The World and Everything in It: January 8, 2026

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Today, the turf war over controversial changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

AUDIO: Don’t let them pump your baby up with the largest pile of stuff you’ve never seen in your life.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Also today, how the U.S. military operation in Venezuela may affect relations with China.

And, the next phase of immigration enforcement, coming to Springfield, Ohio.

HUSTED: I think everybody has known what the terms were for quite a while now.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, January 8th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Tanker seizures » The United States seized two more Venezuelan-linked oil tankers on Wednesday after U.S. officials say they were found illegally operating on the high seas.

These are the first tankers seized since the U.S. captured and extradited Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to the United States on drug trafficking charges.

U.S. officials are now making new oil deals with the country’s interim government. Secretary of State Marco Rubio:

RUBIO: We are going to take between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil. We're going to sell it in the marketplace, at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting. That money will then be handled in such a way that we will control how it is dispersed in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people, not corruption, not the regime.

The U.S. has now seized a total of four illegal oil tankers within the last month for violating sanctions.

It’s part of a continued pressure campaign aimed at keeping the Venezuelan regime in line.

ICE self-defense shooting » A federal agent shot and killed a woman during a federal immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis Wednesday.

ICE says an officer fired after the driver tried to run him over with her vehicle.

City leaders dispute that account, and state and federal authorities are now investigating.

The incident has sparked protests. And Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz remarked:

WALZ:  To Minnesotans I say this, I feel your anger. I'm angry.

He lashed out at the Trump administration, suggesting federal law enforcement was not welcome there.

And Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey asserted that the officer’s self-defense explanation was false.

But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem countered:

NOEM:  He doesn't know what he's talking about. Our officer followed his training, did exactly what he's been taught to do in that situation.

The shooting happened in a residential neighborhood south of downtown. Witness video shows officers approaching an SUV stopped in the road. As the vehicle moved forward, an officer opened fire.

HHS nutritional guidelines » The Trump administration says it has a new message aimed at making America healthy again:

Eat more real food. Cut back on sugar. Skip most snacks that come in a package. That is part of new nutrition advice issued by the government this week.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary:

MARKARY: We have 40% of our kids now with a chronic disease. It is not their fault. This is something that is the result of bad advice from the government and a medical establishment that for decades pedaled research from a flawed 1960s model.

The updated guidelines encourage Americans to eat more vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and protein.

They also warn against foods that come in bags or boxes and are high in sugar or refined carbs — like chips, cookies, and candy.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr:

KENNEDY: The new guidelines recognize that whole nutrient dense food is the most effective path to better health and lower healthcare costs.

The guidance keeps limits on saturated fat but says it’s better to get fats from whole foods such as meat, eggs, and dairy instead of processed oils.

Officials say the shorter, simpler advice is meant to be easier to follow and will shape school lunches and other federal food programs serving millions of people every day.

Rubio plans to meet with Danish officials about Greenland » Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he will meet with Danish officials next week to discuss U.S. interest in Greenland. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has that story.

BENJAMIN EICHER: The talks come after President Trump again said the island is important to U.S. security, citing growing activity by China and Russia in the Arctic.

Danish and Greenland leaders requested the meeting. Rubio told lawmakers the administration’s focus is on diplomacy and discussion, not military action.

He also noted that past U.S. presidents have explored similar ideas.

European leaders pushed back, saying Greenland belongs to its people and warning against pressure on a NATO ally.

Some U.S. lawmakers see great strategic value in Greenland, but others say they fear President Trump’s rhetoric on the matter could harm key alliances. Rubio said he plans to address those concerns directly during the meeting.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

DeSantis calls for special session to redraw district lines » Florida. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis says he plans to call lawmakers into a special session in April to redraw the state’s congressional map ahead of midterm elections.

He pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court case in which he says the justices are likely to rule that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional.

DESANTIS: Uh, we have a couple districts that has been thought that the Voting Rights Act mandates racial gerrymandering, so that's gonna force it one way or another.

He said the state is getting out ahead of that.

Republicans currently hold 20 of Florida’s 28 House seats. Any changes could influence control of the closely divided U.S. House.

Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 aimed at limiting partisan map drawing. The state Supreme Court later upheld a map backed by DeSantis.

Democrats argue new maps would violate that amendment, while Republicans say the courts may soon change the legal landscape.

I'm Kent Covington.

Still ahead: the turf war over controversial changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. Plus, how the U.S. military operation in Venezuela may affect relations with China.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 8th of January.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up: the CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule.

Vaccines are a routine part of life for many children and their parents, but which ones they get may be changing. Earlier this week, the CDC reduced the number of diseases it recommends for universal childhood vaccination from 17 down to 11.

WORLD’s Emma Freire has the story.

EMMA FREIRE: When Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was sworn in as HHS secretary, he promised big changes.

KENNEDY: Our plans are radical transparency and returning gold-standard science to NIH, to the FDA, and CDC — to end — ending the corruption, ending the corporate capture of those agencies, getting rid of the people on those panels that have conflicts of interest.

Kennedy quickly made good on his promise to shake things up. Kennedy has frequently questioned vaccine safety in the past and his opponents brand him an “anti-vaxxer.”

On Monday this week, the CDC announced it was reducing the number of immunizations it recommends to all children. The CDC still recommends immunizations for all children against diseases like polio and measles.

But for diseases like Hepatitis A and RSV, the CDC now recommends immunizations only for some groups considered high-risk. For still other diseases like flu, COVID-19 and rotavirus, parents and physicians are to share the decision-making. The changes come after President Trump issued a memorandum directing Secretary Kennedy to review the entire childhood vaccination schedule and align it with the best practices of other developed countries. Trump has frequently expressed his view that American kids get too many vaccines.

TRUMP: It's so important to me to take, see the doctor four times or five times for a vaccine. Don't let them pump your baby up with the largest pile of stuff you've ever seen in your life going into the the delicate little body of a baby.

Brian Hooker is the Chief Science Officer at Children’s Health Defense, a non-profit founded by Kennedy. He thinks vaccine safety concerns will wind up in court.

HOOKER: it's really a quagmire, because there are a lot of interesting questions that come up regarding, the immunity that vaccine manufacturers have regarding lawsuit through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which was a result of that a law that was passed in 1986 the National Childhood Vaccine Injury act.

Kennedy targeted the vaccine schedule soon after he took office. In June, he fired all members of a panel that advises the CDC on vaccines … the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Last month, the committee voted to end its advice that all newborns get vaccinated against Hepatitis B within 24 hours of birth.

DR. ROBERT MALONE: 8 votes yes and 3 votes no. The motion passes.

Hepatitis B is an infection of the liver. In adults, it is most often spread through sexual contact or blood exposure, including shared needles. But when a pregnant woman is infected, the virus can be passed to her baby during childbirth, which is why newborn vaccination became standard. Here’s Dr. Ana Weil, an assistant professor at the University of Washington.

WEIL: We in public health, I think, think of it as even one, even one person being born and being exposed to hepatitis B when it's preventable is too many.

Hooker argues the vaccine itself carries significant risks. He thinks the vaccine did not undergo sufficiently rigorous testing for safety before its release.

HOOKER: The Hepatitis B shot, when it was originally tested by the FDA, was tested on a total of 147 infants, and it was tested for five days. So if there was a safety signal after five days, then that was not recorded.

But Dr. Weil says the vaccine has a proven track record. It’s been recommended at birth since 1991.

WEIL: The vaccine has been given for several decades without an issue. So to suggest that these are are in need of review, that the current schedule isn't safe or is not in the public's interest, is just not based on evidence because there is not new evidence that has come to light.

Hooker hopes the review of vaccines will be part of a bigger discussion about high rates of chronic disease in America.

HOOKER. Let's also look at the food we eat. Let's look at the air that we breathe. Adding vaccines to the list of questions that need to be answered in order to find clues for the chronic disease epidemic, especially in children? I think that’s really a good thing.

The future of the new vaccine schedule is unclear. Multiple states and medical societies including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have announced they will continue recommending the previous schedule.

Adding to the uncertainty: States have the right to determine which vaccines are required for school attendance. Some states, like California, don’t allow religious exemptions and place strict limits on medical exemptions. Others, like Texas, are more flexible with exemptions.

As states and medical groups go in different directions, it is unclear which set of recommendations will carry the most weight.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Freire.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

U.S.-China relations after the fall of Maduro.

For many, the pressure on Venezuela in the last year made very little sense when countries like China and Russia have seemed the bigger threat.

That may be one reason why a years-old clip from the Amazon Prime show Jack Ryan went viral this week.

It features the title character from the Tom Clancy series, explaining the threat a failing Venezuelan government could pose to the U.S.

SOUND: Unstable governments are nothing more than the greatest of opportunities…So Russia, China will never be the most major threat, until countries like Venezuela leave the door open to our very own backyard.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: From fiction to nonfiction.

China’s interest in Venezuela is no secret. It invested heavily in Venezuela over the years, with oil as repayment.

Here now to help us connect the dots on why,  is Yvonne Chiu of the American Enterprise Institute. She specializes in Indo-Pacific policy and strategy, authoritarianism, and global justice.

Yvonne, thank you for joining us.

YVONNE CHIU, Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

REICHARD: China has poured billions into Venezuela through oil deals and even helped Maduro build his surveillance systems. In your view, what mattered more to Beijing: ideological alignment, strategic leverage in our hemisphere, or, strictly speaking, energy? 

CHIU: So all of the above is the short answer. In the very beginning, I think ideological alignment mattered. In recent years, it has been the energy supplies, the oil, and that, of course, dovetails with the strategic leverage. So, I don't think you can separate those two entirely. So, the upshot is, if the U.S. made this move in Venezuela in order to, as part of its bigger strategic competition with China, which I'm not sure that that was the purpose, but if that were the goal, then that is a very short term move against China.

REICHARD: Okay, thinking about other reverberations in Asia, then, do you think Beijing looks at this Maduro operation and then decides anything about the American resolve elsewhere, specifically Taiwan?

CHIU: This does two things. It does say that the U.S. is willing to use force in situations that we wouldn't have expected before, but it doesn't say that the U.S. is willing to defend democracies, including advanced liberal democracies like Taiwan. It just says the U.S. is willing to use force to pursue its narrow economic interests overseas. So that, in and of itself, doesn't change Beijing's calculus on Taiwan. What it does do, which you're alluding to, is that it starts to create this permission structure for other countries to say, hey, look right. And I think what Beijing would do, which it already is doing, is playing that rhetorical game of, well, you invaded another country and or, you know, you kidnapped the leader of another country. And that was, you know, in foreign intervention that we strongly condemn. We, however, consider Taiwan to be our own territory. This is a domestic dispute, and therefore totally different from Venezuela and basically perfectly acceptable. Now we know that that is not the case. Taiwan is not part of China, but it doesn't stop Beijing from playing those rhetorical games, and it doesn't stop the world from going along with it for the sake of their own interests.

REICHARD: All right. Assume that you are advising policymakers. What concrete indicators should they be watching for, military, diplomatic, economic in order to gauge how China is interpreting this moment?

CHIU: When China looks at what the U.S. has done, I think they will be, they're going to be a little wary, right? I think that they would. They would also be surprised at the Trump administration's willingness to use military force in this way. On the other hand, I'm not sure that they themselves would feel particularly threatened, because in many ways, Venezuela and Maduro were easy targets, right? China, not so much. And we have seen from Trump's relations with foreign leaders is that he really appreciates strong authoritarian leaders. And so I think China would look at what the U.S. is doing and think, okay, the U.S. is actually, they are following on the National Security Strategy. They are focusing on the western hemisphere. They are focusing on their backyards. They are continuing this kind of Trump policy of very aggressive surgical strikes. But that not, isn't necessarily going to translate into a broader global strategy. And so in many ways, I think China will take a little bit of comfort that the Trump administration is not focused on Asia. You know, in the indicators, I think they just wrapped up these military exercises surrounding Taiwan, and basically it was a multi-day blockade, right? We didn't want to call it that, but it was a multi-day blockade. They have already isolated Taiwan. They're very aggressive with their, you know, with the regional neighbors. So actually, in terms of concrete indicators to how China is interpreting this, I think China's already doing it. They're already telling us that they're, they have intentions to be the regional hegemon. And, you know, the question is just whether we're willing to live with that and the implications for the United States.

REICHARD: There's so much more we could talk about here. I know time beckons. Yvonne Chu is with the American Enterprise Institute. She specializes in Indo, Pacific policy and strategy, authoritarianism and global justice. Yvonne, thank you so much for your time and expertise.

CHIU: It's my pleasure.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It took decades of dreaming and 4 attempts, but Betty Kellenberger finally did it:

She made it to the top of Maine’s Mount Katahdin, completing her Appalachian Trail thru-hike.

The audio from PBS.

AUDIO: Once I got close, people kept saying, how old are you? This might be a record. And I thought, I don’t think so. But then pretty soon it came back yes, it was.

And an impressive one, she’d become the oldest woman ever to complete the hike, at age 80!

AUDIO: I think we were made for movement. It doesn't mean they have to go out and hike the Appalachian Trail, but they have to move. Life is a journey.

A journey of nearly 22-hundred miles in her case.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, January 8th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: The end of Temporary Protected Status.

For some 350,000 Haitians, who can no longer live or work legally in the U.S., change is coming.

It’s likely to have a large impact on places like Springfield, Ohio. That’s where thousands of Haitian migrants settled in the last few years, building lives, but also stressing the town’s infrastructure and resources.

REICHARD: Here’s WORLD’s Maria Baer.

AUDIO: [Sound of baby crying, chatter]

MARIA BAER: The St. Vincent de Paul Community Center in downtown Springfield is bustling. Director Casey Rollins jokes that it’s one of their “slow” days — before bending down to tie a Haitian woman’s unruly shoelaces.

ROLLINS: Have you ever seen those shoes that you slip in?

At a table in the back of the room, near a plastic-looking statue of Jesus in a red robe, a Haitian woman sits quietly. We’re calling her Mary to protect her privacy. Through an interpreter named Patrick — another Haitian migrant — Mary says she’s due at immigration court in a few days.

AUDIO: [Mary speaking in Creole]

TRANSLATOR: The plan I have right now, I was pending asylum, but for my other child who doesn’t have this, they asking her to go to court because she doesn’t have anything, she didn’t qualify for the Temporary Protect Status.

Mary’s saying her daughter doesn’t qualify for TPS, or Temporary Protected Status, because she was born in Chile. Although Mary originally fled Haiti, she lived in Chile before she came here. She came to the U.S., she says, for better economic opportunities.

She has no plans to leave in February.

TRANSLATOR: The people say they are really scared about the situation, but for herself she say she not fully care that much. Let it be! She doesn’t… let it be. It is what it is.

Behind Mary and Patrick, about a dozen Haitian migrants are waiting on plastic chairs near St. Vincent de Paul’s front doors. Some are bouncing toddlers on their knees; others scroll on their phones. They’re waiting to log on to one of two available desktop computers, where Patrick or another translator will help them apply for asylum or check on their application status.

Director Casey Rollins isn’t optimistic.

ROLLINS: People are still thinking along the lines of hoping to remain here. And as Americans we wish that we had that same kind of hope for them. But we are seeing the realities.

TPS for Haitian migrants began under President Obama after the devastating 2010 earthquake. It was supposed to last 18 months. But it’s been extended several times since then, as presidential administrations from Trump to Biden cited circumstances like Hurricane Sandy, rampant gang violence, and political volatility in Haiti as justifying the emergency status.

The current Trump administration has tried to end TPS for Haiti before, but their efforts were tangled up in court. Most officials believe this February will mark the official end.

Rollins doubts many migrants will go back to Haiti.

ROLLINS: So we’ve been talking about, what is a third country? And if there’s a third country we can go to, you know like Chile or Brazil or somewhere like that, that we would maybe help them to talk to that country about going there. But you know you can’t just go to a third country.

To qualify for Temporary Protected Status, migrants had to prove they were Haitian nationals, but they didn’t have to prove they came to the U.S. directly from Haiti. Many traveled through—or lived in—other Latin American countries before crossing the U.S. border.

Chile in particular relaxed its immigration restrictions for Haitians after the 2010 earthquake and became a popular destination because of its growing economy. By 2017, an estimated 120,000 Haitians had moved there.

That includes Sagini, another woman waiting in the St. Vincent de Paul lobby. She was 24 when she fled Haiti. That was over ten years ago. She now speaks Spanish.

SAGINI: I was 24 years old, and I went to the Dominican Republic. I spent a year there and from there bought my ticket to Chile).

Sagini lived and worked in Chile for nine years. She says she came to the U.S. last year for the same reason as Mary: to find a better-paying job.

SAGINI: In Chile I had to work for little money. And sometimes there was no pay… or I’d work all day for twenty, thirty dollars.

In 2017, Chile’s government once again tightened restrictions on Haitian migration. That’s the same year Haitians began arriving in large numbers in Springfield. Though most of them qualified for Temporary Protected Status, the pattern suggests many weren’t directly fleeing Haiti. Many, like Sagini, hadn’t been there in years.

Sagini says she has no plans to go back now.

SAGINI: Maybe soon the President will change his mind. I don’t know.

Casey Rollins of St. Vincent de Paul says government officials have warned her that immigration raids are likely in Springfield in February.

HUSTED: Overall the terms under which hundreds of thousands of people came here was that it would be temporary, while there was an effort to pursue a more stable environment in Haiti…

U.S. Senator Jon Husted, a Republican from Ohio, says the end of TPS shouldn’t be a surprise.

HUSTED: I think everybody has known what the terms were for quite a while now and I’m assuming they have been taking the proper preparations for a return to Haiti or have been pursuing another option if that’s what they want to pursue.

Rollins says the uncertainty has left more local migrants needing help. But St. Vincent de Paul hasn’t had to turn anyone away, because increased attention on the situation has brought in more donations, too.

Still, local residents report lengthy wait times for medical care and rent increases since the influx of migrants began. Most of the Haitian migrants have Medicaid, including Sagini, even though she doesn’t have TPS or any other legal status. A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Medicaid told WORLD there are legal exceptions allowing all pregnant women and children to obtain Medicaid.

For migrants like Mary, the future is uncertain.

TRANSLATOR: I have no idea right now where to go because I don’t want to go back to Haiti because I once left Haiti for violence I think if I go back there my life gonna be in danger. I thinking about Chile too but the reason why I don’t want to go back to Chile, while I was there I tried to get some documentation, I never got it so don’t have any idea what to do right now.

It’s unlikely that all of the estimated 16,000 Haitians in Springfield will leave town by February 4th, either by choice or by force. But local and state leaders say change is coming.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Maria Baer in Springfield, Ohio.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The fallout from the U.S. action in Venezuela is revealing a sharp divide—between how Venezuelans are responding, and how Washington is. Here’s WORLD commentator Cal Thomas.

Venezuelan communities around the world are celebrating today—gathering in exile neighborhoods, waving flags, and cheering the removal of longtime dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a surprise U.S. operation.

For many Venezuelans, this was not regime change in the abstract. It was the end of a man who presided over economic collapse, political repression, and the transformation of a once-prosperous country into a narco-state.

AUDIO: Thank God a president who supports us came to power … The important thing is they want to support us.

What has been striking, though, is not the reaction among Venezuelans—but the reaction here at home.

Several congressional Democrats—and a few Republicans—are now moving to block any further U.S. military action, invoking the War Powers Act. Senator Tim Kaine has said he’s hoping to force a vote.

Even though Republicans control the Senate, Kaine can do that because War Powers resolutions are considered “privileged.” That means they can bypass leadership, skip the usual bottlenecks, and force every senator to go on the record.

KAINE: Maduro was a bad guy, but the U.S. shouldn’t be at war in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Nigeria, or anywhere else, if Congress doesn’t have the guts to debate it and vote on it.

In other words, this is not symbolic. It is designed to compel a public yes-or-no vote on whether the United States was right to act.

Kaine is not acting alone. He has backing from Republicans including Rand Paul of Kentucky and Todd Young of Indiana—an unusual coalition that all but guarantees this debate will play out in full view.

The problem is that the argument against the operation collapses under scrutiny.

The first sentence of the federal indictment against Maduro reads this way: For over 25 years, leaders of Venezuela abused positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States. That is not rhetoric. That is a criminal charge.

Even The Washington Post, no ally of President Trump, called Maduro’s removal “a major victory for American interests,” noting that just hours before the raid, Maduro had been meeting with Chinese officials—after years of backing from Russia, Cuba, and Iran.

So here is the question senators will be voting on:

Is it acceptable for America’s adversaries to prop up a dictator who poisons our streets with narcotics—but unacceptable for the United States to remove him?

Opposition leader María Corina Machado welcomed the news, writing that the time for freedom had come, and that Maduro would face international justice for crimes against Venezuelans and others.

Now comes the harder part.

President Trump says the United States—and American oil companies—will help “run” Venezuela for a time. Whether that works will depend not on slogans, but on legitimacy: the support of Venezuela’s military and its people.

Maduro’s trial in New York may draw headlines. But the real test comes next—whether freedom, law, and stability actually take hold.

And senators will have to decide whether they believe removing a narco-dictator was an abuse of power—or a necessary act of national defense.

For WORLD, I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday. And, a new Angel Studios film follows a family fleeing war-torn Syria. Joseph Holmes will have a review. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Psalmist writes: “Now therefore, O kings, be wise be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” Verses 10-12 of Psalm 2

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.