By DÁNICA COTO

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An organization in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is urging fishermen to take certain precautions after decrying a recent U.S. strike in the eastern Caribbean that killed three people aboard a suspected drug boat.

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Winsbert Harry, president of the National Fisherfolk Organization, told St. Vincent’s state television station SVG-TV late Tuesday that he was concerned about the safety of fishermen in the Caribbean.

On Tuesday, the U.S. government announced that it had carried out strikes on three boats including one in the Caribbean Sea, killing three people. Officials did not provide evidence that the boats were ferrying drugs.

St. Lucian Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre said Monday that his government “is actively engaging through established diplomatic and security channels to verify the facts” after confirming that “people lost their lives.” He declined further comment, including whether at least one of the victims was a fisherman from St. Lucia.

“We will communicate confirmed information to the public promptly and responsibly,” he wrote in a social media post.

Meanwhile, former St. Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves criticized the strike during his radio show Monday and called on the archipelago’s current leader to make a public statement.

“Even if these persons were involved in drug trafficking, you can’t just kill them,” he said on Star FM. “Everybody is innocent until proven guilty. You cannot be judge, jury and executioner without giving people an opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law.”

Harry, of the fisherfolk organization, noted that the strike comes as the eastern Caribbean prepares for the peak of tuna season, with many fishermen depending on catches for their livelihoods.

He said fishermen should clearly identify their boats and constantly monitor surrounding vessels, especially when they’re at high sea. Harry also warned that visibility is lowest during pre-dawn hours, when fishermen typically set out.

“You never know what could happen,” he said, adding that he and others are fearful about going out.

The U.S. strikes that began in September have killed at least 145 people and rankled some officials in the Caribbean, where many of the strikes have occurred.

One of those strikes killed two fishermen from Trinidad and Tobago in mid-October.

Late last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts announced that relatives of the two fishermen killed were suing the U.S. government “for wrongful death and extrajudicial killing.” It is believed to be the first such wrongful death case since the strikes began last year.

The ACLU said that 26-year-old Chad Joseph and 41-year-old Rishi Samaroo were among the six people killed that day as they returned from Venezuela to their home in Trinidad and Tobago.

“If the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable,” said Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo’s sister, in a statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said that the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels in Latin America and has justified the ongoing attacks, saying they’re needed to stop the flow of drugs.

Meanwhile critics have questioned the legality of the strikes.

“It is absurd and dangerous for any state to just unilaterally proclaim that a ‘war’ exists in order to deploy lethal military force,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a recent statement. “These are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless.”

Swayed by public outcry, the St. Paul City Council recently voted to decline to extend the terms of a state grant awarded to a three-year-old microelectronics subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor.

In May 2023, the city accepted an $800,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development to support the arrival of a new technology company, ForwardEdge ASIC. The start-up manufacturer creates reprogrammable semiconductor microchips for missiles and F-35 military bombers, as well as temperature sensors, plug-in modules and other micro-electronics used by the aerospace industry.

In exchange for financial backing from the Minnesota Investment Fund program, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin promised to create 113 jobs at 2340 Energy Park Drive by the end of 2025, with positions paying between $40 and $127 per hour, in addition to benefits.

In recent months, ForwardEdge requested an extension of its compliance date from March 2026 to March 2027 to give them more time to meet their job creation requirement. To date, they’ve installed about 83 jobs, leaving them about 30 jobs short of goal. Otherwise, the state would reduce their grant on a prorated basis, which city staff estimated could add up to as much as a $200,000 reduction in their grant award.

DEED indicated to the city that it would approve a one-year extension if formally requested by the city council. A Feb. 4 public hearing on the proposed grant extension drew at least 30 speakers to council chambers against that proposal, as well as at least 32 emails in opposition to the request.

Defense contractor ties

Many cited the defense contractor’s ties to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli military’s bombing of Gaza and the Palestinian people.

“You are making us accomplices in murder,” said one of the speakers.

“Living in Saint Anthony Park, I am not comfortable knowing I share the neighborhood with a business that creates the computer chips for warplanes used in the brutalization and destruction of the Palestinian people,” reads a letter.

“I will not have my tax dollars funding anything related to ICE, Israel or any other political organization/body that supports the oppression of others,” reads another letter.

Speakers noted the Minneapolis City Council voted in December to cut funding for the city’s $500,000 contract with Zen City, an Israeli tech company that specializes in surveillance technology.

Under pressure from protesters who attended multiple meetings of the Board of Water Commissioners last summer, St. Paul Regional Water Services plans to issue a request for proposals this spring for a cyber-security vendor, allowing it to study potential alternatives to its current contract with Waterfall Security Solutions of Israel, which provides a combination of hardware and online services.

Council vote

Meanwhile, St. Paul Council Member Molly Coleman, who represents Ward 4, asked for the grant extension request for ForwardEdge to be laid over for a week, allowing her more time to inquire from the city attorney’s office whether a one-year extension was guaranteed as part of the original contract. Her request drew boos and yelling from the audience.

Coleman withdrew her motion after fellow council members also objected and said they were ready to reject the company’s request. Council Member Nelsie Yang tearfully described the fear gripping the Hmong community under Operation Metro Surge, decades after today’s Hmong elders lost everything after assisting the CIA with the failed “Secret War” in Laos.

“We have to be firm on what we are against,” said Council Member Anika Bowie, noting her husband, Jamael Lundy, was recently arrested by heavily-armed federal agents in their home for his role in a non-violent protest at a St. Paul church. “We have witnessed, experienced, helicopters, military-grade officers on the streets. We as a state decided that it was OK to invest into a manufacturing company that is producing terror and has a hand in this violence. … It is very easy for me to vote no.”

Bowie thanked the citizen advocates in the room for calling attention to a matter she and others on the council might have glossed over as a routine extension request, and Yang said she felt embarrassed to have voted to approve the DEED grant in 2023.

After some discussion, Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim motioned to deny the contract extension. Her motion was approved by the council, 6-0. Council Member Cheniqua Johnson is away on an extended maternity leave.

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By JENNIFER McDERMOTT

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Team USA skiers Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, along with Italy’s Federica Brignone, are among the many skiers who have expressed concern during these Olympic Games about the accelerating melt of the world’s glaciers.

And Olympic host city Cortina is a fitting place for them to be talking about climate change: Glaciers once visible from town have dramatically shrunk. Many have been reduced to tiny glaciers or residual ice patches at high elevations among the jagged peaks of the Dolomites. Any Olympian or spectator wishing to lay eyes on a major glacier would have to take a long drive on winding mountain roads to the Marmolada. It’s melting rapidly, too.

The world’s top skiers train on glaciers because of the high-quality snow there, and a warming world jeopardizes the future of their sport. Vonn started skiing on glaciers in Austria when she was just 9 years old.

“Most of the glaciers that I used to ski on are pretty much gone,” 41-year-old Vonn said Feb. 3 in response to a question from The Associated Press at a prerace press conference in Cortina before she crashed on the Olympic downhill course. “So that’s very real and it’s very apparent to us.”

As athletes in snow sports, Shiffrin said, they “get a real front-row view” to the monumental changes underway atop some of the world’s highest, coldest peaks.

“It is something that’s very close to our heart, because it is the heart and soul of what we do,” Shiffrin told AP after racing Sunday. “I would really, really like to believe and hope that with strong voices and sort of broader policy changes within companies and governments, there is a hope for a future of our sport. But I think right now, it’s a little bit of a … it’s a question.”

A view of the Cristallo mountain group is pictured in the Dolomites, which was once home to glaciers, seen from Olympic host city Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 7, 2026 (AP Photo/ Jennifer McDermott)

Italy’s glaciers are disappearing

Italian glaciologist Antonella Senese said Italy has lost more than 200 square kilometers (77 square miles) of glacier area since the late 1950s.

“We are observing a continuous and uninterrupted decrease in glacier area and volume. In the last one to two decades, this reduction has clearly accelerated,” Senese, associate professor of physical geography in the University of Milan’s environmental science and policy department, said in an interview.

Among the peaks surrounding Cortina d’Ampezzo, there are glaciers on the slopes of the Cristallo and Sorapiss mountains. The 2015 New Italian Glacier Inventory found these glaciers shrunk by about one-third since the 1959-1962 inventory.

Shortly after winning a second gold Sunday at her home Winter Olympics, Brignone told AP that skiing is “totally different” now than when she was younger. Brignone lives in the Valle d’Aosta, about six hours away.

When she sees how glaciers are retreating to higher elevations, Brignone said she’s not thinking about the future of skiing — she’s concerned for the future of the planet.

“There we have a lot of glaciers, but they are going up and up, every year, more and more,” she told AP.

Yet many people who don’t frequent the mountains remain unaware of what’s at stake, so the University of Innsbruck created the Goodbye Glaciers Project. The loss of glaciers has far-reaching consequences, threatening water sources, increasing mountain hazards and contributing to sea level rise.

The project shows how different warming levels change the amount of ice left on selected glaciers around the world. To be included, glaciers must have an estimated 2020 volume of at least 0.01 cubic kilometers. The Cristallo and Sorapiss glaciers no longer meet that threshold, said Patrick Schmitt, a doctoral student at the University of Innsbruck.

A view of the Cristallo mountain group is pictured in the Dolomites, which was once home to glaciers, seen from Olympic host city Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 7, 2026 (AP Photo/ Jennifer McDermott)

Preserving glaciers

Some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Cortina is the Marmolada glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Italy and the largest in the Dolomites. An apartment building-sized chunk of the glacier detached in July 2022, sparking an avalanche of debris that killed 11 hikers. The mountain is popular for hiking in summer and skiing in winter.

The University of Padua said in 2023 the glacier had been halved over 25 years.

It’s expected to be mostly gone by 2034 if the world warms 2.7 Celsius (4.9 Fahrenheit), according to the Goodbye Glaciers Project. But if warming is limited to 1.5 C (2.7 F — the international goal — the glacier’s life could be extended by another six years, and around 100 glaciers in the Alps can be saved, Schmitt said.

“Cutting greenhouse gas emissions now will reduce future ice loss and soften the impacts on people and nature,” Schmitt wrote in an email. “The choices we make in this decade will decide how much ice remains in the Dolomites, across the Alps, and around the world.”

Globally, more than 7 trillion tons of ice (6.5 trillion metric tons) has been lost since 2000, according to a study last year. And the prospective impact of climate change on Olympic sport is enormous; the list of places that could host Winter Games is projected to shrink substantially in the coming years.

It’s not just Vonn, Shiffrin and Brignone — many Olympic skiers are concerned

In Cortina, Noa Szollos, who is competing for Israel, said in an interview the state of the nearby glaciers speaks to the condition of glaciers around the world.

“I hope we can do something about it,” she said, “but it’s a hard time.”

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Silja Koskinen of Finland said in an interview she can’t train on some of the glaciers she used to because of crevices, rocks and flowing water. Team USA skier AJ Hurt talked about starting the season in October on glaciers in Sölden, Austria.

“Every year, I feel like we come and there’s a little less snow. And every time, we’re like, are we really going to start in October? There’s no snow here,’” Hurt told the AP. “It is really sad and it’s hard to ignore in this sport, definitely, when we’re around it so much and it is so clear.”

Norwegian skier Nikolai Schirmer is leading an effort to stop fossil fuel companies from sponsoring winter sports. Burning coal, oil and gas is the largest contributor to global climate change by far.

In Bormio, Italy, Team USA skier River Radamus said athletes — as stewards of outdoor winter sports— should be on the forefront of trying to defend the environment as best they can.

“It’s always present in our mind that we’re on a dangerous trend unless we do something right,” Radamus said.

AP Sports Writer Pat Graham contributed from Bormio, Italy.

AP Winter Olympics coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By SOPHIA TAREEN

CHICAGO (AP) — From jokes about his well-known stubbornness to tears grieving the loss of a parent, the adult children of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. gave an emotional tribute Wednesday honoring the legacy of the late civil rights icon, a day after his death.

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Jackson died Tuesday at his home in Chicago after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his ability to move and speak. Standing on the steps outside his longtime Chicago home, five of his children, including U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, remembered him not only for his decades-long work in civil rights but also for his role as spiritual leader and father.

“Our father is a man who dedicated his life to public service to gain, protect and defend civil rights and human rights to make our nation better, to make the world more just, our people better neighbors with each other,” said his youngest son, Yusef Jackson, fighting back tears at times.

The family said details on funeral arrangements for Jackson would be announced at a later time, but services will begin next week, with him lying in repose at the headquarters of the organization he founded, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago, which his son Yusef oversees. Services will follow at a church large enough to accommodate expected crowds.

Jackson rose to prominence six decades ago as a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., joining the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King later dispatched Jackson to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers.

Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was slain.

Remembrances have poured in worldwide for Jackson, including flowers left outside the home where large portraits of a smiling Jackson had been placed. But his children said he was a family man first.

“Our father took fatherhood very seriously,” his eldest child, Santita Jackson, said. “It was his charge to keep.”

His children’s reflections were poetic in the style of the late civil rights icon — filled with prayer, tears and a few chuckles, including about disagreements that occur when growing up in a large, lively family.

His eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr., a former congressman, said his father’s funeral services would welcome all, “Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative, right wing, left wing — because his life is broad enough to cover the full spectrum of what it means to be an American.”

The family asked only that those attending be respectful.

“If his life becomes a turning point in our national political discourse, amen,” he said. “His last breath is not his last breath.”