--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, January 29th. I'm Shamita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Since he was sworn in, President Biden has picked up his pen and made moves affecting a variety of issues, including climate change, racial justice, the economy and health care. By the end of this week, President Biden will have signed more than three dozen executive actions. No president in history has issued as many executive orders in his first week. So is this the future of presidential power? I mean, it's also kind of the past of presidential power.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It is not unusual for presidents to do this soon after they step into the office. Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton all racked up hundreds of executive orders over the course of their terms. FDR used an executive order to put more than 100,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. JFK used an executive order to create the Peace Corps.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But this practice is becoming so much more common, especially with recent presidents, mainly as a result of congressional dysfunction. One former Obama aide tells Reuters, signing executive orders used to be a last resort, but because it's so hard to get anything through Congress these days, presidents are now quick to pull the trigger on them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So yes, presidents can get a lot done fast with a flick of a pen, but it doesn't always help them build a legacy. As we've seen in the past 20 years, one president signs executive orders, the next one undoes them. It doesn't lead to sustainable policy. This limits long-term planning, and it often ends up leading to lengthy court challenges.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Reuters puts it this way. The most meaningful and lasting solutions to our country's problems come through actual legislation. But unless both parties can figure out a way to work together in Congress, expect President Biden to keep relying on the fleeting power of executive actions and probably for some future Republican president to undo them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Maybe you heard the stories or maybe you even experienced this for yourself. You think that you or a loved one might be eligible to get the COVID vaccine but you just can't figure out how to sign up and book the appointment. The websites are confusing. Maybe you've spent hours on them but just still no luck.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Well, if this is you, unfortunately you're not alone. The Guardian is reporting so many people in the U.S. are running into this problem, and particularly older Americans. There are so few appointments and a lot of people want these shots. So to book one, you often need to navigate an online maze.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Guardian compares it to trying to purchase hot concert tickets, logging on in the middle of the night and refreshing the page over and over again.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: I'll tell you, all of my text chains with my friends right now is just everyone trying to track down appointments for their parents and for grandparents in different states. Honestly, it's really stressful, but it also means that everyone's swapping tips when they can and really cheering each other on when someone does finally book an appointment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Celebrate when I finally get one, because I have been searching all over the place to get my parents vaccinated. I'm sure it must be frustrating.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And to make matters more complicated, most states don't have a centralized system for vaccine appointments. And that means you might have to visit a lot of different websites or portals.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And on top of that, you know, millions of people in the U.S. don't have stable access to broadband Internet.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And it's not just hard for you and for me and for our friends. It was even hard for Stanley Plotkin. This guy is a legendary vaccinologist. He helped develop polio and anthrax vaccines in the 1950s. He developed the rubella vaccine that's now used all over the world. He wrote the textbook on vaccines. Literally, It's called vaccines.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, Plotkin is 88 years old, and he told The Washington Post he is shocked at how hard it's been to figure out how to get an appointment. He also told The Post he kept calling and calling, but couldn't figure out how to get vaccinated where he lives.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Finally, just a few days ago, his wife found a hospital in a different town that had openings for the Moderna vaccine. Plotkin explains he serves on a Moderna board And if he is not able to get a vaccine through the normal channels it means countless others are not getting through either
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, there are some resources to help make the process more clear. So if you're struggling to book a vaccine appointment, we're going to link you to a Wall Street Journal guide. It basically tells you what you need to know state by state.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So if you're listening on the Apple News app, you'll get a notification from us about halfway through today's show. Tap on it and you'll get that link.
--:-- Shamita Basu: With all the hype right now about GameStop and other stocks that are soaring, you might be thinking about how you can get a piece of this pie. The universal advice from financial advisors is that you should definitely not try to get in on the action here with your hard-earned savings.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: A few people might be saying that they've made some money, but you can lose a lot in a crazy situation like this. But if the GameStop fiasco or the pandemic has you thinking about how you save and spend money, that's not a bad thing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This moment is a really good time to take stock of your finances. The Wall Street Journal highlights 15 financial lessons to take away from this past year. And not bad advice from anonymous Internet people, but good advice from the pros.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Risk management is my number one favorite piece of this advice. Basically, whether you're healthy or not, crises like the pandemic are good reminders that we should every so often take a step back and assess our risk.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And what this means is asking yourselves questions like, do you have life insurance? If you or someone you depend on were to get sick or be disabled, is your health care adequate? Do you have a will?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Yeah, the piece of advice that I actually really liked was this three strategy they recommend for investing. So the first bucket is expenses you need in the next two years. That's short-term stuff. You want to have access to quick cash.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The second bucket is for expenses five years out. So this is money that you can invest in something relatively stable like a bond fund.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And the last bucket is for longer term, you know, beyond five years. And that money you can invest into something a little riskier like index funds.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The journal says with this three strategy the next time something major strikes you know a pandemic a crisis you have the right mix of assets in your portfolio to get through it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are about a dozen other tips on the list. You can find the full list by visiting our show notes page.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Actor Cicely Tyson died, she was 96 years old, and had an extraordinary career that's now being celebrated by fans and the many people she mentored. Her work spanned the decades and inspired generations of black actors who followed her.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The presidential medal of freedom winner was on NPR last Sunday talking about her recently published memoir.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Well, it's remarkable to me that I have arrived at where I am today because I had not anticipated it. I made the decision based on things that happened to me along the way, and I just kept going.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tyson kept going even when the entertainment industry made it difficult for women to succeed, and especially hard for Black women. She brought portrayals of Black families into primetime TV.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One of her most famous roles was the autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. She won an Emmy playing the title role at a time when Black actors were rarely offered lead parts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She also defied the bias that Hollywood and Broadway have against older women. She had such a long career. You know, she won a Tony for a role she played when she was almost 90 years old.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That was for her part in The Trip to Bountiful. I saw it and loved that show.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One tribute to her came in from Viola Davis, and she shared the screen with Tyson in How to Get Away with Murder.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: She wrote, quote, You made me feel loved and seen and valued in a world where there's still a cloak of invisibility for us dark chocolate girls. Thank you for shifting my life.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're there, check out some of our audio stories. Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday.
--:-- [Theme music starts playing]
