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Robert Kennedy vows to keep vaccine suit share if confirmed as Trump health chief

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Robert Kennedy vows to keep vaccine suit share if confirmed as Trump health chief

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Robert F Kennedy Jr says he will keep his share of any windfall from litigation against pharmaceutical company Merck even if he becomes Donald Trump’s top US health official, ethics records show.

In an ethics agreement published on Wednesday, Kennedy said he would keep his share of potential winnings from the case brought by law firm Wisner Baum against Merck’s Gardasil vaccine, which prevents human papillomavirus, known as HPV.

“I am entitled to receive 10 per cent of fees awarded in contingency fee cases referred to the firm,” said Kennedy, a co-counsel at Wisner Baum, in a letter to the top ethics tsar at the US Department of Health and Human Services.

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Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic who Trump picked to be health secretary in November, said he was entitled to keep interests in cases that did not involve the US or in which the state did not have a “direct and substantial interest”.

The ethics records were published on Wednesday as Mike Crapo, the chair of the Senate finance committee, announced that Kennedy’s confirmation hearings would be held next Wednesday.

Kennedy, a scion of the famous Democratic political family, stressed that he was playing no direct role in the Merck case and pledged to avoid doing anything to sway the outcome if appointed as health and human services secretary.

The first in a series of cases alleging that young people were injured by Merck’s vaccine is being heard this week in a court in Los Angeles. Kennedy first got involved with the legal effort against Gardasil in 2018.

The former Democrat, who endorsed Trump last year after mounting his own independent run for the White House, also said he would resign from his consulting role at Wisner Baum.

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In separate financial records filed on Wednesday with the US Office of Government Ethics, Kennedy revealed $11.6mn in disclosed income over the past two years, including $8.8mn from his work as an environmental attorney at Kennedy & Madonna. He pledged to terminate his role at the firm.

Kennedy was also paid $856,559 by Wisner Baum over the same period, records show. He also held small stakes in biotechs Crispr Therapeutics and Dragonfly Therapeutics, according to the financial disclosures.

The disclosures highlight the controversy around Trump’s decision to pick a vocal vaccine sceptic and campaigner to oversee the US health department — including its 13 divisions and agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health, which have sweeping influence over medicine regulation in the US.

The delay in Kennedy’s congressional hearing, which was originally planned for this week, has been taken by some in his camp as a sign that he could struggle to win approval from the crucial health and finance committees, whose endorsement he will need before a full vote in the Senate.

Some senators have raised questions about his record on vaccines and abortion, among other issues.

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The litigation against Merck over Gardasil is among several high-profile anti-vaccine lawsuits Kennedy has been involved in. Gardasil is recommended as a routine jab for 11- and 12-year-olds by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with 160mn having been distributed by the end of 2022, according to official statistics. Certain high-risk types of HPV can cause cervical cancer.

Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment. Merck said: “The plaintiff’s allegations have no merit, and we remain committed to vigorously defending against these claims.”

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Federal immigration agents shoot 2 people in Portland, Oregon, police say

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Federal immigration agents shoot 2 people in Portland, Oregon, police say

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in a vehicle outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, a day after an officer shot and killed a driver in Minnesota, authorities said.

The Department of Homeland Security described the vehicle’s passenger as “a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring” who had been involved in a recent shooting in Portland. When agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants Thursday afternoon, the driver tried to run them over, the department said in a written statement.

“Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot,” the statement said. “The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”

There was no immediate independent corroboration of those events or of any gang affiliation of the vehicle’s occupants. During prior shootings involving agents involved in President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement in U.S. cities, including Wednesday’s shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, video evidence cast doubt on the administration’s initial descriptions of what prompted the shootings.

READ MORE: What we know so far about the ICE shooting in Minneapolis

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According to the the Portland Police bureau, officers initially responded to a report of a shooting near a hospital at about 2:18 p.m.

A few minutes later, police received information that a man who had been shot was asking for help in a residential area a couple of miles away. Officers then responded there and found the two people with apparent gunshot wounds. Officers determined they were injured in the shooting with federal agents, police said.

Their conditions were not immediately known. Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney said during a Portland city council meeting that Thursday’s shooting took place in the eastern part of the city and that two Portlanders were wounded.

“As far as we know both of these individuals are still alive and we are hoping for more positive updates throughout the afternoon,” she said.

The shooting escalates tensions in an city that has long had a contentious relationship with President Donald Trump, including Trump’s recent, failed effort to deploy National Guard troops in the city.

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Portland police secured both the scene of the shooting and the area where the wounded people were found pending investigation.

“We are still in the early stages of this incident,” said Chief Bob Day. “We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more.”

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to end all operations in Oregon’s largest city until a full investigation is completed.

“We stand united as elected officials in saying that we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts,” a joint statement said. “Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarized agents, and the ‘full force’ threatened by the administration has deadly consequences.”

The city officials said “federal militarization undermines effective, community‑based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region. We’ll use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”

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They urged residents to show up with “calm and purpose during this difficult time.”

“We respond with clarity, unity, and a commitment to justice,” the statement said. “We must stand together to protect Portland.”

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, urged any protesters to remain peaceful.

“Trump wants to generate riots,” he said in a post on the X social media platform. “Don’t take the bait.”

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Video: What Trump Told Us About the ICE Shooting

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Video: What Trump Told Us About the ICE Shooting

new video loaded: What Trump Told Us About the ICE Shooting

The New York Times sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an exclusive interview just hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis. Our White House correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs explains how the president reacted to the shooting.

By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Alexandra Ostasiewicz, Nikolay Nikolov and Coleman Lowndes

January 8, 2026

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Community reacts to ICE shooting in Minnesota. And, RFK Jr. unveils new food pyramid

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Community reacts to ICE shooting in Minnesota. And, RFK Jr. unveils new food pyramid

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today’s top stories

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis woman, yesterday. Multiple observers captured the shooting on video, and community members demanded accountability. Minnesota law enforcement officials and the FBI are investigating the fatal shooting, which the Trump administration says was an act of self-defense. Meanwhile, the mayor has accused the officer of reckless use of power and demanded that ICE get out of Minneapolis.

People demonstrate during a vigil at the site where a woman was shot and killed by an immigration officer earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, 2026. An immigration officer in Minneapolis shot dead a woman on Wednesday, triggering outrage from local leaders even as President Trump claimed the officer acted in self-defense. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey deemed the government’s allegation that the woman was attacking federal agents “bullshit,” and called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducting a second day of mass raids to leave Minneapolis.

Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images


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Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images

  • 🎧 Caitlin Callenson recorded the shooting and says officers gave Good multiple conflicting instructions while she was in her vehicle. Callenson says Good was already unresponsive when officers pulled her from the car. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claims the officer was struck by the vehicle and acted in self-defense. In the video NPR reviewed, the officer doesn’t seem to be hit and was seen walking after he fired the shots, NPR’s Meg Anderson tells Up First. Anderson says it has been mostly peaceful in Minneapolis, but there is a lot of anger and tension because protesters want ICE out of the city.

U.S. forces yesterday seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the north Atlantic between Iceland and Britain after a two-week chase. The tanker was originally headed to Venezuela, but it changed course to avoid the U.S. ships. This action comes as the Trump administration begins releasing new information about its plans for Venezuela’s oil industry.

  • 🎧 It has been a dramatic week for U.S. operations in Venezuela, NPR’s Greg Myre says, prompting critics to ask if a real plan for the road ahead exists. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded that the U.S. does have a strategy to stabilize Venezuela, and much of it seems to involve oil. Rubio said the U.S. would take control of up to 50 million barrels of oil from the country. Myre says the Trump administration appears to have a multipronged strategy that involves taking over the country’s oil, selling it on the world market and pressuring U.S. oil companies to enter Venezuela.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released new dietary guidelines for Americans yesterday that focus on promoting whole foods, proteins and healthy fats. The guidance, which he says aims to “revolutionize our food culture,” comes with a new food pyramid, which replaces the current MyPlate symbol.

  • 🎧 “I’m very disappointed in the new pyramid,” Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert who was on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, tells NPR’s Allison Aubrey. Gardner says the new food structure, which features red meat and saturated fats at the top, contradicts decades of evidence and research. Poor eating habits and the standard American diet are widely considered to cause chronic disease. Aubrey says the new guidelines alone won’t change people’s eating habits, but they will be highly influential. This guidance will shape the offerings in school meals and on military bases, and determine what’s allowed in federal nutrition programs.

Special series

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Trump has tried to bury the truth of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. NPR built a visual archive of the attack on the Capitol, showing exactly what happened through the lenses of the people who were there. “Chapter 4: The investigation” shows how federal investigators found the rioters and built the largest criminal case in U.S. history.

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Political leaders, including Trump, called for rioters to face justice for their actions on Jan. 6. This request came because so few people were arrested during the attack. The extremists who led the riot remained free, and some threatened further violence. The government launched the largest federal investigation in American history, resulting in the arrest of over 1,500 individuals from all 50 states. The most serious cases were made by prosecutors against leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. For their roles in planning the attack against the U.S., some extremists were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Take a look at the Jan. 6 prosecutions by the numbers, including the highest sentence received.

To learn more, explore NPR’s database of federal criminal cases from Jan. 6. You can also see more of NPR’s reporting on the topic.

Deep dive

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Trump takes 325 milligrams of daily aspirin, which is four times the recommended 81 milligrams of low-dose aspirin used for cardiovascular disease prevention. The president revealed this detail in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published last week. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that anyone over 60 not start a daily dose of aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease if they don’t already have an underlying problem. The group said it’s reasonable to stop preventive aspirin in people already taking it around age 75 years. Trump is 79. This is what you should know about aspirin and cardiac health:

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  • 💊 Doctors often prescribe the low dose of aspirin because there’s no benefit to taking a higher dose, according to a large study published in 2021.
  • 💊 Some people, including adults who have undergone heart bypass surgery and those who have had a heart attack, should take the advised dose of the drug for their entire life.
  • 💊 While safer than other blood thinners, the drug — even at low doses — raises the risk of bleeding in the stomach and brain. But these adverse events are unlikely to cause death.

3 things to know before you go

When an ant pupa has a deadly, incurable infection, it sends out a signal that tells worker ants to unpack it from its cocoon and disinfect it, a process that results in its death.

When an ant pupa has a deadly, incurable infection, it sends out a signal that tells worker ants to unpack it from its cocoon and disinfect it, a process that results in its death.

Christopher D. Pull/ISTA


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Christopher D. Pull/ISTA

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  1. Young, terminally ill ants will send out an altruistic “kill me” signal to worker ants, according to a study in the journal Nature Communications. With this strategy, the sick ants sacrifice themselves for the good of their colony.
  2. In this week’s Far-Flung Postcards series, you can spot a real, lone California sequoia tree in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. Napoleon III transformed the park from a former landfill into one of the French capital’s greenest escapes.
  3. The ACLU and several authors have sued Utah over its “sensitive materials” book law, which has now banned 22 books in K-12 schools. Among the books on the ban list are The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. (via KUER)

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

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