TO YOUR HEALTH: Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opened his hearing before Congress yesterday with a combative stance on clearing the Centers for Disease Control of people who handled the Covid pandemic. “The people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,” Kennedy said.

  In less than a year Kennedy has sacked legions of employees at the health department, overthrown leadership at the centers for Disease Control, and fired the entire 17-member vaccine advisory board.

  Kennedy has attacked the efficacy of the Covid vaccine and undermined faith in childhood vaccines, including measles.

    Early in the year Kennedy assured Congress that he would do nothing to make it difficult or discourage people from getting vaccines.

  Recently fired CDC Director Susan Moranez said in an essay in the Wall Street Journal accused Kennedy of  “a deliberate effort to weaken America’s public-health system and vaccine protections.”

   Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee ,said Kennedy’s actions reveal a steadfast commitment to elevating junk science and fringe conspiracies.”

  Kennedy continued his attacks on what has previously been the trusted science of vaccines and the agencies that approved them. “We’re being lied to by these agencies and we’re going to change that right now,” Kennedy said.

   Questioners caught Kennedy in his own duplicity. He is critical of the Covid vaccines while saying that Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for presiding over their creation.

  Kennedy was combative and sometimes dismissive throughout. He said he didn’t know how many Americans died in the Covid pandemic. When Senator Wyden made closing remarks, Kennedy scrolled for messages on his phone.

OH GOD: Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton this week urged public school children to recite “the Lord’s Prayer, as taught by Jesus Christ,” if their schools established a prayer period as permitted by a state law that took effect Monday.

  “In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” Paxton said in a news release. 

  Paxton, who is running for governor, is fighting a legal challenge to state law requiring display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Paxton said in his news release that, “Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”

THE REGIME: 

— The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Lisa Cook, the member of the Federal Reserve Board President Trump is trying to fire on information that she listed two homes as her primary residence on mortgage applications. The move to investigate Cook was instigated by Ed Martin, a Trump loyalist who serves as the President’s pardon attorney. 

— President Trump will move to end support for a program that helps prepare armies in Eastern Europe to ward off any potential Russian offensive. Trump is pushing European countries to take care of their own defense. 

— Trump is expected to sign an executive order today renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War, which is what it was called during World War II. It sounds more macho.

— As many as 75 federal agents yesterday raided a food plant outside Syracuse, NY, rounding up illegal immigrants. Witnesses said the agents broke in with crowbars while blocking exits.

— Melania Trump in a rare appearance at The White House yesterday warned that, “The robots are here. Our future is no longer science fiction.” She was speaking about the possibilities and dangers of artificial intelligence. “As leaders and parents, we must manage AI’s growth responsibly,” she said. “During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat A.I. as we would our own children — empowering, but with watchful guidance.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Italian designer Georgio Armani, whose last name became synonymous with “style,” died at home in Milan at age 91.

  Armani eliminated shoulder pads and some of the structure from traditional men’s suits, creating a softer more body-fitting suit. Women liked the look of it and before long Armani was also putting women in his “power” suits as more of them entered the office and professional work force during the 1980s.

  Armani’s slim presence with his close-cropped gray hair said “style” all by himself. He dressed the stars on the red carpets around the world and established a fashion empire that changed the look of formal dress … Armani became a household name, so long as you lived in a household that could afford it.

— Joseph McNeil, one of the “Greensboro Four” who famously sat down at a segregated North Carolina Woolworth’s lunch counter, has died at age 83.

  The action by McNeil and three student friends from North Carolina A&T was one of the seminal events in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

  A New Yorker, McNeil was appalled and frustrated by racial segregation and abuse in the South. He and his friends sat at the counter for hours without being served, a police officer with a nightstick pacing behind them. When the store closed, they left, but their demonstration was part of enormous change in the country.

  Only one other member of the four survives. That lunch counter is now on exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum. 

THE SPIN RACK: A 3-year-old boy was pulled from the wreckage of the funicular crash in Lisbon, a day after it happened. Sixteen people were killed. —  Rocker David Byrne, the offbeat former frontman for “Talking Heads,” suddenly announced that he’s getting married to artist Mala Gaonkar. He’s 73, married once before, and she’s 55, also divorced.   

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS:  We mistakenly said yesterday that the city of Lisbon is in Spain, rather than Portugal. This is what happens when you do the trapeze without a net.

BELOW THE FOLD:  Britain’s Princess Kate has gone blonde. Tabloid coverage to follow.

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