US Vice-President, Ms. Kamala Harris will become the first woman to briefly be given presidential powers as Joe Biden undergoes his regular health check.
She will temporarily take control of the US military and nuclear weapons.
Ms. Harris, fifty-seven, is the first woman and the first black and South Asian American to be elected US vice-president.
President Biden will transfer power to Ms. Harris for the period in which he is placed under anaesthesia for a routine colonoscopy on Friday.
The medical examination will be Mr. Biden’s first as president and comes on the eve of his seventy-nineth birthday.
The White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki said in a statement that the vice-president will work from her office in the West Wing during this time.
Ms. Psaki said the temporary transfer of powers in such circumstances was not unprecedented, and that it was part of the process set out in the US constitution.
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