Food
As peacekeepers leave Western Sahara, refugees yearn to end a half-century wait
TINDOUF, Algeria, Nov 2 (Reuters) – At 51, Binina Mohamed is as old as the conflict that drove her from the Western Sahara region into a refugee camp in southern Algeria, where she has spent her life among tens of thousands of others facing a similar fate.
The confrontation over her native land, often described as Africa’s longest-running territorial dispute, was brought back into focus this weekend by a UN Security Council spat that led to the end of a decades-old peacekeeping mission there.
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The Western Sahara conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, a political and military organisation that has been seeking a separate state there since the departure of former colonial power Spain in 1976. Peacekeepers have watched over the territory since 1991, when the UN brokered a ceasefire ending years of guerrilla warfare between the two sides.
Thousands of Sahrawis fled hostilities to the Tindouf area in southwestern Algeria, where the Polisario administers five refugee camps.
During a rare visit to the region for foreign media outlets, organised by the Polisario, Mohamed described how her daughters, now in their twenties and thirties, had never visited the region where she was from.
“I do not want them to reach the age of 50 without seeing their homeland,” she told Reuters.
One of her daughters, Safia Al-Saleh, 33, said she hoped her own two children would have a different future.
“I want my children and my grandchildren to study and grow up in their own country, not to grow up like us here, as refugees, with nothing,” she said.
DIPLOMACY IN DEADLOCK
The uncertainty facing refugees such as Mohamed has become a central point of contention in the latest diplomatic battle over Western Sahara.
The dispute heated up last year when the UN Security Council backed Rabat’s plan to give the region autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the “most feasible” way to resolve the conflict.
After abstaining last year, Russia this year vetoed a US-drafted resolution that would have reaffirmed that position. When a competing Russian resolution was defeated, it left the UN mission without a renewal of its mandate.
In a speech at the council, Algeria’s UN envoy defended the Polisario’s stance and highlighted a decline in aid and the suffering of refugees in the camps.
Morocco’s envoy in turn said the harsh conditions in the camps were the responsibility of Algeria, a longtime Russian ally, which he accused of denying the refugees their right to return home. He urged Algiers to allow the UN to register the refugees, saying other nationalities were present there.
Algeria and the Polisario say over 160,000 live in the Tindouf refugee camps. UNHCR says it provides assistance to an estimated 90,000 of the “most vulnerable” refugees there.
Morocco disputes both numbers, citing a lack of a UN census, and accuses the Polisario and Algeria of using Sahrawis as political pawns, which Algiers denies.
As the dispute grinds on, Mohamed’s family described daily problems in the camp, including access to water and the harsh climate.
More than 80% of the camps’ residents rely on humanitarian assistance to meet basic food needs, the World Food Programme said in a statement earlier this year.
Another of Mohamed’s daughters, Aisha Salem, a 24-year-old fighter with the Polisario Front, said she wanted a different future for the next generation: “We don’t want to live the way our grandparents did, through displacement and deprivation,” she said.
Mohamed echoed the sentiment. “We want stability. We are tired of being refugees,” she said. “The one who has no land has no life.”
Reporting by Abdelaziz Boumzar; Writing by Dina Sakr; Editing by Alexander Dziadosz and William Maclean
Food
Blood pressure medication recalled: Check your pills
Long Islanders taking high blood pressure medication should check their medicine cabinets, as over 3,700 bottles of blood pressure medication have been recalled for failing a quality test.
New Jersey-based manufacturer Macleods Pharma USA is recalling certain packages of a combination of Olmesartan Medoxomil, Amlodipine, and Hydrochlorothiazide, according to a Food and Drug Administration recall notice.
The chemicals are combined into a single pill that relaxes the blood vessels to lower blood pressure, according to the Mayo Clinic. The drug failed to meet dissolution specifications, the recall notice states, meaning that the pills did not dissolve properly during testing and may not release their active ingredients properly.
Macleods issued a voluntary recall on Oct. 7. The FDA classified the recall as a “Class II,” on Oct. 27, according to a recall notice. A Class II designation means the product may cause reversible side effects, with a small chance of more serious effects, according to the FDA. The FDA did not name any specific side effects that could result from the recalled medication.
Macleods did not respond to a Newsday request for comment by press time. The company did not confirm if any of the recalled drugs were shipped to Long Island.
The notice says that Mcleods is recalling two bottles of the drug: one 90-count bottle and one 30-count bottle.
The recalled drug has the same ingredients as the brand name medication, Tribenzor. Macleods’ website advertises the product as an equivalent to the drug Benicar HCT. The recall applies to Macleod’s generic version. The FDA has not issued any recall notices for the name brand medications it emulates, according to the FDA’s website.
Patients can identify if their medication is subject to the recall by checking the lot number and national drug code number on the pill bottle. The drug code for the recalled 30-count bottle is NDC 33342-246-07, and the code for the 90-count bottle is 33342-246-10. According to the FDA, the lot numbers subject to the recall are 12251163A and 12251163B.
If the lot number does not appear on the pill bottle, AARP recommends that you call your pharmacy. The recalled medication expires on May 31, 2027.
Food
Popular blood pressure tablets face class II recall
If you take blood pressure medication, you will need to check your prescriptions. The Food and Drug Administration announced the recall of a popular treatment.
The agency said Olmesartan Medoxomil, Amlodipine, and Hydrochlorothiazide tablets have been recalled.
The Mayo Clinic said the pill is a combination of medications that can be used alone or in combination with others for high blood pressure.
Olmesartan is an angiotensin II receptor blocker, while Amlodipine is a calcium channel blocker, and Hydrochlorothiazide is a diuretic, the Mayo Clinic said.
They failed to meet dissolution specifications.
The recall affects two lots: 2251163A, expiration date 05-31-2027 and 12251163B, expiration date 05-31-2027. They were dispensed nationwide.
The FDA said the recall affects 3,528 30-count bottles and 216 90-count bottles.
The medications were initially recalled on Oct. 7, but the FDA classified it as a Class II recall on Oct. 26.
A Class II recall is “a situation in which use of or exposure to a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.”
©2026 Cox Media Group
Food
5 people rescued in South Pacific after months adrift at sea, 4 others missing
Five people, including two children, were rescued this week in the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati after three months drifting at sea in a 20-foot skiff, authorities said. Another four remained missing.
Villagers rescued the group Sunday off Fanning Island in Kiribati, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported, after they had drifted an estimated 3,355 miles east from the Federated States of Micronesia.
The U.S. Coast Guard in Guam on Tuesday confirmed that the skiff with nine people aboard had been reported missing after it failed to return to Ruo Island in Micronesia on July 30. The group had been making a one-hour crossing between the islands of Murilo and Ruo at the time, ABC reported.
A 10-day search covering 33,000 square miles followed without any sign of the missing boat or those aboard, it said.
“Incredible and wonderful news these five folks were found and are receiving care,” the U.S. Coast Guard told The Associated Press in an email.
“Our profound condolences to family and friends of those who did not arrive with them,” the email added.
When asked by the AP what happened to the missing four, the U.S. Coast Guard said it was continuing to gather and confirm information and would reply as soon as possible.
A lawmaker in Kiribati, Kaotitaake Rakoroa, told ABC the survivors were being cared for by a pastor on the island.
Nursing officer Paukin Tororo told the ABC on Monday that all five were severely dehydrated and malnourished. They were put on intravenous drips and were showing signs of recovery.
“They can give a smile face, they show the sign they want to eat,” she told the ABC.
The survivors had yet to speak publicly about their ordeal and had requested privacy, the Australian broadcaster reported. ABC said the group went missing after their boat was caught in a storm.
The governor of Micronesia’s Chuuk state, Alexander Narruhn, issued a statement Sunday saying he had begun talks with the Kiribati government to bring the survivors home.
“There were nine people aboard the boat that went missing. Thanks be to God for his love and mercy that five of the nine have been found,” Narruhn said through an interpreter.
“We continue to pray for their four companions,” he added. Narruhn did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment.
Other rescues in the Pacific
There have been previous incidents where people have become lost at sea among the tiny island chains that stud the Pacific Ocean. An Australian man survived more than two months lost at sea in 2023 with his dog Bella after rough seas damaged their boat and its electronics system. Tim Shaddock, 51, had been traveling from Mexico to French Polynesia, but found himself drifting in the Pacific Ocean for more than two months. Shaddock and his canine companion survived by drinking rain water and eating raw fish that Shaddock caught, he said. They were spotted by a helicopter and rescued in July 2023.
Two American sailors and their two dogs were rescued after five months at sea in the Pacific in 2017. Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiaba were discovered 900 miles southeast of Japan by a Taiwanese fishing ship, the U.S. Navy said at the time. The vessel’s engine died during bad weather, and they were unable to get to land using the ship’s sails. The women said the boat drifted off course, and no ships were near enough to hear their distress calls. Water purifiers and a year’s supply of food aboard the vessel kept them alive, the Navy said.
Food
John Goodman is ‘still getting used’ to his face after losing nearly half his bodyweight over the past decade
John Goodman has said he is “still getting used to” his face and body after losing 14 stone.
The actor, best known for films including The Big Lebowski (1998) and The Flintstones (1994), lost almost half his body weight over the past decade.
He did so through a change in diet, an increase in exercise and stomach surgery. Goodman did not take any GLP-1s such as Ozempic of Wegovy.
During a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actor opened up about his dramatic weight loss, saying that he “ignores” the public commentary surrounding his body.
“Since I’m in this business, it is fair game, up to a point,” he added. “But yeah, I’m still trying to get used to my face. It’s weird. I think of myself as one way, and then I look at myself, ‘Oh, wow.’”
Asked whether he felt that his previous weight – of approximately 28 stone – ever held him back in terms of his career, Goodman told host Josh Horowitz that it did, but that there was a degree of “self-sabotage” involved. “I was working enough as I was,” he said. “I wasn’t crazy about it, but I wonder if I sabotaged myself.”
Goodman also spoke about his weight loss journey in an interview with The Times over the weekend.
The Roseanne star said that one of the positives of his weight loss is the fact that he is largely unrecognisable to fans and so there is a degree of anonymity now afforded to him when he goes out in public.
On the subject of dressing for his changed body, he added: “I still feel like a fat guy, but it’s nice to be able to go into regular clothing stores and buy things.”
Goodman said he began his weight loss journey in 2016 the old-fashioned way: by cutting back on sugar, snacks, and working with a personal trainer.
“I was eating alcoholically. It was just something to up the ante,” he told The Times. “It was dangerous. My joints were shot from the weight I was carrying.”
Goodman has had both knees replaced, and works out a lot in the gym. Although he said that he would have used weight-loss jabs had they been available to him back then, Goodman said he does not use them even now because “it’s got to be co-ordinated with other things”.
Elsewhere in the interview, Goodman recalled his childhood as a “latchkey kid” – whose parents were not home much – explaining that he used food as a comfort.
“I’d just get home and start eating. I’ve had troubles with my weight since I was little and the shame is just unbearable – so you eat more,” he said. “It was always a source of my own weakness that I could flog myself with.”
Overeating, he added, saved him from the US draft for the Vietnam war. “I had to hitchhike to get my physical for the army and either they took pity or they misread my height,” he said.
“They measured me two inches shorter, so I was overweight for immediate draft. ‘Go home and work on it.’ But it never came to it.”
Goodman gained widespread fame as Dan Conner in the hit sitcom Roseanne, which ran from 1988 to 1997. He has gone on to star in several iconic films, including six collaborations with the Coen brothers, Argo, and voicing Sully in Monster’s Inc.
Food
FDA recalls thousands of blood pressure bottles after it failed quality tests
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is asking consumers to check their medicine cabinets after thousands of blood pressure medication bottles were recalled nationwide.
According to the FDA’s website, New Jersey-based Macleods Pharma USA is recalling certain lots of Olmesartan Medoxomil, Amlodipine and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets.
The recall was issued on Oct. 7, 2026, with the FDA later instituting a Class II rating on Oct. 26, 2026. A Class II recall means the use of the affected medication may cause “temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences.”
Related video: How to stay ahead of recalls
Officials said the recall covers 3,528 30-count bottles from lot 12251163A and 216 90-count bottles from lot 12251163B. Both lots expire May 31, 2027.
An enforcement report said the medication failed to meet quality standards, meaning the pills did not dissolve as required during testing.
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