I'm Carl Azuz, it's good to see you this Tuesday.

We're starting with some medical news that has never been reported before.

According to the US Health and Human Services secretary, there are not one, but two vaccines that are showing hopeful data from phase 3 trials less than a year after a global pandemic began.

Let's break that down.

Phase 3 trials are when vaccines were tested on thousands of people for safety and effectiveness after they've been tested on smaller groups in phases 1 and 2.

Less than a year is significant because medical officials say no vaccine has ever been developed in less than 4 years, and many take 10 years or more before they make it to your doctor's office.

It's been one week since the U.S. drug company Pfizer announced its coronavirus vaccine appeared to be 90 percent effective, at least in early data from a phase 3 trial.

Now, another U.S. drug company named Moderna says it's COVID vaccine appears to be almost 95 percent effective again in early data from a phase three trial.

If these vaccines are proven safe and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, medical officials say the country could be issuing them by the end of the year.

They'd be available first to high-risk groups like health care workers and the elderly.

The rest of the population could likely get vaccinated next spring.

What's unknown is how many people will trust the shots and whether they'll actually stop the spread of COVID-19.

America has recorded more than a million new positive tests in less than a week, it's the fastest time that's happened

To try to slow the spread, different states are taking different steps.

From requiring residents to wear mask, to going back to online learning in school, to reducing the number allowed inside restaurants and businesses, to restricting gatherings and church services.

With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, some states are advising Americans not to get together with family and friends.

And there is a backlash.

Some critics are accusing governments of taking away their freedoms.

More than 99 percent of people who catch coronavirus are estimated to survive it, and the challenge to contain the disease extends worldwide.

Japan wants to show the world that it can host the Olympics in the middle of a pandemic.

32 gymnasts from Japan, the U.S., Russia, and China plus 2000 socially distanced fans gathered at Yoyogi National Gymnasium earlier this month in Tokyo for one of the first international sporting competitions since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

It's a glimpse of what Tokyo may do for the Olympic Games, scheduled for next summer.

For athletes, this was a competition like no other.

Masks, temperature check, daily COVID tests leading up to the competition.

Two weeks quarantine in their home countries before arriving on charter planes to Tokyo.

The Chinese delegation even arrived in full hazmat suits.

Yul Moldauer, one of the six American gymnasts who competed, said it was a strange but unique experience.

It was stressful, but it was very special.

We haven't competed in, like, nine months or more, so just to be able to be back in the venue, back in front of a crowd and back with other world class athletes, it was just amazing to feel like an athlete again.

For gymnast MJ Fraser, this was her first time outside of the U.S.

But her only views of Japan were through the hotel or bus windows.

Because of this competition, it not only gives me hope that there could be another season, it makes me feel like we can.

We all stayed very safe and because of the bubble that we were all in, it gave us less of a chance of contracting the virus.

But this was a small scale event.

It's unclear how Japan can scale these COVID measures for the Olympics, which typically has hundreds of events, more than 10,000 competitors and millions of spectators.

The president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, is in Japan for his first visit since the pandemic began.

This makes us also very confident that we can have spectators then in the Olympic stadia next year.

Meanwhile, Japan is dealing with a third wave of COVID-19 cases as infections reached record highs of more than 1000 a day.

One health expert says Japan needs to strengthen its contact tracing and testing measures, warning that there could be a resurgence as Japan relaxes its border restrictions at a time when cases in the U.S. and Europe continued to rise.

As we produced this show last night, Hurricane Iota was bearing down on Central America, and forecasters said it could be catastrophic.

Yesterday afternoon Iota was a category five storm, the strongest classifications of hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 160 miles per hour.

And it was headed for the coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras.

Two countries that were hit by Hurricane Eta on November 3rd.

They're still recovering from that deadly storm, and now, like that system, Iota is threatening to bring a dangerous storm surge, a rise in seawater levels blown ashore as well as rains that could cause flash flooding, river flooding and mudslides.

Lota is the 30th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.

That's a record, but it's the only one this year that's reached category five strength.

10-second trivia!

What is the origin of "I scream, you scream we all scream for ice cream"?

1920s' novelty song F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, college football cheer or J.M. Barrie play?

What became a popular phrase in American culture started as a light-hearted tune of the 1920s.

The origins of ice cream itself are less clear.

Historians believe it dates back to medieval China, when milk was mixed with other ingredients before being frozen in pools of ice.

A form of sorbet had become a popular dessert in Europe by the later 1600s, and Americans dating back to George Washington enjoyed the cool confection.

The basic ingredients of cream, milk and sugar have remained pretty steady through the recent decades, but the way it's been served and shopped for continues to evolve in 2020.

Trucks, corner shop freezers, the grocery aisle--places where we're used to grabbing an ice cream.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many people stopped visiting them.

That was a problem for the world's largest ice cream brands.

I suppose as an ice cream brand, we're a bit messianic.

We believe that, you know, people want it, which has gotta find a way to get it to them.

Unilever's answer? Home delivery.

Unilever is the corporate home to some of the world's best known ice cream brands.

In Q2 it saw online food and refreshments sales grow 139 percent over last year's.

Unilever says home delivery of ice cream drove that increased during the pandemic.

You could see consumer behavior evolved from, you know, "I need to survive" to "actually, I need to be happy while I'm cocooning or surviving at home."

To make deliveries possible, the company partners with local services like Grubhub, Uber eats, DoorDash and even Domino's Pizza in several major cities across the globe.

By tapping into its existing network of freezers and retailers and restaurants, Unilever claims it can have ice cream on customers doorsteps in 30 minutes.

Unilever first piloted its Ice Cream Now service back in 2016.

But it isn't the only company to have tried ice cream on demand.

Several ice cream makers, including Baskin Robbins and Haagen-Dazs, use independent delivery services to get their desserts direct to customers.

Haagen-Dazs also trialed its own ice cream delivery app in 2018.

Unilever believes the demand for delivery won't go away once the pandemic subsides.

If you become an Internet shopper, you stay an Internet shopper.

That does change the fundamentals of how we work as a business.

But there's one obstacle that's marked ice cream makers since the industry's earliest days: How do you sell the icy delight when it's cold outside?

Unilever thought that home delivery and marketing for the living room sofa was the way ahead.

But as customers search for their favorite scoops online, it looks like a pandemic could get Unilever closer to the goal it's been working towards for a century: ice cream, all year round.

Disney is looking for ways to make the robots at its theme parks more interactive.

Unfortunately, critics say, one of the robots looks like this.

It doesn't have skin, at least at this point,

But it does look pretty lifelike in a creepy, unfinished sort of way.

And it's been programmed along with its realistic eye movements, to respond to the people around it.

Of course, not all people will want to stay around it.

As it stares cyborgs into you with heartless mechanized, and unnerving "lip-lessness" around its "skele-teeth" that would make humans want to express themselves by expressly moving to more attractive attractions.

It's a small world after all, we live in an awesome planet.

Why become frozen every after in an icy stare that'd make "Peter Pan" want to take flight?

I'm Carla Azuz, and before we leave, we just need to recognize our viewers at the Royal Air Force Base in Feltwell England, United Kingdom.

Shout out to the hedgehogs!

That's all for CNN.