USA

SAN DIEGO (AP) — It’s a hidden crisis that has existed for years inside one of the most well-funded institutions on the planet and has only worsened during the coronavirus pandemic. As many as 160,000 active-duty military members are having trouble feeding their families.

That estimate by Feeding America, which coordinates the work of more than 200 food banks around the country, underscores how long-term food insecurity has extended into every aspect of American life, including the military.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13 (APP): The World Health Organization (WHO) has decried the “vast access gaps” in the availability of insulin, a bedrock medicine for the treatment of diabetes, even 100 years after it was discovered.

In a report published on Friday to commemorate the milestone anniversary, the Geneva-based UN health agency stressed the need to cut prices and dramatically increase access to the life-saving medicine.

UN, 13 November. /TASS/: The accusations against Russia due to the situation with refugees from the Middle East on the Belarusian-Polish border are absurd, Grigory Lukyantsev, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s human rights envoy, told the leading Russian news agencies.

"The core of these accusations resembles some kind of absurd situation. All accusations in this regard are addressed to one state, Belarus, although there are already accusations that we [Russia] allegedly had a hand in this, which is generally absurd," the diplomat said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX expanded its constellation of low Earth orbit satellites on Saturday with the launch of 53 Starlink satellites from Florida.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:19 a.m. EST and deployed the satellites about 16 minutes after launch.

The rocket’s reusable first stage, which has been used for multiple launches, including the first crewed test flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, successfully returned and landed on the “Just Read the Instructions” droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

13 Nov 2021; MEMO: The United States urged Yemen's Houthi rebels to release an unspecified number of detained Yemeni local employees who work for the US embassy in the capital, Sana'a, the State Department says, Washington Times reports.

13 Nov 2021; MEMO: Gaza is still suffering "from a particularly difficult economic situation with very high unemployment and deteriorating social conditions", the World Bank warned in a report this week.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — An attorney for one of the white men standing trial in the death of Ahmaud Arbery told the judge Thursday he doesn’t want “any more Black pastors” in the courtroom after the Rev. Al Sharpton sat with the slain man’s family.

Kevin Gough represents William “Roddie” Bryan, who along with father and son Greg and Travis McMichael is charged with murder and other crimes in Arbery’s Feb. 23, 2020, killing. The 25-year-old Black man was chased and fatally shot after the defendants spotted him running in their neighborhood outside the Georgia port city of Brunswick.

DENVER (AP) — Making an Olympic team is hard enough. This winter, those who earn their spots on the U.S. squad might find it takes even more work to get to Beijing.

Among the slow trickle of information coming out of China in advance of February’s Olympics was news that, with virtually no flights operating between North America and China, Olympians very well might have to get to Beijing through a still-undetermined set of connecting flights that could more than double their travel time.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Like Hercules and his 12 labors, Democrats’ $1.85 trillion package of social and climate initiatives seems afflicted by a maddening parade of hurdles. Looming ahead is the Congressional Budget Office, which could cause problems that would be messy but probably surmountable.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicare’s “Part B” outpatient premium will jump by $21.60 a month in 2022, one of the largest increases ever. Officials said Friday a new Alzheimer’s drug is responsible for about half of that.

The increase guarantees that health care will gobble up a big chunk of the recently announced Social Security cost-of-living allowance, a boost that had worked out to $92 a month for the average retired worker, intended to help cover rising prices for gas and food that are pinching seniors.