Top of many Christ­mas lists for San­ta Claus is a pup­py, but this can be one of the most thought­less gifts to give. Mums and dads around the world give in to the pleas of their young chil­dren for a fur­ry com­pan­ion and be­lieve the promis­es that the child will take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the care of their new friend. More of­ten than not, this Christ­mas joy turns in­to a New Year res­o­lu­tion nev­er to get an­oth­er pet. The pe­ri­od fol­low­ing the ‘sea­son of giv­ing’ sees the high­est in­ci­dence of pets that are giv­en up to an­i­mal shel­ters.

The first sea­son is yet to wrap on CNC3, but The Ro’dey Show is al­ready set for a sec­ond sea­son filled with new tal­ent, new lo­ca­tions and more celebri­ty ap­pear­ances. That’s the promise from co­me­di­an Rodell “Ro’dey” Cum­ber­batch, who said bring­ing new tal­ent on-board is im­por­tant for the show.

When Rhon­da Dass, 45, was laid off from her job at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in 2015, in­spired by her moth­er who was di­a­bet­ic and a gluten in­tol­er­ant friend, she turned her hob­by and pas­sion for bak­ing in­to a new source of in­come.

SE­WA In­ter­na­tion­al T&T, non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion head­ed by Re­van Teelucks­ingh, is cur­rent­ly co-or­di­nat­ing re­lief ef­forts for those af­fect­ed by the re­cent floods. For sev­er­al days ar­eas in south Trinidad, in­clud­ing Bar­rack­pore, Debe, Pe­nal, Sa Fran­cique, Wood­land and Pa­lo Seco have been un­der wa­ter.

Med­ical mar­i­jua­na has been in the news re­cent­ly as a treat­ment for a va­ri­ety of med­ical con­di­tions, in­clud­ing glau­co­ma, pain and nau­sea from can­cer chemother­a­py treat­ment and oth­er ill­ness­es. Doc­tor of Ori­en­tal Med­i­cine Dr Li­onel May­ers, mean­while, said there are oth­er al­ter­na­tives be­sides med­ical mar­i­jua­na for treat­ing ail­ments and dis­eases, some that are hun­dreds of years old that peo­ple are re­dis­cov­er­ing.

I am a Christ­mas per­son but since 2014 I have not been cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas. In 2013, my ba­by sis­ter, Rose, was di­ag­nosed with can­cer and she died in March 2014 at the age of 43. She was bright, beau­ti­ful and loved to laugh. Then in 2015, our beloved An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh was di­ag­nosed with pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. He passed away in 2017. He was the ul­ti­mate San­ta Claus, and he too loved to laugh with a twin­kle in his eyes. In 2018, the ma­tri­arch of our fam­i­ly, my moth­er, There­sa, died. No doubt any­one will un­der­stand how it felt—our hearts were bro­ken.

What start­ed as food al­ler­gies have not on­ly led to lifestyle changes for Madon­na Roudett but al­so re­sult­ed in a flour­ish­ing busi­ness ven­ture.

The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices (MS­DFS) con­tin­ues its ag­gres­sive cam­paign to get so­cial ser­vices to the doorsteps of cit­i­zens in T&T. Since the launch of the Min­istry’s So­cial Out­reach and Im­pact Car­a­van, on Au­gust 30, at the Pa­lo Seco Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, in ex­cess of a dozen com­mu­ni­ties have al­ready ben­e­fit­ed from hav­ing Gov­ern­ment Ser­vices avail­able to them. These com­mu­ni­ties in­clude Fyz­abad, San Fer­nan­do, Point Fortin, Ce­dros, San­gre Grande, Cumana, To­co, Diego Mar­tin and Care­nage, Va­len­cia, Man­zanil­la, Guaico Tamana, and Mor­vant, Port-of-Spain.

Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma cham­pi­on in 2019, Guaico Pres­by­ter­ian has added an­oth­er ti­tle to their steel or­ches­tra as Roc­co Cy Dmitri Nicholas, a Stan­dard Four pupil, ex­celled at the re­cent San Fest com­pe­ti­tion and was an­nounced cham­pi­on in the pan so­lo cat­e­go­ry.

Last year there were 20 fi­nal­ists in the Green Screen En­vi­ron­men­tal Screen Film Fes­ti­val's in­au­gur­al Very Short Shorts (VSS) Mo­bile Film Com­pe­ti­tion. This year 25 film-mak­ers ad­vanced to the fi­nal round of the en­vi­ron­men­tal mo­bile film com­pe­ti­tion.

Breast can­cer con­tin­ues to ac­count for the high­est fig­ures in terms of in­ci­dence and mor­tal­i­ty in T&T.

Both Trinidad and To­ba­go are the homes of many at­trac­tive and in­ter­est­ing birds. This group forms a part of na­ture’s gift to us; a nat­ur­al her­itage, which we should recog­nise, cher­ish and pre­serve.