A stone’s throw from Venezuela, in the eye of a political storm fueled by a US naval deployment, fishermen from the archipelago of Trinidad and Tobago fear getting caught up in the tumult.Between Venezuelan military preparations in response to muscular US “provocation” on the one hand, and Trinidad-backed American strikes on alleged drug boats on the other, people who normally ply their trade in the sea told AFP they are keeping a low profile.In Cedros, a village in the extreme southwest of the island of Trinidad, a group of them chatted in hammocks on the beach, their boats unusually idle.The fishers eyed the Venezuelan coast, about a dozen kilometers (seven miles) away, as they discussed their dilemma.Barefoot and dressed in shorts, Kendrick Moodee told AFP he and his comrades were taking “a little more caution,” with the Venezuelan coast guard “a bit tense” these days.There has been closer policing, the 58-year-old said, of fishing in Venezuelan territorial waters where boats from Trinidad and Tobago were previously left to operate undisturbed.Several Cedros fishermen said Venezuelan patrols have been violently repelling Trinidadian vessels, and beatings and extortion have increased.Their territory curtailed, the fishermen have seen their yields and income dwindle.- ‘Anything can happen’ -US strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific have killed at least 62 people on boats Washington claims were ferrying drugs in recent weeks. Family members and victims’ governments have said some of them were fishermen at sea.Earlier this month US President Donald Trump hailed the success of the operation, saying: “We’re so good at it that there are no boats. In fact, even fishing boats –- nobody wants to go into the water anymore.”At least two of those killed were Trinidadians, according to mourning loved ones, though the government of the US-aligned nation of 1.4 million people has refused to confirm the identities.”This (fishing) is the only thing we have to… make a dollar,” 42-year-old Rakesh Ramdass told AFP, saying he was afraid of the diplomatic fallout, but without an alternative.”You have to take a chance,” he said. But at sea, “anything can happen.”Fishermen said the Trinidadian coast guard was also making life more difficult for them in an area known as a hotspot for the trafficking of drugs, arms and people — including Venezuelans fleeing dire economic straits in their own country.Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is a fierce critic of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and a friend of Trump, and has welcomed the US strikes.Maduro accused her of turning Trinidad and Tobago into “an aircraft carrier of the American empire” after Washington sent a guided-missile destroyer there for four days for a joint military exercise within striking distance of the Venezuelan mainland.Caracas fears the US deployment of war vessels is part of a regime change plan under the guise of an anti-drug operation.- ‘Everyone becomes suspect’ – The diplomatic standoff has meant that “everyone becomes suspect, even simple fishermen,” a Western diplomat in Trinidad and Tobago told AFP on condition of anonymity.Those who fish “find themselves caught in the crossfire,” said the diplomat, and “normal economic life is disrupted.”In Icacos, a village near Cedros, Alexsi Soomai, 63, lamented that fishermen like him were going out to sea less frequently. “Better safe than sorry,” he said. Icacos is the arrival point for many undocumented Venezuelans seeking a better life elsewhere.A few steps from the beach, a hamlet with houses made of salvaged wood shelters several families, including that of Yacelis Garcia, a 35-year-old Indigenous Venezuelan who left that country six years ago. In Venezuela, she recounted, “sometimes we ate, sometimes we didn’t.”Her brother-in-law Juan Salazar said he now lives “solely from fishing.”But he does not dare venture far in the current political climate, fearing he will be caught and sent back.

A double-digit combination set the social media sphere ablaze among teens in 2025, leaving parents and teachers befuddled — and now it has officially been crowned Dictionary.com’s “Word of the Year”: 67.  But even the organization that unveiled the winning word — pronounced “six-seven” and never “sixty-seven” — admitted it was not exactly sure about its meaning. “You might be feeling a familiar vexation at the sight of these two formerly innocuous numerals,” Dictionary.com said, addressing parents as it announced the winner this week.Members of Gen Alpha, it added, might be “smirking at the thought of adults once again struggling to make sense of your notoriously slippery slang.” Dictionary.com said the origin of the word might be traced to “Doot Doot (6 7),” a song by the US rapper Skrilla. Use of the word went viral in schools and on social media this year. It can be taken to mean a variety of things, with context, tone and absurdity all playing a role in determining its definition in the moment.”67″ beat out some stiff competition from other words that were short-listed for “Word of the Year.” These included “broligarchy,” “Gen Z stare,” and an entry from the world of emoticons — the dynamite emoji.Its use exploded online with news of the engagement between pop superstar Taylor Swift and American football star Travis Kelce, as it was used as shorthand to refer to the “TNT” couple.  

Amazon’s share price skyrocketed by more than ten percent on Thursday after the online retail behemoth reported better than expected earnings, powered by surging demand for its cloud computing services.Quarterly sales rose 13 percent to $180.2 billion across the company, it said. Net income climbed to $21.2 billion from $15.3 billion a year earlier.Stoking investor sentiment, the company forecast fourth-quarter sales of $206-$213 billion, representing growth of 10-13 percent.The e-commerce giant’s Amazon Web Services division, which recently suffered a global outage, saw revenues jump 20 percent to $33 billion in the third quarter, marking its fastest growth rate since 2022 as companies race to build AI capabilities.Amazon’s major rivals in the cloud computing space on Wednesday also reported sales increases in their cloud computing business, with all companies pointing to adoption of AI services as the main driver.The tech giants are all making huge investments to build up their AI computing capabilities, money that the companies insist will be justified by increasing adoption of AI tools and applications by customers across the globe.While the company did not break out its specific investment in AI capabilities, Amazon said it increased year-on-year purchases of property and equipment by $50.9 billion, which is a massive jump in spending.Amazon also said it added 3.8 gigawatts of power capacity over the past year to support AI infrastructure — more than any other cloud provider — and launched a massive computing cluster with nearly 500,000 custom AI chips.AI computing demands enormous amounts of electricity, far more than traditional computing, and can put a strain on local resources, notably water supplies needed for cooling data center activity.Operating income, however, remained flat at $17.4 billion after Amazon took two major charges: $2.5 billion for a legal settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and $1.8 billion in severance costs tied to planned job cuts.Amazon said Tuesday it was reducing its workforce by 14,000 posts to streamline operations as it invests in artificial intelligence.The cuts are expected to target areas such as human resources, advertising, and management in a group that has 350,000 office positions, out of a total of more than 1.5 million employees.The settlement with the FTC was over long-running allegations from the US regulator that it used deceptive practices to enroll consumers in Amazon Prime and made it difficult to cancel subscriptions.The online retail giant, which admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement, paid $1.5 billion into a consumer fund for refunds and $1 billion in civil penalties.Shortly after the results landed, Amazon’s share price was up by 11 percent in after-hours trading.