A man can tell you ex­act­ly what’s wrong with his car. He can iden­ti­fy a faulty bat­tery, a worn tyre, a strange vi­bra­tion com­ing from the en­gine, or the faintest hint that some­thing is not quite right.

For In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Health Month, this re­porter set out to doc­u­ment the re­al­i­ties of men di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer. The goal was to high­light a de­mo­graph­ic of­ten left out of con­ver­sa­tions sur­round­ing a dis­ease over­whelm­ing­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with women.

Chron­ic func­tion­al con­sti­pa­tion is the most com­mon type of con­sti­pa­tion in young chil­dren. There is noth­ing wrong with the child’s hor­mones or in­testi­nal sys­tem. It is a so­cio-psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lem re­lat­ed to par­ent­ing. It is be­com­ing com­mon as moth­ers have to work out­side the house and chil­dren are placed in nurs­eries at an ear­ly age. Con­sti­pa­tion is al­so sel­dom seen in fam­i­lies where chil­dren eat prop­er­ly.

Be­fore Labour Day be­came a pub­lic hol­i­day and be­fore thou­sands marched through the streets of Fyz­abad every June 19, there was one idea that unit­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s work­ing class – sol­i­dar­i­ty for­ev­er.

For gen­er­a­tions of cit­i­zens, the sprawl­ing com­pound on the West­ern Main Road has been en­tire­ly syn­ony­mous with law en­force­ment. Since the 1890s, near­ly every po­lice of­fi­cer who has sworn to pro­tect and serve our na­tion has marched through its his­toric gates. Yet, long be­fore it be­came the bedrock of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), the St James Bar­racks was a vi­tal mil­i­tary strong­hold built to safe­guard the British Em­pire’s most prized Caribbean pos­ses­sion.

It is one of the most com­mon as­sump­tions that if you eat well, avoid smok­ing, lim­it al­co­hol, and ex­er­cise, you will re­main healthy and avoid dis­ease. The truth is that health is not mea­sured this way. Re­al­i­ty can tell a dif­fer­ent sto­ry be­cause many of us who ap­pear to do every­thing “right” can still de­vel­op heart dis­ease, can­cer, men­tal health is­sues, and oth­er health com­pli­ca­tions.

For In­di­an clas­si­cal dancer Sádé Budhlall, it’s im­por­tant that cre­ative ex­pres­sion is fused with open mind­ed­ness, prop­er re­search and mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion for its full essence to be felt.

With her soul­ful, pow­er­ful voice, big smile and stun­ning fash­ion en­sem­bles, the vo­cal leg­end knows ex­act­ly how to draw in her au­di­ences, hav­ing per­formed songs from her three al­bums for decades on stages across the world.

Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come un­to me.” And all the sons of Levi gath­ered them­selves to­geth­er un­to him (Ex­o­dus 32:26).

Laugh­ter and easy­go­ing con­ver­sa­tion filled the cosy, art-lined space of Tea Leaves 1881 in Wood­brook on Mon­day as 25 spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests gath­ered for a show­case of Christo­pher Lewis’ three books, cul­mi­nat­ing in the launch of his lat­est work, “Dear Caribbean Peo­ple: A Col­lec­tion of Proverbs for Liv­ing and Thriv­ing.” The in­ti­mate evening, com­plete with a wel­come char­cu­terie board and a com­pli­men­ta­ry cock­tail, al­so marked the au­thor’s 65th birth­day.

For 27-year-old Mark Haynes, mu­sic has al­ways been more than melody; it has been a ve­hi­cle for trans­for­ma­tion. The Trinida­di­an dou­ble bassist has once again placed his home­land on the map, se­cur­ing a pres­ti­gious Doc­tor of Mu­si­cal Arts (DMA) de­gree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­a­mi’s Frost School of Mu­sic, ac­com­pa­nied by a full tu­ition schol­ar­ship and the high­ly cov­et­ed Hen­ry Manci­ni In­sti­tute (HMI) Per­for­mance Fel­low­ship.