Up First from NPR - The Munich Security Conference; FDA Rejects Flu Vaccine; The Fall of The Quad God

Episode Date: February 14, 2026

We get the latest from the Munich Security Conference, where U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a speech before European leaders. We also look at the reasons behind why the FDA rejected Moderna's new flu vaccine and how that decision could shape future clinical trials. Plus, we'll look at the what happened with U.S Olympic figure skater Illia Malinin, dubbed the "Quad God," on the ice yesterday. Tipped to win the gold, Malinin didn't end up even medaling. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

And happy Valentine's Day, Scott. Happy Valentine's Day to you, Ayesha. I was a very busy man getting everything ready for two daughters and my wife. I did it on Wednesday, so all the kids, so I got everybody flowers. So, and told them they were loved. Because I want them to know they don't have to wait on some romantic love, right? Like that they can be celebrated. God bless you.

Oh. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke at the Munich Security Conference today and outlined the U.S. Europe relationship. We'll tell you how that speech was received. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is up first from NPR News. On his way to Munich, Secretary Rubio said the old world order is no more. The world is changing very fast right in front of us. The old world is gone, frankly.

the world I grew up in, and we live in a new era in geopolitics, and it's going to require all of us to sort of re-examine what that looks like and what our role is going to be. But what does that mean for transatlantic unity? And the FDA has rejected a new flu shot. We'll look at how that could change clinical trials. Plus, the quad god has fallen. We'll have more on Ilia Malinan's heartbreak.

So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend. I'm Jesse Thorne. On Bolzai, Yaya Abdul Mateen I second and the most surprising thing he learned after receiving one of the highest honors in acting. I'm so grateful that it happened at that time because it did not make me happy at all. We'll get into that and his many roles playing various superheroes and villains. That's Bullseye. Find us in the NPR app at maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told European allies at the Munich Security Conference today

that it's time for a period of renewal as the old world order is ending. His speech at times highlighted unity, and it was different in tone from Vice President J.D. Vance's speech at the conference last year, which focused on free speech and migration. NPR's Michelle Kellerman was in Munich for the speech. Michelle, thanks for being with us. Nice to be here, Scott. What was Secretary Rubio's main message today? Well, he said that the U.S. and Europe made a lot of mistakes in recent years, focusing on what he called the climate cult and also allowing supply chains to become too dependent on rivals like China. He also spent a lot of time talking about Christian values and fears of civilizational erasure because of mass migration.

Those were, you know, a big focus of Vance's speech last year. But Rubio couched it a bit differently. take a listen. So in a time of headlines, heralding the end of the transatlantic era, let it be known and clear to all that this is neither our goal nor our wish. Because for us Americans, our home may be on the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe. I hear a pause there, Michelle. How did the speech go over? Yeah, I mean, the host of the conference, Wolfgang Ishinger, said there was a site. of relief in the room. And he said he saw this speech as a message of reassurance. But, you know,

I heard California Governor Gavin Newsom telling a group of reporters yesterday that Vice President Vance set the bar so low with last year's speech. And Germany's Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who met Rubio yesterday, also talked about the world order that as we know it is in the past, but he told the U.S. that the U.S. isn't strong enough to go it alone. French president, Emmanuel Macron, who's also here, told the gathering that Europe needs to become a geopolitical leader and needs to really stand up to Russia's aggression in Ukraine. You mentioned Governor Newsom. There are other Democrats there as well, aren't there? Yeah, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasier-Cortez made her debut here, and she's blaming the Trump administration of ripping up democratic norms and turning the world into

what she calls an age of authoritarian who are carving up the world. Where Donald Trump can command the Western Hemisphere and Latin America as his personal sandbox, where Putin can saber rattle around Europe and for essentially authoritarian to have their own geographic domains. And she says she was here with other Democrats offering a different way forward. Russia's war in Ukraine is obviously a big concern for Europe. What did Secretary Rubio say about that? Yeah, I mean, Europeans are really alarmed by Russia's continued. strikes on Ukraine's energy grid during this cold spell. They say Russia is trying to play for time, trying to win territory, and talks with Trump's envoys that it hasn't been able to capture on the

battlefield. Rubio would only say that he's not really sure if the Russians are serious about ending the war and whether there are any terms that can be negotiated that are acceptable to Ukraine. But he said the U.S. is going to continue to try. And that's been the goal. NPR's Michelle Kellerman from Munich. Thanks so much. Thank you. The Food and Drug Administration this week dealt a surprising setback to Moderna, one of the main biotech companies that created an MRI vaccine against COVID-19. The agency rejected Maderna's new flu shot, which was aimed at adults aged 50 and older. We're joined now by NPR's Sidney Lubkin, who has been following this story. Good morning, Sydney. Hi.

Can you walk us through what happened with the first? the Moderna shot? Yeah, so this was a first of its kind flu shot that uses the mRNA technology just like the COVID shots from Moderna and Pfizer-Biontech. Dr. Helen Chu, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Washington, says the MRNA technology is the reason those companies were able to respond to the COVID pandemic so quickly. And that's important because you need to scale up vaccine manufacturing quite a clip to be able to make the number of doses that you need to be able to respond to a pandemic. So Moderna wants to use that technology, again, to tackle the flu.

The traditional flu shot takes around six months to manufacture because it has to be grown in chicken eggs. So companies have to start making it really early, and by the time it's ready, the flu could have mutated. MRNA could make that process faster and more flexible. But on Tuesday, the FDA said it would not review Moderna's application, effectively rejecting it. It said the agency isn't satisfied with a Moderna study comparing its

experimental MRNA flu vaccine to a standard dose flu vaccine already on the market. A high-potency vaccine is recommended for people 65 and older, and that's what a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services said the FDA was looking for in that age group. HHS said the FDA had communicated that preference before. So how unusual is this for the FDA to decide not to even review a new vaccine? So Chu told me it's unusual to hear from the FDA that a study isn't. acceptable so late in the process because companies are talking with the agency before a study even begins to make sure it's okay. But she also told me she was surprised Moderna filed the application.

That's because the Trump administration had already been signaling that it wasn't friendly toward mRNA vaccines. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in August that he was cutting a half billion dollars in funding for mRNA vaccine research. He also fired 17 members of an influential vaccine advisory committee, that included CHOO, and then the new handpicked committee recommended making the COVID shots less routine. I should add that the government also reduced the number of vaccines recommended for children beyond just COVID. What does Moderna say about what happened? It says the rejection doesn't line up with what the FDA was saying before and that the agency okayed this trial design 18 months ago. And by the way, Medina says it costs a lot of money to do this

research, more than a billion dollars all told. Companies making that kind of investment are looking for regulatory consistency. Dr. Lindsay McNair is a consultant at Equipoise and advises companies on clinical trials. She says this isn't the first time in recent months the FDA has done this, and the biotech community is concerned. Companies simply cannot afford to conduct clinical trials, and then when they try to submit them to the regulator, have the regulators say, well, changed our mind. We're not going to accept your clinical trial. So what does this mean for the big picture in terms of flu vaccines, but also companies developing other kinds of vaccines? Yeah. So I'm told that when it comes to mRNA vaccines, that work is moving forward, but in other countries. So it's really

the United States that could be at a disadvantage here. There's a lot of risk involved in developing a new vaccine. Risk, the company will do the study and it won't work or there won't be a market for it. And risk that the regulatory agency won't approve it. Those first two are kind of built into the calculus of being a pharmaceutical company, but regulatory risk isn't as much. Historically, in the U.S., the FDA has been pretty consistent. The FDA saying no to a study design it had previously agreed to is risk that's harder to navigate, and it could lead companies to think twice. That was NPR Pharmaceuticals correspondent, Sidney Lepkin. Thank you, Sydney. You bet. Well, Aisha, looks like even God.

can fall. That's right, Scott. And anyone watching U.S. Olympic figure skater, Ilya Malanin, compete in the men's gold event yesterday, saw that happen in real time. More than once. He was widely expected to win gold in the event. Turned out it didn't even medal. So what went wrong? NPR's Rachel Treasman was watching from the Milano Ice Skating Arena. Rachel, thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. He is a global phenomenon, just 21, hadn't lost a major competition, since 2023, what was the mood like when he took the ice? I'll try to paint a picture. So Malin was the very last skater of the entire night, and there was just this sense in the room

that he would be the grand finale. He got the loudest applause of anyone just by skating out to do his warm-ups. All eyes were on him. The stands were super packed. There were Olympic grates in the room like Nathan Chen and Simone Biles. And the question people around me were asking wasn't whether Malin would win, but how would he do it? how many quad jumps would he do? And of course, would he attempt and land the quad axle,

which would be the first on Olympic ice. When did it all start going wrong? Pretty much immediately. Malin's second planned jump out of seven was the quad axle, but he downgraded it mid-air to just a single axle. And it got harder to watch from there. He bailed on a couple other jumps and fully fell twice. One of the jumps he did manage to land was a backflip, but of course that doesn't get you any points, just a lot of love from the crowd. And what was the reaction of the crowd? Well, the crowd started off so energized for his performance, and once he got started, it just totally felt like the wind had been knocked out of everyone. Some people around me had their phones out to film what was supposed to be this

historic jump and then pretty quickly put their phones away. I feel like it took a moment for people to realize what they were seeing, and then when they did, the crowd suddenly got loud again, as if people in the stands were trying to boost Malin and up with their own energy, their own nervous energy in particular. But it didn't work. And at the end of the four minutes, Malinin just looked anguished as he walked off the ice. And what did this extraordinary young man say about what went wrong? Well, a lot of us asked him. So athletes typically talk to the press right after they skate. And just a few minutes later, I was standing in this crush of journalists all eager to hear from him. And Malin clearly hadn't had a second to process what had just happened. He was clearly

still trying to understand. But he did blame the pressure he'd been under as the heavy favorite. And he said a lot of negative thoughts came flooding in as soon as he hit his starting pose. We should ask who won. So two Japanese skaters ended up on the podium. Yuma Kagiyama repeated his silver from 2022, and Shunzato won bronze. But the real shocker was the first place finisher, Mikhail Shidorev of Kazakhstan. He wasn't expected to meddle at all, though he was clearly a fan favorite. He landed a really clean skate with five quad jumps that put him in first place.

There were still a handful of top-ranked skaters to follow him, including Malin. So I don't think Shadurov was expecting to stay on the top of the scoreboard, but all of the skaters after him fell. So we could see him watching in real time as he processed that he had won bronze, then silver, and then somehow gold. And after Malinin got his score, he walked over to hug Shadurav, who was just standing there in total shock with his hands on his face. Medals for women's figure skating and pairs figure skating are still ahead. more competitions this week. But this was Ilya Malin's last chance at a medal

this year, wasn't it? That's right. And it's important to note he will still leave these Olympics with a gold medal from last weekend's team event, which, I mean, ironically, his free skate helped the U.S. win. But yeah, yesterday was his last chance at an individual medal. We may

see him skate again at an exhibition event next weekend, but we'll have to see him in a future Olympic cycle if he wants to earn his individual medal. And here's Rachel Treisman in Milan. Rachel, thanks so much for being with us. Of course, thank you. And Rachel is writing a daily newsletter about what it's like to be at the games in person.

It's called Rachel goes to the games. You can subscribe to it at npr.org slash winter games. And you can check out Up First Winter Games, a new video podcast from the team that brings you up first. Find it every afternoon at YouTube.com slash NPR. And that's up first for Saturday, February 14, 2026. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. Elena Torek produced today's podcast with help from Dave Mistich and Jordan Marie Smith. Our editor is D. Parvas. She had help from Nick Spicer, Miguel Macias, Eric Whitney, Martin

Patience, Jacob Finston and Diana Douglas. Michael Radcliffe is our director. Our technical director is David Greenberg with engineering support from Simon Laslow Janssen and Zoe Van Ginoven. Our senior supervising editor is Shannon Rhodes. E.B. Stone is our executive producer. And Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor. Tomorrow on the Sunday story, in 2024, a woman took the stand in an unprecedented mass rape trial in France.

Among the over 50 perpetrators was her husband. Now, Giselle Pelico is written a memoir of survival titled A Hymn to Life. Shame has to Change Sides. Our colleague Michelle Martin interviewed Giselle Pelico about the shocking case, her decision to hold an open trial and so much more. And of course we have all the latest news, music, movie, sports, and so much more. You can just tune into NPR and find your local station at stations.npr.org. Thank you for listening. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks?

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