Hello, everyone!
 

New York state assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar introduced the bill, replacing the Anniversary Day holiday so as not to crowd the calendar and keep the number of instruction days required by New York state law.
 

Rajkumar said of the legislation, “Today, South Asian and Indo-Caribbean families, like mine, all over this city have made incredible contributions, and today I am proud to say our time has come. The time has come to recognize over 200,000 New Yorkers of the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Jain faiths who celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Lights."

• Asian American journalist Michelle Li, who founded the Very Asian Foundation after a racist message toward her went viral, is debuting her children’s book “A Very Asian Guide to Korean Food.” 

• A group in San Gabriel, California, is combating anti-Asian hate by offering self-defense lessons and chaperone services.

• Citizens in Ketchikan, Alaska, came together and celebrated the second annual Fil-Am Festival as part of Filipino American History Month.

• Sun Chunlan, one of the few women to ever have a top position in China’s politburo, is retiring this week at age 72. 

• Indian authorities are barring Kashmiri photojournalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo from traveling to the U.S. to receive her Pulitzer prize.

• Anna May Wong is now the first Asian American to be featured on the quarter coin of U.S. currency - here is a photo gallery of the Hollywood icon’s film career.  

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• Jeannie Mai Jenkins will be the host of the upcoming cooking competition show “America’s America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation” on Amazon Freevee, premiering Dec. 9.

• South Korea reached its highest mortality rate due to excessive alcohol consumption during the pandemic. 
   

• Amnesty International is calling out Qatar’s human rights abuses that “persist on a significant scale” ahead of the country hosting the first match of the World Cup next month. 
   
• Fall Restaurant Week begins today from Oct. 21 to Oct. 30 in San Francisco with an emphasis on highlighting Chinatown businesses. 
   
• Japan has revived an ancient 1,000-year-old cheese recipe. 
   
• Kakao’s co-CEO, Whon Nam-koong, quit following last week's mass app outage.