A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres says the U.N. chief “welcomes” the agreement Yemen’s warring parties have reached to exchange more than 1,000 prisoners; a move designed to revive the stalled peace process of the more than five-year-old conflict.  Stephane Dujarric said in a statement Monday that Guterres “urges the parties to build on this momentum and finalize arrangements for the release of all remaining detainees.”  The Yemeni government, which is backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, and the Houthis reached the prisoner exchange deal after meeting for more than a week in the Swiss village of Glion. The two sides are now set to release 1,081 prisoners.Dujarric also said Guterres is “is grateful to the International Committee of the Red Cross for its tireless efforts as co-chair of the Supervisory Committee to ensure the implementation of the prisoner release agreement brokered in Sweden in 2018, as well as to the Government of Switzerland for hosting the parties over the past week.”Dujarric said the secretary-general is encouraging “the parties to engage with his Special Envoy to agree on a Joint Declaration encompassing a nationwide ceasefire, economic and humanitarian measures and the resumption of a comprehensive, inclusive political process to end the war.”Tens of thousands of people have died in the conflict between the Houthis and the coalition.  The Houthis ousted Yemen’s internationally recognized government in 2014.  The Western-backed coalition intervened in 2015.  The U.N. says the country is the site of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis where millions of people are facing famine. 
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There are all kinds of apps that rate the air quality of your home inside and outside. But one young programmer has created one that has taken off in his native Macedonia. Now it’s also expanding worldwide. VOA`s Jane Bojadzievski reports.
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Sri Lanka says it is shipping 21 containers of waste back to Britain.  Officials said hazardous waste materials, including hospital waste, were found in some of the containers, in violation of international laws and European Union regulations.  Officials said the containers were supposed to be holding used mattresses, rugs and carpets for possible recycling. An AFP reports says the containers arrived in Sri Lanka between September 2017 and March 2018. The containers left Sri Lanka bound for Britain Saturday, officials said.  Several Asian countries have said they are tired of being the garbage dump for wealthy nations and have refused docking privileges to ships transporting waste. 
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U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden called Sunday for the Republican-controlled Senate to delay confirmation of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, saying voters “are not going to stand for this abuse of power.” Biden said the Senate should delay action until after he or Trump is inaugurated in January for a new four-year term. But Trump has said that moving forward with his choice of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is his constitutional duty, even though no Supreme Court nominee has ever been put forth so close to a presidential election.Biden’s comments come as Democrats and Republicans moved to use the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to energize voters in the Nov. 3 election.”The Senate has to stand strong for our democracy,” Biden said at a brief news conference in his home state of Delaware. He said the Senate moving ahead on the Barrett nomination “would be an irreversible step toward the brink. And a betrayal of a single quality that America is born and built on: The people decide.”  Should he win the election, Biden said the Barrett nomination should be withdrawn so he can make a pick. President Donald Trump walks with Judge Amy Coney Barrett to a news conference to announce Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House, Sept. 26, 2020, in Washington.Despite Biden’s plea that the Senate “must not act on this nomination,” there is no indication that Republicans intend to delay the confirmation process. The Associated Press reported Sunday that three days of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee could open Oct. 12. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not yet said whether the Senate will vote before the election.
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With just 36 days to go before the U.S. presidential election, battle lines are being drawn over President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden called on Republican senators not to confirm her before the November 3 election to allow U.S. voters to have a say, a view key Republican leaders dismiss. Michelle Quinn reports
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Toni Morrison is on the list. So are John Green and Harper Lee. And John Steinbeck and Margaret Atwood. All wrote books that were among the 100 most subjected to censorship efforts over the past decade, as compiled by the American Library Association.  Sherman Alexie’s prize-winning “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” came in at No. 1, followed by Dav Pilkey’s “Captain Underpants” picture book series and Jay Asher’s young adult novel “Thirteen Reasons Why.” Objections raised by parents and other community members have ranged from explicit language and depictions of drug use in Alexie’s novel to Asher’s theme of suicide.  “A lot of the books on the list also reflect a growing trend in recent years to challenge books by people of color and books from the LGBTQ community,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the library association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Examples include Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” about a Black girl raped by her father; Alex Gino’s “George,” about a transgender child; and Justin Richardson’s and Peter Parnell’s picture book about two gay penguins, “And Tango Makes Three.”The list was announced Monday as the library association prepares to mark its annual Banned Books Week.Green’s debut novel, “Looking for Alaska,” was ranked fourth, with others in the top 10 including E.L. James’ explicit blockbuster “50 Shades of Grey,” Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel “Drama” and Lauren Myracle’s “Internet Girls” series.  As with its yearly snapshots of most challenged books, the ALA defines a challenge as a “formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.” The list is based on news reports and on accounts submitted from libraries and others in the local community, although the ALA believes many challenges go unreported. The association does not formally count the number of times books are removed from a library shelf or from a school reading list.The decade list overall is a mixture of old standards such as Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and more recent works such as Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and Suzanne Collins’ multimillion selling “The Hunger Games,” which has been accused of being anti-family and promoting violence. Others included were Atwood’s Dystopian classic “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” and J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.”  Most of the books are fiction, but the list also includes such nonfiction works as Jeanette Walls’ memoir about growing up with dysfunctional parents, “The Glass Castle,” and “Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl,” which has faced challenges for the Jewish girl’s emerging sexual feelings and physical changes as she and her family hide from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II. Frank was 15 when she was captured in 1944, and she died in a concentration camp the following year.  “There are actually two lines of objections to the Anne Frank diary,” Caldwell-Stone said. “One line is about her physical attraction to a boy (Peter Schiff, whom she met in school) and there were also objections that it was inappropriate for someone 12 years old to learn about the Holocaust. It was too much of a downer. It was not uplifting to young people.”
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India’s army conducted exercises in the Himalayan deserts of Ladakh, Sunday, September 27, after it deployed tanks near the border with China. Military tanks belonging to the Indian army participated in drills near Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh territory. Thousands of Indian and Chinese troops are deployed along a disputed stretch of border in the Ladakh region, bordering Tibet, after weeks of tensions that began in June when 20 Indian soldiers were killed, and China suffered an unspecified number of casualties. Both countries have since said they are attempting to resolve the situation through diplomatic and military channels, but talks appeared to have made little headway so far. The boundary dispute between India and China has simmered since they fought a war in 1962, but both countries set the decades-old issue aside in recent decades as economic ties blossomed. The latest standoff has again put a deep strain in their ties.   https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/india-china-agree-not-add-troops-disputed-himalayan-border 
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U.S. lawmakers have battled through a tumultuous political year on Capitol Hill that has included a Senate impeachment trial, a pandemic and the largest aid package in U.S. history.  With President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett Saturday to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, lawmakers now face a historic confirmation battle just weeks before the November 3 presidential election.  A Senate vote would not only cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the court, it will also likely galvanize voters of both parties, many of whom will be participating in early voting as the confirmation process gets under way. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham said Saturday the hearings would begin Monday, October 12.  The Supreme Court nomination could be a boost for Trump, who currently lags behind Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in polls in most key states. Trump has made appointing conservative judges who could overturn key decisions on abortion rights and gay marriage a centerpiece of his appeal to voters. In 2016, one quarter of voters who backed Trump said a president’s ability to nominate Supreme Court justices was an important factor in their vote.  “President Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 and he’s campaigning again promising to appoint judges to federal courts and justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who are textualists and who are originalists who interpret the law based on what it says, rather than on the basis of what they might wish that it said,” Republican Senator Mike Lee told ABC’s This Week on Sunday.But the nomination will also mobilize Democratic voters who say Republicans’ willingness to move forward with the confirmation so close to the election reveals their hypocrisy.  In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not take up President Barack Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, saying, “All we are doing is following the long-standing tradition of not fulfilling a nomination in the middle of a presidential year.”McConnell told Fox News on Friday there was nothing inappropriate about President Trump’s nominee receiving a confirmation hearing this election season because Republicans have control of the Senate.  Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) pays his respects as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose under the Portico at the top of the front steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, Sept. 23, 2020.“It would evidence the fact that she wants to be fair in addressing this,” Durbin told ABC’s This Week. “Why? Because this president has been outspoken and outrageous to think that he would not accept the verdict of the election and that he would make it clear that he’s filling this vacancy on the Supreme Court to make sure it tips his way if there’s any election contest. That is an outrage. No president has ever said that in our nation’s history.”  McConnell appears to have secured enough votes to confirm Barrett even though Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have said they would not vote on a Supreme Court nominee ahead of the election.  Congressional Democrats have few options to stop the confirmation process. But they are using the nomination to highlight key issues in the coming election, including a warning that Barrett could help overturn the Affordable Care Act.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Trump is rushing the nomination not only to seat Barrett ahead of Election Day but to ensure she is place when the Supreme Court is expected to hear a case on the Affordable Care Act on November 10.  “This is unfortunate that the president would be so disrespectful and rush into this,” Pelosi told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “But nonetheless, that’s what it is, that vote, the antidote to his whatever he does is to vote, vote, vote, vote for affordable care. Vote for your preexisting condition. Vote for your safety. Vote for your health.”  FILE – U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.Senator Durbin acknowledged on Sunday that Democrats do not have a “silver bullet” for slowing debate on Barrett.  “We can slow it down perhaps a matter of hours maybe days at the most, but we can’t stop the outcome,” Durbin told ABC’s This Week. “There’ve been two Republicans who have spoken out already — Senators Murkowski and Collins — that said they won’t support this procedure before the election. If two others decide during the course of the debate to stand up and take the same position. Then we could have a different timing, perhaps a different outcome.”  Graham told Fox News he expected to have the nomination cleared out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by October 26, giving McConnell the opportunity to schedule a full vote on the Senate floor just days before the election. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he will demand that his Democratic challenger in the November 3 national election, former Vice President Joe Biden, take a drug test before or after their debate this Tuesday night, suggesting that Biden’s uneven performance in previous political debates this year was because he was drugged. Trump’s unorthodox accusation, which he leveled previously in recent weeks, came as he continues to trail Biden in national polling, as he has for months. Trump is facing the possibility of becoming the third U.S. president in the last four decades to lose a bid for re-election to a second four-year term. “I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night,’ Trump said on Twitter. “Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???” I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night. Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., listens as former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the second of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN, July 31, 2019, in the Fox Theatre in Detroit.At times, he fared poorly in debates with 10 candidates lined up on a debate stage behind podiums. But he seemed to regain his footing in a strong performance in a one-on-one encounter in March against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Biden’s last opponent before Sanders dropped out of the race and conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Biden. Last month, Trump said, “I mean, you saw some of those debates with the large number of people on the stage. He was — I mean, I used to say, ‘How is it possible that he can even go forward?'” “Frankly, his best performance was against Bernie. We’re going to call for a drug test, by the way, because his best performance was against Bernie.”  FILE – Former Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate at CNN Studios in Washington, March 15, 2020.“It wasn’t that he was Winston Churchill because he wasn’t,” Trump concluded, “but it was a normal, boring debate. You know, nothing amazing happened. If you go back and watch some of those numerous debates, he was so bad. He wasn’t even coherent. And against Bernie, he was.” The 74-year-old Trump has often questioned the mental acuity of the 77-year-old Biden. But Biden has just as frequently laughed off Trump’s accusations, saying, he will match Trump and more in a debate. “Watch me. Mr. President, watch me,” Biden told ABC News in an interview. “What we say, what we do, what we control, what we know, what kind of shape we’re in. Come on.” But Biden acknowledged there are “legitimate questions” to be asked about the mental state of the two candidates. In a pre-recorded interview aired Sunday on CNN, Biden’s wife, Jill, said, “He’s ready. One of the things I’m excited for is when the American people see Joe Biden up there on that stage.” In this image from video, Jill Biden, wife of Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, speaks during the second night of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)”They’re going to see what a president looks like. You know, someone who is, like I’m saying, calm, steady, strong, resilient.” Jill Biden said there is “night and day between the two candidates. So, I can’t wait for the American people to see Joe, to see that statesman up there in front of the American public.” Trump’s renomination for a second term in the White House was all but a foregone conclusion and he has not debated a political opponent since 2016. He faced off against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton three times before he won the election. He and Biden are debating three times in the next month, starting with Tuesday’s 90-minute session moderated by Fox News journalist Chris Wallace in the midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio. FILE – Fox News’ Chris Wallace moderates the third and final 2016 presidential campaign debate between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at UNLV in Las Vegas, Oct. 19, 2016.Wallace has picked six topics for discussion in 15-minutes segments: “The Trump and Biden Records;” “The Supreme Court,” with Trump’s appointment of conservative jurist Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg;  “COVID-19;” “The Economy;” “The Integrity of the Election,” and “Race and Violence in Our Cities.” The topics reflect the news of the day in the United States, although progressive critics say that Wallace’s description of race and violence in the U.S. mirrors Trump’s contention that protests against police abuse of minorities in recent months have been led by “thugs,” rioters and anarchists. Democrats supporting Biden say instead the discussion ought to be about systemic racism in the U.S. and the country’s national reckoning over race relations brought to the fore by the May death of a Black man, George Floyd, while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the deaths of other Blacks at the hands of police. Five weeks ahead of the election, Biden is maintaining a 7-percentage-point lead over Trump, according to a compilation of polls by the Real Clear Politics web site, although Biden’s lead is narrower in key battleground states that are likely to determine the overall outcome. Biden has a 10-point advantage among likely voters, 54%-to-44%, in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday, while a New York Times-Sienna College poll shows Biden’s lead at 49%-41%. 
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Three Bollywood actors, including top star Deepika Padukone, were questioned by India’s narcotics agency on Saturday as part of an investigation into the movie industry’s alleged links with drug peddlers and cartels, officials said.Padukone was the first to arrive at the Narcotics Control Board’s office in Mumbai. She had received a summons earlier in the week while shooting a movie in the western beach resort of Goa.Video broadcast live on Indian TV news channels later showed Shraddha Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan also reaching the agency’s office for questioning.Details of the questioning were not immediately available.The narcotics agency said in a statement that it started the Bollywood drug probe after the death of young actor Sushant Singh Rajput, whose body was found at his Mumbai residence in June. An investigation is ongoing.Padukone is one of more than a dozen people working with the Hindi movie industry who have been questioned by the agency in the past two weeks. Her manager Karishma Prakash was questioned on Friday.A top Bollywood filmmaker, Karan Johan, said in a statement Friday that allegations of narcotics being consumed at a party hosted by him in July last year at his residence were “false and baseless.” His response came after an old video from a star-studded party at his residence surfaced on social media. 
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The solemn Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, which annually sees Israeli life grind to a halt, begins on Sunday in a nation already under a sweeping coronavirus lockdown. Every year, businesses shut down, roads empty out and even radio and TV stations go silent as the faithful fast for 25 hours and hold intensive prayers of atonement on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The more secular-minded can be seen riding bikes or even picnicking on deserted highways. The holiday begins at sundown on Sunday. But this year all non-essential businesses have already been forced to close, and Israelis have been ordered to stay within 1,000 meters (yards) of their homes throughout the High Holidays, which began last week with the Jewish New Year and continue to mid-October.  It’s the second nationwide lockdown since the pandemic began, an attempt to contain one of the most severe outbreaks in the world. Israel, with a population of just 9 million, is reporting more than 7,000 new cases a day, raising fears its hospitals could be overwhelmed. A woman rides a bicycle with her child in a closed market after Israel imposed a second nationwide coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown amid a rise in infections in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept. 25, 2020.A lockdown last spring largely succeeded in containing the outbreak, with new daily cases dropping to around a dozen in May. Authorities then reopened schools and businesses quickly, leading to a surge in cases even as the economy struggled to recover. An emergency government formed in May to manage the crisis has been plagued by infighting, adding to the public sense of despair. In a message to the nation, Israel’s figurehead president, Reuven Rivlin, called on people to light a candle in memory of the more than 1,400 Israelis who have died from COVID-19. “They were all loved, all known, all had names and faces,” he said. “May we be forgiven for the sin of weakness and inability, for not doing enough, for not managing to save them. Because of that, lives were lost.” As part of the latest lockdown, Israelis can only pray in open areas close to home, with gatherings limited to 20 people. However, synagogues will be allowed to open for limited prayers with social distancing on Yom Kippur despite warnings from health experts that it could lead to further transmission. In a videotaped statement Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that mistakes have been made by decision makers. But he urged people to avoid going into synagogues on Yom Kippur and to pray outdoors. Netanyahu has also called for an end for public demonstrations against him, saying they are a public health risk.FILE – People protest against the government’s decision to close beaches during the three-week nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept 19, 2020.Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in recent months, calling on Netanyahu to resign while he is on trial for corruption charges and because of what they say is a failed response to the coronavirus crisis.  With a divided parliament unable to pass legislation banning the demonstrations, Netanyahu last week threatened to impose a state of emergency. Protesters claim Netanyahu is trying to muzzle them. Israel’s politically influential ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which has suffered from high rates of infection, is opposed to restrictions on prayers, viewing it as a form of discrimination by mostly secular authorities, especially while demonstrations continue. Hagai Levine, a professor of epidemiology and a member of the expert panel advising the government, said the number of people taking part in protests is only about one percent of those attending prayers in synagogues, and that the risk of transmission in closed spaces is “much, much, much higher.” But he said there is some danger in attending any mass gathering, even outdoors. FILE – Ultra-Orthodox Jews of the Kiryat Sanz Hassidic sect pray on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea as they participate in a Tashlich ceremony in Netanya, Israel, Sept. 24, 2020.”If you go outside and you are very close to someone else, you speak with someone else, you shout, you eat together, clearly there is a risk,” he said. David Stav, the chief rabbi of the city of Shoham and the head of Tzohar, an organization of rabbis that works to bridge gaps in Israeli Jewish society, supports the restrictions and wishes they were even tighter. But he says the closure of synagogues during Yom Kippur is still “very painful for most Israelis,” even those who don’t attend regularly. “Almost everybody goes at least once a year, and this once a year that was supposed to be on Sunday night will not happen this year,” he said, referring to the limitations on group prayer. “It’s quite dramatic for Israelis, for all types of Israelis, secular and observant.” In Israel, the holiday is also associated with the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur. Families would ordinarily visit the gravesites of fallen relatives — another tradition cancelled because of the virus restrictions. “In Israel it’s not only a religious day,” Stav said. “It’s a kind of national memorial day for all the Jewish suffering throughout Jewish history.”  
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