Doctors in India scale rockslides, invoke gods to vaccinate Himalayan villages
Health workers walk through a road that was blocked after a landslide, as they trek to remote villages as part of a vaccination drive during the coronavirus disease outbreak, near Malana village in Kullu district in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, India in this photo taken on September 14, 2021. Blocked by the landslide, they left their vehicle with two blue vaccine boxes slung over their shoulders to maneuver over the rubble, climb the wall and then walk to the trailhead leading to the village. Despite the hostile terrain, the northern state of Himachal Pradesh became the first in India to administer at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose in all its adults. Adnan Abidi, Reuters
Online voter registration hub set up by Gabriela
People fill documents that will be used for applying for online voter registration slots by women's group Gabriela on behalf of registrants who are having difficulty registering through the Commission on Elections online portal, at the Brgy. IVC barangay hall in Marikina City on Friday. The group launched the community-based voter's registration hub for online registration as an alternative to in-person registration as they called for the registration period to be extended to allow more residents to catch up as the deadline looms on September 30. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News
Campaigners place 321 pairs of footwear to represent daily smoking death toll
Anti-smoking campaigners place 321 pairs of footwear at the Boy Scout Circle in Quezon City on Friday to represent the 321 deaths daily due to tobacco-related diseases. Lawyer Sophia San Luis of Imagine Law said stronger tobacco control policies are needed to protect Filipino lives, encouraging support for the bill in Congress to raise the age of access to tobacco products to 21 years old. Jire Carreon, ABS-CBN News
Haitian migrants continue to cross Mexico-Texas border
A man carries a child on his shoulders as Haitian migrants cross the Rio Grande river between Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila state, Mexico, and Del Rio, Texas on Thursday. The US special envoy to Haiti resigned on September 23 two months after his appointment, denouncing the Biden administration's deportation of Haitian migrants from the US-Mexico border back to their poverty-stricken homeland. Pedro Pardo, AFP
Children over 12 inoculated against COVID-19 in Sri Lanka
A health worker inoculates a child with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 at a children's hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Friday as the country began inoculating children over 12. COVID-19 has killed at least 4,715,909 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP, Thursday, but the World Health Organization estimates that the overall toll could be two to three times higher than official records due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to the virus. Ishara S. Kodikara, AFP
Devotees return to church after COVID-19 lockdowns
People wearing face masks and face shields pray at an outdoor altar at the San Felipe Neri Parish Church in Mandaluyong on Friday. Face shields are no longer mandatory except in certain settings after Malacañang approved on Wednesday the recommendation of government advisers as Metro Manila remains under a new COVID-19 alert level system. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN news