President-elect Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Health and Human Services Department. Kennedy is the son of former senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and an environmental lawyer known for his vaccine skepticism. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, he encouraged people not to get vaccinated and has instead promoted treatments proven to be ineffective, like hydroxychloroquine. This is RFK Jr. speaking to podcast host Lex Fridman last year.

Lex Fridman: “Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they’re causing. There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.”

Kennedy last year advanced a racist conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was “targeted to” certain ethnicities and that Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews were “most immune” to the disease. He has promoted baseless conspiracy theories linking environmental chemicals to homosexuality or gender dysphoria. He has also peddled conspiracy theories about water fluoridation and is a supporter of the consumption of raw milk, despite FDA restrictions on its sale due to the threat of harmful bacteria.

In other transition news, Trump has tapped North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum as secretary of the interior, selecting a major supporter of oil and gas drilling to oversee the bureaucracy tasked with managing U.S. lands and natural resources. In 2017, Burgum ordered the eviction of a resistance camp set up by Lakota water protectors opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. As governor, he has signed a near-total abortion ban into law, a ban on trans girls and women from participating in school sports, and legislation banning the teaching of critical race theory.

President-elect Trump has also named three of his personal lawyers for top positions at the Department of Justice, putting them in charge of the agency that carried out criminal investigations into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. Trump is nominating Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general, the Justice Department’s second most powerful position. He selected Emil Bove to serve as principal associate deputy attorney general and D. John Sauer as solicitor general.

Democrats are urging the House Ethics Committee to release their investigation on Matt Gaetz, who just resigned from Congress and was tapped by Trump to be attorney general. ABC News is reporting a woman testified to the panel that she and Gaetz had sex when she was 17 and in high school.

Israel’s military launched more deadly airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, shortly after issuing new forced evacuation orders. The attacks on the Ghobeiry and Burj al-Barajneh neighborhoods leveled entire residential buildings. The districts, where some 700,000 people used to live and work, are largely empty due to Israel’s assault, now in its eighth week. Lebanese officials say the latest Israeli attacks killed at least 37 people, including at least 12 emergency rescue workers killed in a strike on a civil defense center in the city of Baalbek.

Meanwhile, Syria’s government says at least 15 people were killed and 16 others wounded, including children, when Israeli fighter jets bombed the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday.

Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, has called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign after he refused to hold Israel accountable for failing to allow U.S. aid into Gaza. Humanitarian groups report aid deliveries have fallen to an all-time low since Blinken issued his ultimatum, with just 37 trucks entering Gaza per day in October and an average of 69 trucks per day in early November. Congressmember Tlaib spoke from the House floor Thursday, displaying a photograph of an emaciated Palestinian child.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “U.S. law is very clear. No nation blocking U.S. humanitarian assistance can receive U.S. weapons. The Biden administration cannot pick and choose when they comply with our own laws. Children are forced to eat pet food and bug-infested flour. Look at this, and do not turn your back on, again, being complicit to this war crime. But Blinken says there’s no need to change our own policy.”

The New York Times is reporting aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are being investigated for altering official records of a phone call by a top general who warned of the Hamas attacks on the morning of October 7, 2023. The probe suggests Netanyahu may have been informed of the attack before it happened, which he has denied. Over 1,100 people were killed in the Hamas attacks. In the more than 13 months since, Israel has killed over 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, though some estimates put the true death toll at over 300,000.

Elon Musk secretly met with Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. in New York Monday to discuss how to defuse tensions between Tehran and the U.S. That’s according to The New York Times, citing two unnamed Iranian officials. The Trump campaign has refused to comment.

Meanwhile, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency visited Tehran Thursday, seeking to restore U.N. inspectors’ access to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran cut off access last year and has abandoned limits on its nuclear activities since former President Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. On Thursday, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said Iran would not succumb to pressure from the second Trump administration.

Mohammad Eslami: “The Islamic Republic of Iran has been the only party to the nuclear agreement that has unilaterally and with complete goodwill fulfilled all its commitments within the JCPOA for one-and-a-half years. It has been the other party that has not acted on its commitments, has withdrawn from the pact and has not allowed others to cooperate, and has also imposed much harsher sanctions against the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

In Sri Lanka, the leftist coalition of the new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has won a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections. Sri Lanka’s first leftist leader, a self-described Marxist, now has the legislative backing to enact his campaign agenda, which focused on renegotiating a deeply unpopular IMF bailout and corruption.

President Biden is in Peru along with representatives of 20 other Pacific Rim nations for his last Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum. Ahead of official meetings today, police cracked down on protesters in Lima, who called out the repressive government of interim President Dina Boluarte and the exploitation of Peru’s resources.

Elizabeth Cano: “Foreign investment can come as long as they leave progress and benefits for the Peruvian people, because this country is killing us with transnational mining companies and polluting our rivers and burning our jungle. I don’t think any country would agree with that.”

Biden will head to Brazil next for the G20. A concurrent “People’s Summit” will also take place in Rio, bringing together human rights, Indigenous and climate activists.

The European Union has fined Facebook’s parent company Meta over $840 million for violating antitrust laws through its Facebook Marketplace classified ads platform. European regulators say Facebook Marketplace has an unfair advantage over competitors due to the dominance of Facebook’s social media network.

Norway has formally apologized to Indigenous peoples and other minority groups for its policy of forced assimilation, which for over a century separated families and sought to eliminate Native cultures. The Norwegian parliament issued the apology this week to the Sami, Kven and Forest Finns and outlined the actions it’s taking to provide redress, including protecting minority languages. There are also ongoing disputes over land rights for the Sami, roughly 100,000 of whom live in Norway today.

Over 10,000 people in New Zealand are taking part in a march toward the capital Wellington to protest legislation that would reinterpret an 1840 treaty — considered New Zealand’s founding document — and rolling back long-standing rights for Indigenous Māori communities. On Thursday, 22-year-old Maori lawmaker Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke tore up a copy of the proposed bill and was joined by other lawmakers in performing a Māori haka on the Parliament floor, suspending the session.

This comes just days after New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon offered an apology to the survivors and families of hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable adults who were physically, sexually and psychologically abused in state institutions over the last 70 years — a large proportion of whom were from the Māori community.

Here in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul is reviving the city’s congestion charge program, with the new tolls set to go into effect ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed to kill the plan. The new pricing will start at $9 for most vehicles entering Lower Manhattan during peak traffic, down from the original $15 that was planned before Hochul abruptly called off the program in June. Climate activists like Fridays for Future’s Keanu Arpels-Josiah are urging Governor Hochul to put the future of New York’s youth ahead of politics.

Keanu Arpels-Josiah: “Listen to our generation, and take action on the climate crisis by also signing the Climate Superfund Act, one of the biggest pieces of climate legislation in the country, still awaiting her signature.”

The satirical news outlet The Onion has acquired InfoWars, the website founded by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. InfoWars was put up for sale in a bankruptcy auction as part of a $1.4 billion settlement against Jones for defaming the families of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre. The Onion says it had the support of the families and plans to relaunch the website as a parody of right-wing influencers and conspiracy theorists.