It was Max­imus Au­re­lius, Ro­man Em­per­or and philoso­pher who once re­marked “Ac­cept what­ev­er comes to you wo­ven in the pat­tern of your des­tiny, for what could more apt­ly fit your needs?”

Plumes of grey ash mixed with gas ex­plode vi­o­lent­ly over the La Soufrière vol­cano in St Vin­cent, spread­ing far across the sky. In Ice­land, the mas­sive Mount Fagradals­f­jall vol­cano spouts red-hot la­va high in­to the air and over the sides of its crater, trans­form­ing the land­scape with omi­nous or­ange-black ooze. Drones have been hov­er­ing near­by, bear­ing wit­ness to these re­cent events and bring­ing vi­tal in­for­ma­tion back to dis­as­ter man­age­ment au­thor­i­ties and the pub­lic.

Res­i­dents of Princes Town and Debe will be fa­mil­iar with the sight of Shaz­ad "Can­dy Man" Hoo­sein with his daugh­ter, Aliesha Seren­i­ty, perched on his shoul­ders as he sells his sticky-sweet con­fec­tion to glee­ful chil­dren and their par­ents.

“Dark­ness can­not dri­ve out dark­ness, on­ly light can,” a quote from late civ­il rights icon Dr Mar­tin Luther King, in­spired Michelle Borel, a 38-year-old au­thor, wife, and moth­er of four, to use her tal­ents as a writer to pro­mote pos­i­tive fam­i­ly val­ues.

It’s termed The World Cup of Pan, and the PanoGra­ma 2021 in­stal­ment slat­ed to be­gin on May 7 at 8 pm on Face­book, In­sta­gram and YouTube, is go­ing full speed ahead both on­screen and be­hind the scenes, says founder and di­rec­tor, Nevin Roach.

Ram­dai Ram­saran cel­e­brat­ed her 101st birth­day on April 17, sur­round­ed by friends and fam­i­ly at the JC Mc Don­ald Home for the Aged, where she is a res­i­dent. “I want to go a next 101!” she de­clared, then added: “Nah that is enough. I don’t want to get to when I can’t walk again.”

On Sat­ur­day, at 11 am, the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest will pre­miere a new half-hour film, Port of Spain: A Writer’s Heav­en. Join host Wen­dell Man­war­ren of 3Canal as he wan­ders the streets of the city bring­ing alive works of lit­er­a­ture from clas­sics to con­tem­po­rary.

Every hour, 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year, some­one dies of oral or oropha­ryn­geal can­cer (can­cer of the mouth and up­per throat).

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has meant de­lays in den­tal care for many fam­i­lies. Chil­dren whose den­tal prob­lems might have been eas­i­ly tak­en care of in an of­fice set­ting may have had to wait to see a den­tist. And since teeth don't get bet­ter on their own, those prob­lems just get worse and need even more treat­ment.

To some, Yarra Fong may be a gift­ed med­ical tat­too artist, beau­ti­cian and en­tre­pre­neur. To many of the women she has worked on, she is a hero. Self­less, dar­ing, brave–Fong has pushed bound­aries in the beau­ty in­dus­try to boost the con­fi­dence of women with skin con­di­tions and de­fects; in­clud­ing can­cer pa­tients and women who as­pire to be suc­cess­ful in the field of beau­ty. Her pas­sion, how­ev­er, may have al­most cost her her life.

Cel­list Tra­cell Fred­er­ick, 27, at­tained a BSc in In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy in 2016 and a Bach­e­lor of Law's de­gree (LLB) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus in 2018.

My son’s first East­er cel­e­bra­tions - he was in-utero. Feel­ings of glee­ful an­tic­i­pa­tion were mixed with that of ap­pre­hen­sion, I was over­joyed to join my fam­i­ly and friends in com­mem­o­rat­ing East­er, but anx­ious, as I was break­ing my ‘re­stric­tions of bed rest’ in ven­tur­ing out while be­ing preg­nant, not dur­ing COVID-19, but nine years ago.