After interviewing Dan Quayle in Arizona for his documentary on the vice presidency, filmmaker Jeffrey Roth was rushing to the airport to catch a flight to Wyoming, where he had an appointment with Dick Cheney the next morning.He had little time to spare. Suddenly, traffic halted for a motorcade to pass. It was Vice President Mike Pence and his entourage.Roth appreciates the irony. At least, he can now. He made his flight, “President in Waiting” is finished and set to debut on CNN Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern.He interviewed all six living vice presidents and four presidents about a job that for much of American history was considered a joke, an appendage to government with few real duties other than being available to become the world’s most powerful figure at a moment’s notice.”Ben Franklin, when the Constitution was written, said, ‘we should refer to the vice president as ‘his superfluous excellency,'” President-elect Joe Biden, who served eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president, says in the film.Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (2008 photo)Roth’s doc includes several similar quotes, including the classic by John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s first vice president, who said the job was “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” Cheney said Gerald Ford described it as the worst nine months of his life and urged him not to become George W. Bush’s running mate.So why would Roth want to devote three years of his life to making it?”For whatever reason, I was always fascinated by the office of the vice presidency and I thought there was an intriguing story behind it,” he said.Achieving access was his most important task. Two or three veeps wouldn’t do. He needed them all, and each wanted to know the others were participating. Walter Mondale was his first interview; Al Gore and Pence took a year and a half to set up, he said.Ultimately, his only scheduling failure was Donald Trump.Roth also didn’t want to make the type of film that would unspool in a high school social studies class, putting all the students to sleep.”It’s a tough bunch of people to squeeze comedy out of,” said Courtney Sexton, senior vice president of CNN Films.But it has moments, like when Obama and Biden both struggle to edit the language of some of their conversations for public consumption. Both Cheney and his boss, George W. Bush, tell a funny story about their dogs clashing at Camp David.Cheney is a revelation in the film, considering he knows he was considered the Darth Vader of the Bush administration. He’s engaging and entertaining, with a keen awareness of his own role and the job’s spot in history.His insider look at what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, as well as Biden’s description of the deliberations before the killing of Osama bin Laden, are particularly illuminating.Walter Mondale told Jimmy Carter he’d only become his running mate if given a meaningful role in the administration and an office in the White House.The film also describes the role of Mondale and his president, Jimmy Carter, in essentially creating the modern vice presidency. It’s a turning point many viewers are likely unaware of; Roth said it was news to him.Mondale, a Minnesota senator, knew how Hubert Humphrey felt about his treatment at the hands of President Lyndon Johnson, and “President in Waiting” contains audio of Johnson essentially treating Humphrey as a lapdog. He told Carter he’d only become his running mate if given a meaningful role in the administration and an office in the White House. He composed a memo outlining his ideas that’s still referenced today.Vice presidents lost their invisibility. Biden talks about being in the room when key decisions are made and being copied in on internal correspondence. It’s difficult to imagine a repeat of 1945, when Harry Truman succeeded Roosevelt and didn’t know that the United States had developed an atomic bomb.Still, the limitations are visible when you listen to Bush. His vice president, Cheney, is widely considered the most powerful vice president, or close to it.”I don’t know what the definition of a powerful vice president is,” Bush says in the film. “I think people have got to recognize that the vice president is empowered by the president.”That’s also stated explicitly by Pence, whose role in the Trump administration gets little examination in the film. Whatever the modern precedent, a president can easily render the vice president’s role meaningless again.In another month, the first woman, Kamala Harris, will join the vice president’s club.Considering its title, the film spends surprisingly little time talking about the most important part of the job. No American under age 60 has any memory of a vice president suddenly elevated because of a president’s death. Ford took over upon the resignation of President Richard Nixon 46 years ago.How did that knowledge change each man’s life? How did they keep prepared for the possibility?Roth said none of the politicians had much illuminating to say on the topic.”There was not much of a story to be told there,” he said.
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Day: December 4, 2020
Officials with the World Health Organization cautioned Friday that approval of a vaccine for use in Britain this week does not mean the COVID-19 pandemic is over.Speaking at the organization’s regular briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said many places around the world are facing very high transmission rates of coronavirus, and even as vaccines are approved, people must still follow national and local measures to limit the spread of infection.He said decisions made by citizens and governments would determine its course in the short run and when the pandemic would ultimately end.WHO Health Emergency Executive Director Mike Ryan concurred, saying the presence of vaccines does not equal zero COVID-19. He said that while “vaccines and vaccination provide a major, powerful tool to the toolkit that we have, but by themselves, they will not do the job.”Ryan said people will have to continue to work on managing their personal behavior and hygiene. He said they will also need to recognize that the vaccine will not be available to everyone for a while.Tedros was asked if he would, as many world leaders have offered to do, take the vaccine to show that it is safe. He said he would, but only if it was his turn, “because I don’t want to take anybody’s vaccine.”
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The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that with a COVID-19 vaccine on the horizon, nations must start investing and preparing for the next pandemic.“Despite years of warnings, many countries were simply not ready for COVID-19,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a special session of the U.N. General Assembly on the coronavirus. “Many mistakenly assumed their strong health systems would protect them.”He said countries that have dealt with recent coronaviruses, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) as well as other infectious diseases, have done better in containing COVID-19.“Now all countries must develop that same muscle memory and invest in the measures that will prevent, control and mitigate the next crisis,” Tedros said. “It is also clear the global system for preparedness needs attention.”FILE – President-elect Joe Biden departs a news conference after introducing his nominees and appointees to economic policy posts at The Queen theater, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.Biden said in an interview Thursday that he will ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days when he assumes office on January 20, in order to reduce infections.California Governor Gavin Newsom says his state is on the verge of imposing stay-at-home orders. He says he will do so once hospital intensive care units in the state’s five regions reach more than 85% capacity, which is expected soon.
In South Korea, a spike in COVID-19 cases has public health officials urging people to move Christmas and New Year’s festivities from in-person to online.South Korea reported 629 new coronavirus cases Friday, a nine-month high in a country that for months has been a model of virus containment. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said 463 of the new infections were from Seoul and its surrounding areas.Italy’s prime minister signed an order Thursday limiting travel within the country during the Christmas holiday period until January 6. Allowances will be made for work as well as health and emergency reasons.Italy recorded 23,255 new COVID-19 cases Thursday and 933 deaths.
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More than 14 million people in the U.S. have been infected and more than 275,000 have died of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said Thursday he will ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days when he assumes office January 20.In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Biden said, “On the first day I’m inaugurated, I’m going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask — not forever, just 100 days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction” in coronavirus cases that have surged to record numbers in recent days with a corresponding rise in daily death tolls.Among First Acts, Biden to Call for 100 Days of Mask-Wearing That’s made many people reticent to embrace a practice that public health experts say is one of the easiest tools to manage a pandemic which has killed more than 275,000 AmericansCalifornia Governor Gavin Newsom says his state will begin imposing regional stay-at-home orders for its residents. The orders will begin when intensive care units in hospitals within the state’s five regions reach more than 85% capacity, something that has not happened yet, but is expected to occur soon.
South Korea case spike
In South Korea, a spike in COVID-19 cases has public health officials urging people forego in-person Christmas and New Year’s festivities, making them online celebrations instead.
South Korea reported 629 new coronavirus cases Friday, a nine-month high in a country that for months has been a model of virus containment.
“It’s been 10 days since we upgraded the social distancing rules … in the Seoul metropolitan area, but the transmission still seems to be uncontainable,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said 463 of the new infections were from Seoul and its surrounding areas.
“Please hold online celebrations especially for Christmas, religious events and New Year sunrise festivals if possible, and we urge you to not host any parties or events at hotels,” a health ministry official said. Italy limits travel
Italy’s prime minister signed an order Thursday limiting travel within the country from the Christmas holiday period until January 6. Allowances will be made for work as well as health and emergency reasons.
Italy recorded 23,255 new COVID cases Thursday and 933 deaths.
In this file photo taken on March 20, 2009, a sign marks the entrance to IBM Corporate Headquarters in Armonk, New York.Beware of hackers
As the U.S. prepares plans to roll out a COVID-19 vaccine, officials warned Thursday that hackers are targeting companies essential to its rollout.
In a blog post released Thursday, IBM said it has uncovered a phishing plot targeting “organizations associated with a COVID-19 cold chain,” referring to the chain of people and businesses responsible for storing the vaccine at the necessary cold temperatures.
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A powerful new telescope in Australia has mapped vast areas of the universe in record time. The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder was able to chart about 3 million galaxies in just 300 hours – 1 million of which have never been seen before.Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. From a remote corner in the Western Australian outback, a new telescope, which has turned radio signals in space into images, has examined the entire southern sky in sharper detail than has ever been done before.The Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, 800 kilometers north of Perth, is run by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency.The telescope is not just one dish or antenna, but 36. They are three stories high and connected by fiber-optic cable, so they combine to work as one supertelescope.The array is helping scientists study black holes, the nature of gravity and the origins of the first stars.By cataloging millions of galaxies, scientists hope to unlock the secrets of how the universe has evolved.“If we can look at the statistics of them, where they are on the sky, and how they interact with each other, then we learn about how galaxies like our own can form and how we came to be here on this Earth,” said Douglas Bock, he CSIRO’s director of astronomy and space science. “And if we look at a galaxy that is far away, perhaps 12 billion light years away, we are looking back in time. So, we are looking at the light from that galaxy that was emitted when it was only a few billion years after the beginning of our universe.”Researchers say the array’s isolated location in Western Australia is ideal for this type of astronomy because it’s quiet and far away from Earth-based radio transmissions. Much work lies ahead. The CSIRO estimates the universe could contain as many as 1 trillion galaxies.
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