For just about 30 min­utes yes­ter­day, Trinidad born rap­per Nic­ki Mi­naj spent time bond­ing with stu­dents of the St Jude’s Home for Girls in Bel­mont.
Mi­naj, seat­ed next to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith, spent the time dis­cussing sev­er­al top­ics as the stu­dents asked her nu­mer­ous ques­tions about her ini­tial mo­ti­va­tion to be­come a record­ing artiste to the re­la­tion­ship that be­came her even­tu­al mar­riage to Ken­neth Pet­ty last year.
“I met Mr Pet­ty when I was 17 years old, first of all,” said Mi­naj in a full Tri­ni ac­cent.
“When I met him as a teenag­er, I was like oh God, typ­i­cal bad boy, I’m not gonna be able to lock him down, get out of here. And then he turned out to be... all of that (good)stuff. He’s just that on the out­side,” she said.
She added, “And he be­came ex­act­ly what I need­ed for the bal­ance in my life.”
Mi­naj al­so spoke on the ef­fect of drugs, ro­man­tic re­la­tion­ships as a teenage and even her teenage preg­nan­cy and sub­se­quent abor­tion as she tried to use her life as a les­son for the girls at the home.
“Even in my teenage years, I didn’t know which way I was gonna turn. I had a lot of things go­ing on, I’ve ex­pe­ri­enced be­ing in a home with do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. I’ve ex­pe­ri­enced you know, be­ing at a very dif­fi­cult cross­road in my life as a teenag­er and some­times as a teenag­er when things hap­pen you feel like there’s no up from there some­times,”
said Mi­naj.
“I don’t know what is go­ing on in your life but it feels so dif­fi­cult when you’re go­ing through it, but you will get through it. You will get out of it. I was one of those girls who ex­pe­ri­enced be­ing preg­nant as a teenag­er and you know I was so ashamed to tell my moth­er that. Till this day I nev­er told my moth­er. I felt like I let my­self down, and I felt like if any­one were to find out my whole fam­i­ly would be ashamed of me,” she said.
She added, “I want you guys to use, if you want to use my life as a les­son in the fact that there are al­ways bet­ter days ahead. I want you guys to be en­cour­aged.”
“There has to be some­thing in­side of you, even right now to­day that de­cides, you’re gonna win no mat­ter what. No mat­ter what comes at you,” Mi­naj told the girls.
Mi­naj al­so host­ed an im­promp­tu tal­ent show in which some girls sang Be­y­once’s Ha­lo as well as Mi­naj’s 2014 hit Pills and Po­tions.
She was how­ev­er im­pressed with a spo­ken word piece by one of the girls and ex­pressed some re­gret that she had not record­ed the per­for­mance to so­cial me­dia.
They then con­vinced Mi­naj, with the aid of a smart­phone do a verse from her hit song Mega­tron and a cou­ple lines from her verse on Mo­tor­sport.
Mi­naj al­so asked the stu­dents what they felt they need­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty, as she said she hoped to cre­ate a space for the youths in the area.
Be­fore leav­ing, Mi­naj do­nat­ed $US25,000 to home. Source: Trinidad Guardian, Feb 2020

National cyclist Nicholas Paul cemented his place at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games after producing a tenth place finish at the International Cycling Union (UCI) Track Cycling World Championships in Berlin, Germany, on Saturday.
In the opening men’s sprint qualifier (flying 200m), Paul, who holds the world record (9.1 seconds) in this event, qualified the sixth fastest in a blistering time of 9.556 seconds to advance to the next round.
Topping the list of 28 cyclists were Dutch riders Harrie Lavreysen (9.253s) and Jeffrey Hoogland (9.322s) and Pole Mateusz Rudyk (9.434s) respectively.
Against former World Cycling Centre teammate, Nien Hsing Hsieh (Chinese Taipei) in the 1/16 final, Paul emerged victorious and moved on to the 1/8 final.
The TT speedster locked horns with Matthijs Buchli (Netherlands) and was unable to get past the "flying Dutchman", bringing to an end his hectic, but successful Olympic qualification campaign.
Paul has now amassed the required Olympic qualifier points and maintained his position among the top 12 cyclists to affirm his spot at the Olympic Games in July.
By qualification rules, he can also contest the men’s keirin event in Tokyo. He joins compatriots Kwesi Browne (keirin, sprint) and TT first-ever female Olympic cycling representative, Teniel Campbell (women’s road race) in Tokyo, completing TT’s largest cycling contingent at an Olympics, in almost 50 years.

TORONTO -- Jeanine Monteiro was back home from her vacation to Cuba for a week when she began to get intense headaches behind her eyes, followed shortly thereafter by strange hallucinations.
The unusual symptoms were the first signs of dengue fever, a potentially deadly disease that has exploded in prevalence in South America and the Caribbean with several tropical countries reporting outbreaks and national health emergencies.
But at the time, Monteiro, 42, thought she might just have the flu. 
Within weeks, her symptoms spiralled out of control. She suffered joint pain and stiffness, and slowly lost her grip on reality. At one point, while in the car with her father after a doctor’s appointment, she struggled to read the pain medication she’d just been prescribed.
“My dad kept saying things to me and I remember saying, ‘Are you speaking English?’ And then I said, ‘What is this in my hand?’ And he said, ‘It’s your medication Jeanine. Don’t you remember?’” Monteiro told CTV News from her home in Cambridge, Ont.
“That’s the last memory I have.”
In the car, Monteiro suffered a seizure and was rushed to the emergency department. Doctors made a shocking discovery: she had suffered multiple organ failures and only had a quarter of her heart function left. She spent 11 days on life support as the medical team tried to figure out the source of her life-threatening condition.
“There was a couple days they weren’t sure I was going to make it,” Monteiro said.
The answer, it turned out, was a dengue-infected mosquito bite during her recent trip to Cuba. Montero was one of more than 560,000 people in North and South America to contract dengue fever in 2018. Those numbers skyrocketed in 2019 to 3.1 million cases – more than five times the previous year’s caseload. The problem is widespread. Argentina is currently reporting a dengue fever outbreak, and emergencies have been declared in Honduras, Brazil, Jamaica and Paraguay. Recently, Paraguay’s president, Mario Abdo Benitez, contracted the virus and was ordered to rest.
But travellers such as Monteiro said they had no idea just how prevalent – and how dangerous – dengue fever could be until they contracted the illness themselves.
“That was my 18th time to Cuba, and I felt very safe going there,” Monteiro said.
Even after she recovered, dengue fever has had a lasting effect on Monteiro’s health. The illness triggered an autoimmune disease, scleroderma, that was lying dormant in her system. She also lives with kidney disease and is unable to work.
“It’s devastated my life,” she said. “Besides losing my career that I worked very hard to have, I was pretty healthy before all of this.”
Last month, Jodie Dicks, a 26-year-old woman from Toronto, contracted dengue fever while attending her friend’s destination wedding in Jamaica. Less than a week later, she suffered multiple heart attacks and died in her mother’s arms in a Florida medical centre.
Dicks’ death has drawn new attention to the disease, for which there is no vaccine available in Canada. CTV News spoke to three survivors who all said that Canadian travellers are not being given enough information about the virus.
When Monteiro learned of the young woman’s death, she said she immediately wanted to reach out to Dicks’ parents and offer her condolences.
“I think they’re feeling the same as me. They’re angry that there was no information about this. There was no preparation or warning,” she said.
“People need to know that this is happening. You might not hear about it often, it might be rare, but it’s happening, and it’s happening in all the most popular vacation spots.”
WHAT IS DENGUE FEVER?
Dengue fever is primarily spread by mosquitos. Symptoms include a sudden high fever, rash, nausea, swollen glands and pain in the bones, joints and eyes.
The federal government says travellers are at risk when travelling to countries where dengue fever is present. According to the World Health Organization, more than 40 per cent of the world’s population lives in areas where dengue can be transmitted.
Travel agents in Canada are encouraged, though not required, to warn travellers of such risks, according to the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies.
But what many people may not know about dengue fever is that the illness is potentially much more dangerous if a person contracts the virus more than once. That means frequent fliers to dengue-affected countries could be at greater risk.
“If you are infected once, you're actually at a set-up for a really bad outcome the second time when you are hit with a different strain,” said infectious diseases specialist Dr. Neil Rau.
Monteiro said that, due to the severity of her illness, there is a “big possibility” that she contracted dengue fever before. On an earlier trip to Jamaica she contracted flu-like symptoms on the third day of the trip and suffered lasting symptoms for weeks. After being prescribed antibiotics, she got better.
“It never occurred to me until I started reading and researching this disease and found out that it’s very possible that I was bitten once before,” she said. “A lightbulb kind of went off.”
It’s a situation Arletta Doroszuk is familiar with. The 50-year-old from Courtice, Ont. travelled to the Bahamas in 2011 and, after a few days of arriving home, suffered from a high fever and severe pain in her hands.
Doroszuk visited her doctor several times and, after the condition worsened, she was eventually tested for dengue fever. The tests came back positive.
Nine years after that trip, she hasn’t travelled south again. She’s afraid of what might happen if she contracts dengue a second time.
“I’m just afraid I might get (the virus again) and I will not be so lucky,” she said.
Her advice for travellers: pack bug repellent and research your travel destination to see if dengue fever is present.
Another woman, Carla Radke from Winnipeg, travelled to the Mexican community of Guayabitos north of Puerto Vallarta for a three-month vacation with her husband. She said her hotel sprayed for mosquitoes, but she still ended up suffering from pain behind her eyes and aching muscles -- both symptoms of the illness.
She was sick for nine days and, over the coming months, lost nearly 100 lbs. She was shocked when she found out she had dengue fever.
“I never thought of dengue. I only thought of Zika. To me, dengue is like an old thing...Zika was newer, and that was on my mind,” she said.
UNDERSTANDING THE RISK
Jodie Dicks’ mother, Christine Boissoin, and stepfather, Randy Boissoin, said they want to make sure that their daughter did not die “in vain.” They are now speaking out in hopes of educating other Canadians about the risks of dengue fever.
They say the government’s warnings are not easy to find, and that not enough travellers are aware of the problem.
“Jodie is not here with us now -- this isn’t a one-off. My Lord, people need the information,” Ryan Boissoin said.
“I would say just look at our story. We have a daughter who didn’t come home, and if you don’t think it isn’t a potential reality, you are sadly mistaken.”

Tobago’s tourism industry is experiencing a momentous breakthrough as the destination recorded the highest increase in international stayover arrivals to the island in nine (9) years. At the end of December 2019, statistics revealed that there were 19,542 international stayover arrivals to Tobago for the year - an 8.2% increase over 2018.
Furthermore, 2020 arrival figures for Tobago already indicate a continued upward trajectory in stayover arrivals for the island, as January 2020 figures show a 21.8% increase over January 2019 - 2,805 stayover arrivals this year as compared to 2,303 last year.
Commenting on the recent milestone in Tobago’s journey to a rejuvenated tourism industry, CEO of the Tobago Tourism Agency Limited, Mr. Louis Lewis, stated:
“The rebranding of Destination Tobago as Tobago Beyond: unspoilt, untouched, undiscovered, as well as a new Go To Market strategy unveiled by the Agency in 2018, was the catalyst for positive performance in Tobago’s tourism sector.
The renewed brand identity has proven to resonate well with trade partners and consumers alike in Tobago’s source markets, and complemented TTAL’s award-winning marketing campaign crafted to create positive impressions of the destination, and convert those impressions to bookings. These successes were only made possible through collaboration with the island’s stakeholders.” The performance of the Canadian market last year was a significant factor in the overall growth recorded. Canada was identified by the Tobago Tourism Agency Limited as one of the new growth markets for destination Tobago in 2017 when the organisation was established.
By December 2018, TTAL successfully negotiated direct airlift from Canada to Tobago for the first time in the island’s history, engaging leisure carrier Sunwing Airlines which was responsible for the majority of Canadian visitors to Tobago in 2019.
Canadian journalists enjoy a trek through the rainforest during a press trip hosted by TTAL from January 30 to February 3, 2020
Negotiating airlift was only the first step in ensuring growth from the Canadian market. In order to stimulate awareness and interest in Tobago, and to create a demand for travel, TTAL worked assiduously to promote destination Tobago in Canada and raise awareness about the available flight options to the destination.
In addition to growth from the Canada market in 2019, Germany stayover arrivals also increased by 12% and arrivals from the UK market saw an increase of 6.7%.
The Tobago Tourism Agency Limited is continuing to build upon the success illustrated in 2019, by ensuring that their strategic marketing efforts continue into 2020 and beyond, complemented by product development initiatives to enhance the on-island experience for visitors. Source: Tobago Tourist Board, Feb 2020

Kalisa Villafana made history last August as the first black female graduate at Florida State University (FSU) to earn a doctoral degree in nuclear physics.
Villafana is thus, only the 96th black woman in the United States with a Ph.D. in physics.
“It’s overwhelming and a pretty big deal,” she said of her history shattering achievement. 
“It feels great to be the first at Florida State, and I hope that more young women are encouraged to pursue physics degrees. Diversity and inclusion are necessary. Everyone can contribute different perspectives to various fields.”
A native of Trinidad and Tobago, Villafana, had her undergraduate degree from Florida A&M University. 
Villafana’s quest to becoming a physicist started when she was 12. She was exposed to “tons of physics experiments” when she was growing up as a student of an all-girl Catholic school.
Villafana took several courses during her time at Holy Faith Convent in her home country, where she and other girls were exposed to loads of physics experiments.
“I thought it was interesting. From then on, I said I want to be a physicist. That never changed,” she said.
She would then return to Trinidad and Tobago to work and return to the United States after a year to ensure her childhood dream came to fruition.
“When it comes to a Ph.D. program you have to feel like you’re going to thrive and the people there want you to succeed,” Florida State University News quoted Villafana as saying. “That was what I got from FSU. None of the other schools I visited gave me that energy.”
After choosing Mark Riley, a world-renowned physicist, to be her adviser, the rest was history for Villafana. Riley chaired the physics department when Villafana first arrived at FSU.
“Kalisa is absolutely fabulous,” Riley, who’s now dean of the FSU Graduate School said. “She is brilliant, persistent and has a super sense of humor. It has been a joy to work with her and the research results she has produced are outstanding. She has an amazing future ahead of her.”
Aware of the fact that the world of physics is mostly white and male, Villafana hopes her achievement would serve as an inspiration to young black girls.
“I always encourage young women to pursue what they are passionate about and what makes them excited, even if they are a minority in the field,” she said.
“Hopefully, other young girls are motivated when they see us, even though the field is predominantly white and male,” Villafana added. 
Villafana, who wants to specialize in cancer research, working as a medical physicist further noted that she wanted to “show them how to get to the next point.” 
“In Trinidad, many people don’t know how to get to the United States and get a Ph.D. that’s paid for by the school. They don’t know how to go from being an international student from the islands to a doctor in the U.S.”
Villafana currently works as a process engineer with the Intel Corporation in Arizona. Her achievement inspired her mother and sister to go to college. My mom went back to school and got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and my young sister started her bachelor’s program as well,” Villafana said. “When you do certain things, especially coming from a small place in Trinidad, people are encouraged.”
Source: Facelive Africa, Feb 2020