By EDITH M. LEDERER and FARNOUSH AMIRI

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to sidestep the United Nations through his new Board of Peace appears to have inadvertently backfired after major world powers rejected U.S. aspirations for it to have a larger international mandate beyond the Gaza ceasefire and recommitted their support for the over 80-year-old global institution.

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The board to be chaired by Trump was originally envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing his plan for Gaza’s future. But the Republican president’s ambitions have expanded to envisioning the board as a mediator of worldwide conflicts, a not very subtle attempt to eclipse the Security Council, which is charged with ensuring international peace and security.

The board’s charter also caused some dismay by stating Trump will lead it until he resigns, with veto power over its actions and membership.

His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, tried to ease concerns by saying the board’s focus right now is only on the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire plan.

“This is not a replacement for the U.N., but the U.N. has served very little purpose in the case of Gaza other than the food assistance,” Rubio said at a congressional hearing Wednesday.

But Trump’s promotion of a broadened mandate and his floating of an idea that the Board of Peace “might” replace the U.N. have put off major players and been dismissed by U.N. officials.

“In my opinion, the basic responsibility for international peace and security lies with U.N., lies with the Security Council,” Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday. “Only the Security Council can adopt decisions binding on all, and no other body or other coalition can legally be required to have all member states to comply with decisions on peace and security.”

In Security Council statements, public speeches and behind closed doors, U.S. allies and adversaries have dismissed Trump’s latest plan to overturn the post-World War II international order with what he describes as a “bold new approach to resolving global conflict.”

“The U.S. rollout of the much broader Board of Peace charter turned the whole exercise into a liability,” according to the International Crisis Group’s Richard Gowan, a U.N. watcher and program director. “Countries that wanted to sign on to help Gaza saw the board turning into a Trump fan club. That was not appealing.”

“If Trump had kept the focus of the board solely on Gaza, more states, including some more Europeans, would have signed up,” he said.

President Trump sits on the podium during a session on the Board of Peace initiative of US President Donald Trump at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Key Security Council members haven’t signed on

The four other veto-wielding members of the Security Council — China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom — have refused or have not indicated whether they would join Trump’s board, as have economic powers such as Japan and Germany.

Letters sent this month inviting various world leaders to be “founding members” of the Board of Peace coincided with Trump’s vow to take over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and punish some European countries that resisted. That was met with stark rebuttal from Canada, Denmark and others, who said Trump’s demand threatened to upend an alliance that has been among the West’s most unshakeable.

Shortly after, Trump pulled a dramatic reversal on Greenland, saying he had agreed with the NATO secretary-general on a “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security.

Amid the diplomatic chaos, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who at the time had not responded to Trump’s Board of Peace invitation, met with Guterres in London and reiterated “the UK’s enduring support for the UN and the international rules-based system,” according to a statement.

Starmer emphasized the U.N.’s “pivotal role in tackling global problems which shape lives in the UK and all over the world.” The United Kingdom later declined to join the board.

France, Spain and Slovenia declined Trump’s offer by mentioning its overlapping and potentially conflicting agenda with the U.N.

French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that the board goes beyond “the framework of Gaza and raises serious questions, in particular with respect to the principles and structure of the United Nations, which cannot be called into question.”

Spain would not join because the board excluded the Palestinian Authority and because the body was “outside the framework of the United Nations,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, welcomes UN Secretary General António Guterres to 10 Downing Street, London, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (Henry Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)

Some countries are urging a stronger UN

America’s adversaries also have shunned the board.

“No single country should dictate terms based on its power, and a winner-takes-all approach is unacceptable,” China’s U.N. ambassador, Fu Cong, said at a Security Council meeting Monday.

He called for the United Nations to be strengthened, not weakened, and said the Security Council’s status and role “are irreplaceable.”

In a clear reference to the Board of Peace, Fu said, “We shall not cherry-pick our commitments to the organization, nor shall we bypass the U.N. and create alternative mechanisms.”

So far, about 26 of some 60 invited countries have joined the board, and about nine European countries have declined. India did not attend Trump’s signing ceremony at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last week but is reportedly still deciding what to do. Trump revoked Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s invitation.

“It’s hardly surprising that very few governments want to join Trump’s wannabe-U.N., which so far looks more like a pay-to-play club of human rights abusers and war crimes suspects than a serious international organization,” said Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director for Human Rights Watch. “Instead of handing Trump $1 billion checks to join his Board of Peace, governments should work on strengthening the U.N.”

Eight Muslim nations that agreed to join the board issued a joint statement that supported its mission in Gaza and advancement of Palestinian statehood. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates made no mention of Trump’s global peacemaking plan.

The Crisis Group’s Gowan said their focus could be a way to “get a foothold in discussions of Gaza” at the start, as Trump’s ceasefire plan has already faced several setbacks.

“I remain unconvinced that this is a real long-term threat to the U.N.,” Gowan said.

By MATTHEW LEE, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreign leaders and governments presented to former President Joe Biden, his wife, U.S. Cabinet members and other senior officials tens of thousands of dollars in gifts in the last year of the Biden administration, including a $19,000 painting, an $11,000 necklace, a $5,000 bracelet and in one case $15,000 in cash, according to the latest accounting from the State Department.

The annual report, published Thursday in the Federal Register by the department’s Bureau of Protocol, covers calendar year 2024 and does not include any gifts given to President Donald Trump or his administration in the first year of Trump’s second term.

Federal employees are required to report gifts they receive from foreign officials that are worth more than $480. Most gifts are transferred to the National Archives or General Services Administration and not kept by the recipient unless they choose to reimburse the Treasury for them or in rare cases keep them for official use.

Biden’s most expensive gift: A $19,000 painting from Angola’s president

Biden received an acrylic painting titled “Marimba” by the noted Angolan artist Guizef Guilherme, which had an estimated value of $19,000 and was sent to the archives.

Perhaps more unusually, Biden was gifted a sterling silver train set worth $7,750 from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a road bike and two crates of dates worth $7,089 from United Arab Emirates president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The train set and bike were both transferred to the archives while the dates were disposed of by the Secret Service, the report says.

Other high-dollar gifts given to the former president include:

— A $3,300 sculpture of a winged woman by the prime minister of Iraq

— $3,300 in photographs and artwork from the prime minister of the Czech Republic

— $3,000 in sculpture, photographs, posters and books from President Emmanuel Macron of France

— $2,512 worth of assorted presents, including aviator sunglasses, wine, a cookbook, cufflinks and a commemorative Nutella jar from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

All of those items were sent to the archives with the exception of the perishables, which were destroyed.

Jill Biden’s most expensive gift: Diamond necklace and perfume worth $11,165 from the emir of Qatar

Biden’s wife, former first lady Jill Biden, received a bottle of Ormonde Jayne perfume and an 18-carat gold necklace with diamonds from the emir of Qatar and his spouse. The combined gift was estimated to be worth $11,165, and the report did not break down the individual value of the two items.

She kept the perfume bottle after the liquid was disposed of, but the necklace went to the National Archives.

Jill Biden also reported receiving a Dior bracelet and Sevres vase from Macron’s wife, Brigitte, in a combined gift valued at $5,090. Biden purchased the bracelet but sent the vase to the archives. The report did not give the individual value of the two items.

Harris’ most expensive gift: Rug, book and cooking utensils worth $2,633 from the United Arab Emirates

Former Vice President Kamala Harris received a number of pricey gifts, but none were reported to be worth more than $2,700.

The biggest was a rug, cooking utensils, and a book valued at $2,633 from the United Arab Emirates. She also received:

— A book and clock from the crown prince of Bahrain valued at $1,775

— A ceramic bowl from the first lady of South Korea valued at $1,440

— A painting from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy worth $1,460.

All were transferred to the National Archives.

Defense secretary given $3,700 bronze statue, while CIA chief was gifted $3,000 horse saddle

Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reported receiving several high-value gifts, including a $3,700 bronze statue from his Indian counterpart, binoculars worth $2,950 from his Qatari counterpart and a $1,300 watercolor painting from the prime minister of Iraq. All were to be transferred to the General Services Administration.

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At the CIA, former director William Burns reported receiving a $3,000 horse saddle from a senior Kazakh official that was retained for official use.

Several of his employees, who are not required to be named in the document, reported gifts that were also kept for “official use,” including $2,390 in tickets for a Formula One race and a concert by hip-hop star Teddy Swims as well as a $543 box of Swedish/Cuban cigars.

Another CIA employee reported receiving $15,000 in cash from an unnamed foreign government official. The money was given to the Federal Reserve, according to the report.

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken reported only a handful of gifts in 2024, none of them valued at more than $800. All of those were sent to the GSA for potential use in government facilities.

By LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation’s voting laws, a long-shot priority for President Donald Trump that would impose stricter requirements before Americans vote in the midterm elections in the fall.

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The package expected to be released Thursday reflects some of the party’s most sought-after election changes, including requirements for photo IDs before people can vote, proof of citizenship and prohibitions on universal vote-by-mail and ranked choice voting — two voting methods that have proved popular in some states. The Republican president continues to insist that the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged.

“Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity – including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” said Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, in a statement.

“These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,” said Steil, R-Wis.

The legislation faces a long road ahead in the narrowly-split Congress, where Democrats have rejected similar ideas as disenfranchising Americans’ ability to vote with onerous registration and ID requirements. The effort comes as the Trump administration is turning its attention toward election issues before the November election, when control of Congress will be at stake.

The administration sent FBI agents Wednesday to raid the election headquarters of Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, seeking ballots from the 2020 election. That follows Trump’s comments earlier this month when he suggested that charges related to that election were imminent.

Republicans are calling their new legislation the “Make Elections Great Again Act” and say their proposal should provide the minimum standard for elections for federal offices.

According to a one-page bill summary, the measure includes requirements that people present a photo ID before they vote and that states verify the citizenship of individuals when they register to vote. It would require states to use “auditable” paper ballots in elections, which many already do.

The legislation would require that only mail-in ballots received in the states by the close of polling on Election Day could be counted, with an exception for those ballots from overseas military personnel. It would prohibit the mailing of ballots to all voters through universal vote-by-mail systems.

Similar proposals have drawn alarm from voting rights group, which say such changes could lead to widespread problems for voters.

For example, prior Republican efforts to require proof of citizenship to vote have been criticized by Democrats as disenfranchising married women whose last names do not match birth certificates or other government documents.

The Brennan Center for Justice and other groups estimated in a 2023 report that 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of their citizenship readily available. Almost half of Americans do not have a U.S. passport.

Trump has long signaled a desire to change how elections are run in the United States and last year he issued an executive order that included a citizenship requirement, among other election-related changes.

At the time, House Republicans approved legislation, the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” that would cement Trump’s order into law. That bill has stalled in the Senate, though lawmakers have recently revived efforts to bring it forward for consideration.

Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

By GABRIELA AOUN ANGUEIRA

The Federal Emergency Management Agency would have enough money to respond to the massive winter storm still impacting large swaths of the U.S. even if a partial government shutdown begins at midnight Friday, experts and former FEMA officials said, despite Trump administration warnings to the contrary.

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FEMA would have about $7 billion to $8 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, even if the money Congress appropriated for the fund in the November spending bill that ended the longest government shutdown were to expire Friday at midnight, according to two people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss FEMA funding with the media.

Experts said the remaining balance should be enough to limit impacts on the winter storm response, at least in the short term.

“They have enough money for winter storm recovery and anything else likely to come up in the next few weeks,” said Sarah Labowitz, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of the Disaster Dollar Database, which tracks federal disaster spending.

FEMA falls under the Department of Homeland Security, one of several departments whose funding for fiscal year 2026 depends on the Senate passing a spending package that the House already approved. After federal immigration officers killed a Minneapolis man on Saturday, some Senate Democrats are demanding restrictions on how immigration enforcement is conducted in any DHS funding bill, a stand that raises the prospect of a partial government shutdown by the end of the week.

Trump administration officials have cited the storm and FEMA’s response to it as a reason to avoid a shutdown.

“We are in the midst of the winter storm that took place over the weekend, and many Americans are still being impacted by that, so we absolutely do not want to see that funding lapse,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday.

DHS did not respond to requests for comment.

States still assessing winter storm impacts

The Disaster Relief Fund pays for FEMA’s disaster response and recovery efforts and the staffers who work on them. That work can continue unless the fund is in danger of running out, at which point the agency begins prioritizing the most urgent missions.

FEMA is supporting state-led responses to last weekend’s gigantic winter storm, which left hundreds of thousands of residents across multiple states without power and is tied to at least 80 deaths.

President Donald Trump, a Republican, approved emergency declarations for 12 states, unlocking federal support for emergency measures and debris removal. The agency positioned food, water and other supplies across multiple states and is coordinating federal help from other agencies like the U.S. Forest Service for clearing fallen trees from roads and the Army Corps of Engineers for connecting generators at critical facilities like warming centers and hospitals.

It’s unclear how many states if any will request major disaster declarations after they assess damage, which can help pay for repairs to critical infrastructure and financial assistance for impacted households through the Disaster Relief Fund.

“The winter storm at this time is well within the capability of local communities and states,” said Michael Coen, former FEMA chief of staff in the Democratic Obama and Biden administrations.

The timing of the potential shutdown also helps ease concerns over FEMA’s coffers. “We’re a bit of a ways off from wildfire season and hurricane season, so I don’t see a huge impact in the short run in terms of FEMA operations,” said Noah Patton, director of disaster recovery at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

If a partial government shutdown does occur, some FEMA operations not funded by the Disaster Relief Fund, like the ability to write or renew National Flood Insurance Program policies, would again pause as they did during last year’s 43-day shutdown. Some essential employees would work unpaid.

A drawn-out shutdown could put more pressure on the Disaster Relief Fund, especially if FEMA must respond to new disasters, and could result in a slowdown of reimbursements for past disasters. Several experts pointed out that those reimbursements have already lagged due to a DHS policy that expenditures of $100,000 or more be personally approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The spending bill now before the Senate would give the Disaster Relief Fund more than $26 billion, as well as nearly $4 billion for various FEMA emergency preparedness and security grants.

Mixed messages on FEMA as shutdown looms

Trump officials’ warnings about FEMA’s ability to help states come when the administration’s own support for the agency is in question. Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of phasing out FEMA and often calls for states to take on more responsibility for disasters.

Now, Trump officials seem to be leaning on FEMA and its critical purpose as a reason not to shut down the government.

“This funding supports national security and critical national emergency operations, including FEMA responses to a historic snowstorm that is affecting 250 million Americans,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News on Tuesday.

The greater impacts to FEMA are not from a potential partial shutdown, Coen said, but from Trump’s own policies.

“The administration has been dismantling FEMA over the last year,” he said. “Using the agency as a justification for congressional action is laughable.”

Despite saying he wants to overhaul FEMA, Trump has not articulated a vision for those changes. The December release of a long-awaited report from his FEMA Review Council was abruptly canceled and has not been rescheduled.

Meanwhile, several Trump administration policies have had significant consequences for the agency and the states, tribes and territories it supports, including the departures of thousands of staffers and interruptions to grant programs.

Language in the proposed spending bill aims to rein in some of those actions, limiting FEMA’s ability to pause grants and trainings and requiring the agency to publicly report the status of its reimbursements to states for declared disasters.

Labowitz said some of the Trump administration’s policies contributed to why FEMA did not run out of money last year, pointing to delays in major disaster approvals and reimbursements. “All last year they were slow walking spending in the DRF,” Labowitz said.