If bias, ar­ro­gance, be­ing bor­ing, and con­de­scend­ing are the top traits list­ed for uni­ver­si­ty prin­ci­pals, then the 2014 study done by re­searcher Blasko­va et al did not in­clude Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine.

Run­ning a half marathon is a buck­et list chal­lenge for all fit­ness en­thu­si­asts. The sheer de­ter­mi­na­tion nec­es­sary to con­quer the 21.1 kilo­me­tres starts well be­fore the day of the race. Whether you are a sea­soned run­ner or a ‘new­bie’, cross­ing that fin­ish line of your first half marathon is a mo­ment that goes down in your his­to­ry book and be­comes part of your ac­co­lades for life!

The House of Jacqui re­cent­ly held a grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny for par­tic­i­pants in its To­tal Per­son Course at the San Fer­nan­do North Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, St Vin­cent Street, San Fer­nan­do.

On March 3, 1677, Rock­ley Bay in To­ba­go be­came a fierce bat­tle­ground when the French and Dutch en­gaged in a dead­ly war for the is­land.

John Thomas’ Be­lieve: Christ­mas Around the World, is on for an eighth year. The East­ern Chorale mu­si­cal di­rec­tor said all pro­ceeds from the event will go to the He­roes Foun­da­tion.

Breath of Dance The­atre (BODT) re­cent­ly staged Cel­e­brat­ing a Stronger Re­turn at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s.

Kim Kir­ton, a 38-year-old pro­fes­sion­al has been di­a­bet­ic for more years of her life than she has not. Kir­ton, a mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al, with a BA (Hons) in Me­dia & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and MA (Dist) in Ad­ver­tis­ing and Mar­ket­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds has spent the last 28 years suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ing her life, ed­u­ca­tion, ca­reer and re­la­tion­ships with Type 1 di­a­betes.

“As of No­vem­ber 21, the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions showed at least 53 jour­nal­ists and me­dia work­ers were among the more than 14,000 killed since the war be­gan on Oc­to­ber 7—with over 13,000 Pales­tin­ian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Is­rael.”

Tri­cia St John is a moth­er, au­thor, event co­or­di­na­tor, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sur­vivor. St John lost her left fore­arm and two fin­gers on her right hand to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at­tack in 2004. In 2009, St John’s ex-hus­band was found guilty by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry of at­tempt­ing to mur­der her. He was sen­tenced to 25 years and ten strokes.

At work, she us­es her eyes to treat her pa­tients’ ail­ments, but at home, she pays close at­ten­tion to the de­tails of the sto­ries she paints. De­bra Bartholomew is a doc­tor, singer, teacher, and artist who goes be­yond the scope of her pro­fes­sion to help oth­ers tra­verse the men­tal ob­sta­cles of a world sat­u­rat­ed with cliques and sta­tus quo.

Venezue­lan-born clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Livia Rin­con has ded­i­cat­ed her life to lift­ing oth­ers from their dark­est per­son­al depths–trau­mas which many peo­ple can­not even imag­ine. Through­out her 36-year ca­reer, the 61-year-old has worked with sur­vivors of traf­fick­ing, rang­ing from young chil­dren to the el­der­ly. Nev­er once has she con­sid­ered leav­ing it be­hind.

Valdeen Tama­ra Shears is a vic­tim and sur­vivor of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and a moth­er of sev­en who has spent the last five-plus years speak­ing open­ly about her ex­pe­ri­ences on the re­ceiv­ing end of gen­der-based vi­o­lence (GBV). Shears har­ness­es her 21-year jour­ney of suf­fer­ing at the hands of an abuser to sup­port, en­cour­age and arm oth­er women who des­per­ate­ly need to be heard and seen.