From a sin­gle ice-cream cart and a dream to a thriv­ing store­front in Brook­lyn’s Lit­tle Caribbean, the sto­ry of Mr P’s is as much about fam­i­ly as it is about frozen treats.

The promise sounds ir­re­sistible be­cause of the thought of los­ing weight quick­ly and curb­ing your ap­petite to achieve the body you’ve been chas­ing for years. Weight loss drugs have def­i­nite­ly gained pop­u­lar­i­ty over the past few years. Mar­ket­ing is high­ly fo­cused on us­ing in­flu­encers and celebri­ties to pro­mote prod­ucts.

Stan­dard Five stu­dents of St Mary’s An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School pose for a pho­to dur­ing their grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny at the school’s com­pound in Tacarigua on Wednes­day, June 17.

Azaria Bis­sooon­dath has al­ready learned lessons in brav­ery, dili­gence and re­silience that many adults spend a life­time try­ing to mas­ter. Bis­sooon­dath, hail­ing from Princes Town, cel­e­brat­ed her 13th birth­day on June 11 and is prepar­ing to em­bark on a new chap­ter of her life as she tran­si­tions to sec­ondary school. With an im­pair­ment that many may view as in­sur­mount­able, Bis­soon­dath has faced some of the great chal­lenges of child­hood, such as the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment, with courage and con­fi­dence.

Even as a young boy, Bradley Ram­cha­ran knew he want­ed to be a fa­ther. He had it all mapped out in his head: two chil­dren, a boy and a girl. To­day, the Lib­er­ty Caribbean multi­na­tion­al and gov­ern­ment sales di­rec­tor has ex­act­ly what he wished for.

For six years, a col­lec­tion of po­ems, mono­logues and short scenes sat un­fin­ished, wait­ing for its mo­ment.

“Slav­ery was an eco­nom­ic in­sti­tu­tion of the first im­por­tance. It had been the ba­sis of the Greek econ­o­my and had built up the Ro­man Em­pire. In mod­ern times, it pro­vid­ed the sug­ar for the tea and the cof­fee cups of the West­ern world. It pro­duced the cot­ton to serve as a base for mod­ern cap­i­tal­ism. It made the Amer­i­can South and the Caribbean is­lands. The rea­son was eco­nom­ic, not racial. It had to do not with the colour of the labour­er, but the cheap­ness of the labour."

For men who show up with­out fan­fare, An­cel Mal­oney’s “Salute” feels like a much-need­ed pat on the back — a hip-hop gospel re­lease cen­tring on fa­thers, step­fa­thers and men­tors in fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties.

When you walk down the au­to­mo­tive aisle or pull in­to a ser­vice sta­tion, you are im­me­di­ate­ly con­front­ed with a dizzy­ing wall of en­gine oils. You will see dif­fer­ent brands, dif­fer­ent coloured bot­tles, and cryp­tic num­bers like 10W-40 or 0W-20. It is in­cred­i­bly tempt­ing to just grab the cheap­est bot­tle on sale and as­sume that “oil is oil.” How­ev­er, mak­ing this as­sump­tion is one of the most dan­ger­ous and ex­pen­sive mis­takes you can make for your ve­hi­cle’s longevi­ty.

The term “vul­var dy­s­tro­phy” was com­mon­ly used in the past to de­scribe chron­ic skin con­di­tions af­fect­ing the vul­va (the ex­ter­nal fe­male gen­i­tal area). To­day, gy­nae­col­o­gists use more spe­cif­ic di­ag­noses be­cause these con­di­tions have dif­fer­ent caus­es, treat­ments, and long-term im­pli­ca­tions.

He may not be a fa­ther in the tra­di­tion­al sense of the word, but for the past 50 years, Mon­sign­or Chris­t­ian Pereira has as­sumed the role of “Fa­ther” to thou­sands of parish­ioners through­out Trinidad. Pereira was or­dained to the priest­hood in 1976 and was be­stowed with the ti­tle of mon­sign­or in recog­ni­tion of his dis­tin­guished ser­vice to the Church in 2003. He has al­so served as Cathe­dral ad­min­is­tra­tor, Vic­ar Gen­er­al and Arch­dioce­san ad­min­is­tra­tor.

There comes a sea­son in many women’s lives when they ask them­selves, “What am I meant to build next?”