RFK Jr. testifies at Senate; Harvard funding freeze : NPR

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

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to testify in the Senate this morning. The hearing comes a week after he pressured Susan Monarez to resign from her position as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When she refused, the White House fired her. Three top CDC officials then resigned in protest. Here are three things to know before the hearing.

• 🎧 The hearing is technically about the president’s 2026 health care agenda. However, NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin tells Up First that isn’t all she expects to come out of the meeting. If a Democratic senator is asking the questions, she says they could hammer Kennedy about what happened last week at the CDC and about vaccine policy. Kennedy has replaced a key vaccine advisory panel with people who are set to change recommendations on a number of vaccines later this month. If Republicans have the mic, they might focus on the Make America Healthy Again agenda. Simmons-Duffin says Kennedy is likely to concentrate on his MAHA efforts and what he describes as the chronic disease epidemic.

A Senate committee will hold a confirmation hearing this morning on President Trump’s nominee to fill a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s governing board. The president also hopes to fill a second seat on the board by removing Fed governor Lisa Cook. She has filed a lawsuit to challenge the president’s actions.

• 🎧 Trump’s desire to shake up the Fed goes beyond a long-requested cut to interest rates. It’s also about who gets to control the decision-making processes, says NPR’s Scott Horsley. If Trump is successful in filling two more seats, four out of the seven Fed governors would be his appointees. The president has nominated White House economic adviser Stephen Miran to fill one vacancy. Miran co-authored a paper last year arguing that the president should have greater control over the Fed’s board of governors.

A federal judge in Boston yesterday ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully froze over $2 billion in research funds for Harvard University. The administration claimed the freeze was in response to antisemitism on the school’s campus. Harvard then filed a lawsuit. Judge Allison D. Burroughs’ ruling said the administration implemented the freeze without taking into account any of the steps the university had already taken to address the issue.

• 🎧 The judge offered several arguments for how the funding freeze goes against the law, says NPR’s Cory Turner. She said the research that the freeze defunded, which included studies for Alzheimer’s, heart disease and autism, had no clear connection to antisemitism on campus. She also said the freeze violated the university’s First Amendment rights because while the administration said it was doing this to fight antisemitism, Trump was criticizing the school for being a “liberal mess.” The judge was also hard on Harvard, saying it should have done a better job of addressing antisemitism. Turner says that the ruling strengthens Harvard’s bargaining position, but it’s still unknown how this case will play out.

Deep dive

A man walks past a Google logo at the Google Campus in Warsaw on Feb. 13, 2025.

Sergi Gapon/AFP via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Sergi Gapon/AFP via Getty Images

In a major antitrust case, a judge this week ruled against breaking up Google but barred it from making exclusive deals to make its search engine the default on phones and other devices. The Department of Justice filed the suit against Google in 2020, and four years later, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in the DOJ’s favor. The “remedies” phase of the trial began in April 2025, with both sides facing off over what price Google should pay for its monopoly. The DOJ urged the spinoff of Chrome and the sharing of Google’s search data, saying it would help prevent unfair advantages in other markets, including artificial intelligence. Here’s how AI fits into this case:

• 🖥️ Requiring Google to license its search index database could help smaller competitors build their own search engines. AI developers could use the information to help train language models like chatbots.
• 🖥️ The DOJ argued that Google’s AI products could help strengthen its monopoly in online search, but Google disagreed with the concept, saying competition in the AI race is healthy.
• 🖥️ In Mehta’s ruling, he says that companies in the AI space are already in a better position to compete with Google, both financially and technologically, than any traditional search company has been in decades.

Picture show

Beirut, Lebanon. August 11, 2025. Six-year-old Kenzi Madhoun from Gaza poses for a portrait outside the American University of Beirut Medical Center. She arrived in Beirut with her father, Adam Madhoun, to begin treatment after being injured in Gaza on Oct. 21, 2023. She is among nearly 35 children the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund brings with their caretakers from Palestine to Lebanon for medical and psychological support before they return home. Diego Ibarra Sánchez for NPR

Diego Ibarra Sanchez for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Diego Ibarra Sanchez for NPR

Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah is on a mission to heal children’s wounds from the war in Gaza. Over the years, Abu-Sittah, a reconstructive and plastic surgeon, has treated the wounded in several countries and conflicts. But it’s Gaza where he felt a particular calling to help. Abu-Sittah entered the territory two days after Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants led a surprise attack on communities in southern Israel, resulting in Israeli retaliatory strikes. In November, the hospital where he worked ran out of anesthesia, leading him to leave after realizing he could help more effectively from outside the enclave. He went to Lebanon, where he says the expertise in the management of war wounds is unparalleled. He began to bring wounded children there for complex reconstructive surgery. Since beginning his quest, social activist Darine Dandachly and her team formed a partnership with him through a children’s fund in his name to further help war-injured children. Goats and Soda talked with Abu-Sittah about his goals. Read more about the work Abu-Sittah is doing, see photos of the impact he is making and listen to what he had to say.

3 things to know before you go

Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, prepares to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on April 03, 2025. On Wednesday, Newsmax sued Fox, claiming it was illegally using its power to squash rival conservative networks.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

hide caption

toggle caption

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

1. Newsmax filed a lawsuit yesterday against Fox News and its parent company, claiming that the conservative media giant engaged in antitrust practices to hinder the smaller competitor’s growth in cable news.
2. Jasveen Sangha, a North Hollywood drug dealer known as “Ketamine Queen,” now faces up to 65 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to supplying the drugs that caused the death of Friends actor Matthew Perry. (via LAist)
3. The next round of COVID-19 vaccines has been approved for the fall, but the FDA has changed who can receive them. To answer some of your burning questions about the shots, Consider This from NPR tapped in an expert on the subject.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.