longed con­flict in­volv­ing the Unit­ed States, Is­rael, Iran and Hezbol­lah in Lebanon.