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The United Nations marked the 75th anniversary of its founding on Monday, amid a global pandemic and other serious challenges that the U.N. secretary-general said highlight the urgency for stronger international cooperation. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer has more.Produced by: Jesusemen Oni   
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Ethiopia has begun circulating new currency notes to combat monetary crimes.  Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced Monday the release of the birr in denominations of 10, 50 and 100. The East African country also introduced its first 200 birr note. Ahmed hopes the new currency will also boost the inflation riddled economy impacted partly by the coronavirus pandemic. Ethiopians have three months to exchange old notes with the new ones. Authorities believe the new design and security features on the new birr note will prevent counterfeiting.  Banks had urged the government to demonetize, citing money circulating outside the banking system has worsened the liquidity problems banks are facing.  Ethiopia last changed its currency two decades ago at the end of the Ethiopian-Eritrean civil war. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump met at the White House on Monday with one of the five women on his list to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, according to sources.  The 87-year-old liberal icon died last Friday after a lengthy battle with cancer. Trump said he would announce his nominee after funeral services for her later this week.  The president mentioned Amy Coney Barrett by name, along with Barbara Lagoa, as he spoke to reporters before boarding his Marine One helicopter on the South Lawn. He did not confirm meeting with Barrett.  U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a law professor at Notre Dame University, poses in an undated photograph obtained from Notre Dame University, Sept. 19, 2020.Later in remarks in Dayton, in the Midwestern state of Ohio, Trump said he would announce his choice probably on Saturday, but possibly the day before.  “It will be a brilliant person,” the president said. “It will be a woman.”  Both Barrett, a 48-year-old Midwestern Catholic, and Lagoa, a 52-year-old Cuban American from Florida, are conservatives whom Trump appointed to federal appellate court judgeships in recent years.  The president told reporters he might meet with Lagoa later this week when he travels to Miami. “I don’t know her, but I hear she’s outstanding,” he added.  Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Lagoa, currently a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, poses in a photograph from 2019 obtained Sept. 19, 2020.Others reported to be on Trump’s short list are Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Joan Larsen, Fourth Circuit Judge Allison Jones Rushing and deputy White House counsel Kate Todd.  Timing of voteThe president, in his Monday afternoon remarks to reporters, called on the Republican- controlled Senate to vote on confirmation before the Nov. 3 election. “I’d much rather have a vote before the election,” Trump said. “We have plenty of time to do it.” That is a reversal from the position he took four years ago when a Supreme Court seat became vacant in the final year of former President Barack Obama’s second term.  “I think the next president should make the pick,” he said in 2016.  Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee hoping to prevent Trump’s reelection, said the victor in the November election should make the court selection after being inaugurated for a new White House term in January.  Trump on Monday said there was “zero chance” that Democrats wouldn’t try to fill a Supreme Court vacancy if they controlled both the presidency and the Senate as Republicans currently do.  FILE – Allison Jones Rushing testifies before a Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing on her nomination to be a United States circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 17, 2018.Ginsburg will lie in repose at the Supreme Court Wednesday and Thursday, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Ginsburg will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol on Friday.  Trump’s Supreme Court pick of another conservative, his third after winning Senate confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, would tip the current 5-4 conservative edge on the country’s top court to 6-3.  The new choice could affect decisions on legalized abortion in the U.S., immigration, health care, voting rights, gun ownership restrictions, religious liberty and an array of other issues for more than a generation.  ‘Ginsburg’s dying wish’Trump’s anticipated court selection has touched off a rancorous political debate in Washington: should the nomination be considered before the election or after? After would effectively allow the American electorate to have a say by deciding the presidential election, which would allow the winner — either Biden or Trump — to make the choice at the start of a new four-year term.  In 2016, Republicans refused to allow consideration of Obama’s final Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February of that year. They argued that high court vacancies should be left unfilled during an election year so the American people can weigh in on the choice. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the Republican Party’s change in position and said no vote should take place until next year.  “That was Justice Ginsburg’s dying wish. And it may be the Senate’s only, last hope,” Schumer said.  FILE – Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen moderates a panel discussion during the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington, Nov. 17, 2016.Trump is questioning whether Ginsburg actually told her granddaughter just before dying that she hoped her seat would not be filled until after the presidential election.  “It just sounds to me like it would be somebody else. It could be, and it might not be, too. It was just too convenient,” the president said to reporters. 2016 vs. 2020″No wonder Americans have so little faith in government and in this Senate, led by the Republican majority,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Monday. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended his positions in both 2016 and 2020, saying the difference is that four years ago, different parties were controlling the Senate and White House, whereas now, the same party controls both. He said historical precedent has been on his side in both cases. “There was clear precedent behind the predictable outcome that came out of 2016. And there is even more overwhelming precedent behind the fact that this Senate will vote on this nomination this year,” McConnell said.  Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said Monday that voters chose Republicans to lead the Senate in the 2018 elections in part because they were committed to supporting Trump’s Supreme Court nominees.  “We should honor that mandate,” he said, speaking from the Senate floor.  Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but two Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — said over the weekend they would oppose voting on Trump’s eventual nominee before the election.  Trump criticized both lawmakers, claiming they were “very badly hurt” politically by their statements.  If two more Republicans say no to a preelection vote, consideration of the nominee would be scuttled until at least the post-election, lame duck session of Congress. If one more Republican objects, Vice President Mike Pence could break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate in favor of considering Trump’s nominee.  Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
 
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An insurance and private equity executive pleaded guilty Monday to participating in a vast U.S. college admissions fraud and bribery scheme in which he agreed to pay $40,000 to rig his daughter’s ACT college entrance exam. Mark Hauser, 59, entered his plea during a hearing before a federal judge in Boston held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic, becoming the latest wealthy parent to admit wrongdoing in the college admissions scandal. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to recommend that Hauser, who lives in Los Angeles, serve six months in prison and pay a $40,000 fine. He faces sentencing on Jan. 21. Fifty-eight people have been charged in the “Varsity Blues” scandal, in which prosecutors said parents conspired with California college admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer to secure their children’s college admissions fraudulently. FILE – William “Rick” Singer, front, founder of the Edge College & Career Network, exits federal court in Boston, March 12, 2019, after he pleaded guilty to charges in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal.The parents include “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman, who received a 14-day prison sentence, and “Full House” star Lori Loughlin, who was sentenced to two months in prison. Singer pleaded guilty in March 2019 to facilitating cheating on college entrance exams and using bribery to secure the admission of students to colleges as fake athletic recruits. Hauser is the founder of Cincinnati, Ohio-based Hauser Private Equity and the owner of insurance firm Hauser Inc. Brown & Brown canceled a deal to acquire Hauser Inc. after his plea deal became public in August. Prosecutors said Hauser in 2016 agreed to pay Singer $40,000 to have an associate proctor his daughter’s ACT exam at a test center in Texas that Singer controlled through bribery and secretly correct her answers. The associate was Mark Riddell, a Florida private school counselor who has pleaded guilty to taking SAT and ACT college entrance exams in place of Singer’s clients’ children or correcting their answers while acting as a test proctor. 
 
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Americans’ household wealth rebounded last quarter to a record high as the stock market quickly recovered from a pandemic-induced plunge in March. Yet the gains flowed mainly to the most affluent households even as tens of millions of people endured job losses and shrunken incomes. The Federal Reserve said Monday that American households’ net worth jumped nearly 7% in the April-June quarter to $119 trillion. That figure had sunk to $111.3 trillion in the first quarter, when the coronavirus battered the economy and sent stock prices tumbling. Since then, the S&P 500 stock index has regained its record high before losing some ground this month. It was up 2.8% for this year as of Friday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has soared more than 20% this year.The full recovery of wealth even while the economy has regained only about half the jobs lost to the pandemic recession underscores what many economists see as America’s widening economic inequality. Data compiled by Opportunity Insights, a research group, show that the highest-paying one-third of jobs have almost fully recovered from the recession, while the lowest-paying one-third of jobs remain 16% below pre-pandemic levels. The wealth data “highlights the inequalities in the recovery in the sense that high-income workers not only have jobs that for the most part have come back; they also have savings that have continued to grow,” said John Friedman, an economist at Brown University who is co-director of Opportunity Insights.  The richest 10% of Americans owned more than two-thirds of the nation’s wealth, according to Fed data through the end of March, the latest period for which figures are available. The top 1% owned 31%. Possible spending cutsThe small financial cushion for most households could force many consumers to cut back on spending in the coming months, now that government financial aid such as enhanced unemployment benefits has expired. Any significant such cutback in spending would, in turn, weaken the economy. FILE – People form a line while waiting to pick up donated groceries from the Brooklyn Immigrant Community Support mutual aid program at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in the Brooklyn borough of New York, May 12, 2020.Household wealth reflects the value of Americans’ homes, plus bank accounts, stocks, bonds and other assets minus mortgage debt, auto loans, credit card debt and other borrowing. (The figures are not adjusted for inflation.) During the April-June quarter, the value of households’ stock portfolios rose $5.7 trillion, the Fed said. Home values grew $500 billion. Increase in savingsAmericans also sharply increased their savings last quarter, likely reflecting a cutback in spending by wealthier consumers nervous about the virus’s threat to the economy. The federal government’s financial assistance in the form of $1,200 checks and $600 in weekly unemployment benefits also likely allowed some lower-income households to save more. That government assistance has since expired. The amount of money in checking accounts jumped 33% to $1.8 trillion. Savings accounts rose 6.1% to $11.2 trillion.  Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly expressed concern about widespread inequality in the U.S. economy and last week said it is likely inhibiting growth.  “Those are things that hold back our economy,” Powell said at a news conference. “If we want to have the highest potential output and the best output for our economy, we need that prosperity to be very broadly spread.” Yet many analysts say the Fed’s policies have inadvertently contributed to inequality by disproportionately benefiting stockholders. The central bank has cut its benchmark short-term interest rate to nearly zero and is buying about $80 billion in Treasurys a month. Both moves have kept rates on government bonds ultra-low, thereby encouraging investors to plow money into stocks and boosting share prices. Powell and many economists have said that another financial rescue package from Congress would boost the economy and help narrow inequality, because Congress can provide additional direct payments and more jobless aid. Yet there are no signs of a deal in Congress.  Racial disparityThe data the Fed issued Monday pointed to huge gaps in wealth along racial lines. White households owned nearly 85% of total wealth at the end of March. Black households owned just 4.4%, Hispanics 3.2%.Much smaller financial resources mean that many nonwhite households are forced to sharply cut spending after a job loss or reduced incomes. Research by economists Peter Ganong and Damon Jones at the University of Chicago found that Black Americans cut spending 50% more than whites when faced with the same income losses. Hispanics reduced theirs by 20% more. Even with household wealth at a record high, millions of people face the threat of eviction or going hungry. A Fed report released Friday found that nearly one-quarter of adults said their family had received some form of economic help since the pandemic began, whether from unemployment benefits, food stamps or donations of groceries from charitable groups.  Nearly 23 million adults live in households in which there wasn’t enough to eat at some point in the past seven days, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse survey.  The rebound in wealth “is not enough to say that the economy is back,” Jones said. “People have lost their jobs, they’re working less because it’s dangerous and risky and their hours have been cut.” 
 
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The Afghan government and the Taliban said Monday they have made some progress in their discussions over the rules for conducting the talks. However, they said both sides still must agree on a few remaining issues before starting the talks. Meanwhile, clashes between government forces and the Taliban have killed dozens of people in recent days. VOA’s Rahim Gul Sarwan reports from Kabul.
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Organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the Jack Ma Foundation have contributed aid worth more than $2 billion to aid Kenya’s fight against COVID-19.  But much of the money and donated medical supplies have gone missing, prompting President Uhuru Kenyatta to order an investigation into who might have taken it all.  Lenny Ruvaga reports from Nairobi.  Camera: Amos Wangwa 
Producer:  Rod James 
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