By JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that he has agreed to join U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace in a departure from an earlier stance when his office criticized the makeup of the board’s committee tasked with overseeing Gaza.

Norway and Sweden, meanwhile, said they would not be joining the board at this stage, following in the footsteps of France, which has expressed concern the board could seek to replace the United Nations as the mediator in global conflicts.

Chaired by Trump, the board was originally envisaged as a small group of world leaders overseeing the Gaza ceasefire plan. The Trump administration’s ambitions have since expanded into a more sprawling concept, with Trump extending invitations to dozens of nations and hinting the board will soon broker global conflicts.

Trump headed for the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where he is expected to provide more details about the board.

Israel, Azerbaijan and Kosovo say yes, Norway and Sweden say no

Netanyahu’s office had previously said the composition of the Gaza executive committee — which includes Turkey, Israel’s key regional rival — was not coordinated with the Israeli government and ran “contrary to its policy,” without clarifying its objections.

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Netanyahu’s decision to join the board could now put him in conflict with some of the far-right allies in his coalition, such as Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has criticized the board and called for Israel to take unilateral responsibility for Gaza’s future.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said Wednesday he was also joining, as did Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani.

Norway’s state secretary, Kristoffer Thoner, said in a statement Wednesday that Norway would not join the board because it “raises a number of questions that requires further dialogue with the United States.” He said Norway would not attend the signing ceremony in Davos.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on the sidelines of Davos on Wednesday that his country isn’t signing up for the board as the text currently stands, Swedish news agency TT reported. Sweden hasn’t yet formally responded.

Much of Western Europe, Russia and China have not said whether they will join

Those who previously joined the board are the United Arab Emirates, Armenia, Morocco, Vietnam, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Argentina. Bahrain and Egypt said Wednesday they would also join.

Invitation letters from Trump also have been sent to the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, China, Egypt, Paraguay, Turkey, India, Slovenia, Croatia, Thailand and the European Union’s executive arm.

There are many unanswered questions. It was not immediately clear how many other leaders would receive invitations and how broad the board’s mandate will be. When asked by a reporter on Tuesday if the board should replace the United Nations, Trump said: “It might.”

The makeup of the board

Under the ceasefire deal, the board’s Gaza executive committee will be in charge of implementing the tough second phase of the agreement. That includes deploying an international security force, disarming the Hamas group and rebuilding the war-devastated territory. It will also supervise a newly appointed committee of Palestinian technocrats who will be running Gaza’s day-to-day affairs.

The White House says its members include Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan; Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi; Hassan Rashad, director of Egypt’s General Intelligence Agency; Emirati minister Reem Al-Hashimy; Israeli businessman Yakir Gabay; and Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands’ former deputy prime minister and a Mideast expert.

Nickolay Mladenov, a former Bulgarian politician and U.N. Mideast envoy, is to serve as the Gaza executive board’s representative overseeing day-to-day matters.

Separate from the Gaza executive committee, the founding executive committee’s members include U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Witkoff, Kushner, Blair, Rowan, World Bank President Ajay Banga and Trump’s deputy national security adviser Robert Gabriel.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Catherine Gaschka in Paris contributed to this report.

By LORNE COOK, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and slap tariffs on its backers pose a challenge to Europe’s security, principles and prosperity, a top EU official said on Wednesday.

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“All these three dimensions are being tested in the current moment of transatlantic relations,” European Council President António Costa said. He has convened an emergency summit of the EU’s 27 national leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Trump’s determination to “acquire” the mineral-rich island in the Arctic region, for what he claims are security reasons, has undermined trust in the United States among allies in Europe and Canada.

Denmark angered Trump after sending a military “reconnaissance” force to Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory. A small numbers of troops from several European nations joined, and Denmark is weighing a longer-term military presence there.

Costa said EU leaders are united on “the principles of international law, territorial integrity and national sovereignty,” something the bloc has underlined in defending Ukraine against invasion by Russia, and which is now threatened in Greenland.

In a speech to EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, he also stressed that only “Denmark and Greenland can decide their future.”

He insisted that “further tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and are incompatible with the EU-US trade agreement.” The lawmakers must endorse that deal made last July, but have threatened not to do so over Trump’s tariff threats.

Costa said that “we stand ready to defend ourselves, our member states, our citizens, our companies, against any form of coercion. And the European Union has the power and the tools to do so.”

EU leaders have been galvanized by Trump’s threats over Greenland, and are rethinking their relations with America, their long-time ally and the most powerful member of NATO.

“Appeasement is always a sign of weakness. Europe cannot afford to be weak — neither against its enemies, nor ally,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, long a staunch supporter of strong transatlantic ties, posted on social media on Tuesday.

“Appeasement means no results, only humiliation. European assertiveness and self-confidence have become the need of the moment,” Tusk wrote.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who manages trade on behalf of EU countries, warned that the bloc is “at a crossroads.” Should tariffs come, she said, “we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency and determination.”

In Strasbourg, she told the lawmakers that the commission is working on “a massive European investment surge in Greenland” to beef up its economy and infrastructure, as well as a new European security strategy.

Security around the island itself should be boosted with partners like the U.K., Canada, Norway and Iceland, among others, von der Leyen said.

By JOSH BOAK and AAMER MADHANI, Associated Press

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Donald Trump heads to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps on Wednesday where his ambitions to wrest control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark could tear relations with European allies and overshadow his original plan to use his appearance at the gathering of global elites to address affordability issues back home.

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Trump arrives for the international forum at Davos on the heels of threatening tariffs on Denmark and seven other allies unless they negotiate a transfer of the semi-autonomous territory — a concession the European leaders indicated they are not willing to make. Trump said the tariffs would start at 10% next month and climb to 25% in June, rates that would be high enough to increase costs and slow growth, potentially hurting Trump’s efforts to tamp down the high cost of living.

The president in a text message that circulated among European officials this week also linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize. In the message, he told Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

In the midst of an unusual stretch of testing the United States’ relations with longtime allies, it seems uncertain what might transpire during Trump’s two days in Switzerland.

On Tuesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a Davos panel he and Trump planned to deliver a stark message: “Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy,” he said.

“This will be an interesting trip,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Tuesday evening for his flight to Davos. “I have no idea what’s going to happen, but you are well represented.”

In fact, his trip to Davos got off to a difficult start. There was a minor electrical problem on Air Force One, leading the crew to turn around the plane about 30 minutes into the flight out of an abundance of caution and delaying the president’s arrival in Switzerland.

Things are unloaded from Air Force One after the plane, carrying President Donald Trump to the World Economic Form in Davos, experienced a minor electrical issue after departure, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, and returned to Joint Base Andrews, Md. Trump will board a second plane to complete the trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Wall Street wobbled on Tuesday as investors weighed Trump’s new tariff threats and escalating tensions with European allies. The S&P 500 fell 2.1%, its biggest drop since October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.8%. The Nasdaq composite slumped 2.4%.

“It’s clear that we are reaching a time of instability, of imbalances, both from the security and defense point of view, and economic point of view,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in his address to the forum. Macron made no direct mention of Trump but urged fellow leaders to reject acceptance of “the law of the strongest.”

Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that should Trump move forward with the tariffts, the bloc’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional.” She pointedly suggested that Trump’s new tariff threat could also undercut a US-EU trade framework reached this summer that the Trump administration worked hard to to seal.

“The European Union and the United States have agreed to a trade deal last July,” von der Leyen said in Davos. “And in politics as in business — a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.”

Why Trump is talking about housing in Davos

Trump, ahead of the address, said he planned on using his Davos appearance to talk about making housing more attainable and other affordability issues that are top priorities for Americans.

But Trump’s Greenland tariff threat could disrupt the U.S. economy if it blows up the trade truce reached last year between the U.S. and the EU, said Scott Lincicome, a tariff critic and vice president on economic issues at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“Significantly undermining investors’ confidence in the U.S. economy in the longer term would likely increase interest rates and thus make homes less affordable,” Lincicome said.

Trump also on Tuesday warned Europe against retaliatory action for the coming new tariffs.

“Anything they do with us, I’ll just meet it,” Trump said on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight.” “All I have to do is meet it, and it’s going to go ricocheting backward.”

Davos — a forum known for its appeal to the global elite — is an odd backdrop for a speech on affordability. But White House officials have promoted it as a moment for Trump to try to rekindle populist support back in the U.S., where many voters who backed him in 2024 view affordability as a major problem. About six in 10 U.S. adults now say that Trump has hurt the cost of living, according to the latest survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

U.S. home sales are at a 30-year low with rising prices and elevated mortgage rates keeping many prospective buyers out of the market. So far, Trump has announced plans to buy $200 billion in mortgage securities to help lower interest rates on home loans, and has called for a ban on large financial companies buying houses.

Trump will promote his ‘Board of Peace’

The White House has said Trump plans to meet with leaders on the sidelines of the forum, after he gives his keynote address. There are more than 60 other heads of state attending.

On Thursday, Trump plans to have an event to talk about the “Board of Peace,” a new body meant to oversee the end of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and possibly take on a broader mandate, potentially rivaling the United Nations.

Fewer than 10 leaders have accepted invitations to join the group so far, including a handful of leaders considered to be anti-democratic authoritarians. Several of America’s main European partners have declined or been noncommittal, including Britain, France and Germany.

Trump on Tuesday told reporters that his peace board “might” eventually make the U.N. obsolete but insisted he wants to see the international body stick around.

“I believe you got to let the U.N. continue, because the potential is so great,” Trump said.

Madhani reported from Washington.

When it comes to spinach, there seem to be two camps: Those who are irked and those who are delighted when a mountain of fresh spinach cooks down to a mere molehill.

I belong to the delighted camp, not least because the sweet, earthy taste of cooked spinach can be a balm for the taste buds after a parade of rich holiday foods and cookies.

Rather than feel scammed by Big Spinach, I love its vanishing act and use it to my advantage, as in these spinach egg bites. Since fresh spinach consists of mostly water, chopping it up and cooking it, and subsequently removing the water, concentrates its essence into something to be celebrated: a dense fistful of green.

When you’re on the run, though, frozen chopped spinach helps you get there much faster, without sacrificing too much flavor or nutrients.

Since it’s already been processed — washed, chopped, blanched then frozen — it can be used right away, so long as you thaw it. (I like to do this in the refrigerator the night before, though you could leave the unopened package in a bowl of cold water for speedier thawing.)

There are many ways to eat a condensed mound of spinach. These egg bites just happen to be the cutest. They were a real lifeline for me last year when I was so busy that I found myself skipping meals. But, I tried to remind myself, not every breakfast, lunch and dinner needs to be a big home-cooked affair, especially when you’re on the run. So it helps to have something nutrient-dense and protein-packed stocked in the fridge or freezer, ready to reheat and eat at a moment’s notice.

And it’s nothing new: Many great dishes of the world start with greens and herbs bound by egg. Spanakopita, the savory Greek spinach and feta pie, comes to mind, as does kuku sabzi, the frittatalike Persian dish. Stouffer’s spinach souffle is arguably America’s best interpretation of the form. Borrowing from all of those, these egg bites are tender in texture and dense in green flavor, not least because they’re mostly spinach and scallions.

As with most spinach and egg dishes, this recipe is very adaptable. You can swap out the scallions for dill or parsley, and the Parmesan for cheddar or feta. Make them your own and let them power you through the year.

Spinach Egg Bites

Lovers of the sweet, earthy flavor of leafy greens can rejoice in these fluffy egg bites, which are mostly spinach and scallions bound by a little egg. Many great dishes of the world start like this: Spanikopita, the savory Greek spinach and feta pie, comes to mind, as does kuku sabzi, the herby, frittatalike Persian dish. These egg bites are a great make-ahead breakfast or high-protein snack on their own, and they’re also a lovely lunch or light dinner alongside a green salad. They’re adaptable, too: You can swap out the scallions for dill or parsley, and the Parmesan for cheddar or feta. Make them your own.

By Eric Kim

Yield: 12 egg bites

Total time: 45 minutes

INGREDIENTS

Olive oil, for greasing
2 (10-ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed
4 scallions, thinly sliced crosswise
6 large eggs
2 cups (16 ounces) cottage cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

DIRECTIONS

1. Arrange a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 375 degrees. Generously grease a 12-cup muffin tin with olive oil and place on a sheet pan.

2. With clean hands, squeeze the spinach over the sink to remove as much water as possible. Drain well and add to a large bowl, along with the scallions, eggs, cottage cheese, Parmesan and nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper. Stir until well combined. Add the flour and baking powder, and stir just until incorporated.

3. Fill the muffin tin with the spinach mixture — 1/3 cup each — and bake until set, 20 to 25 minutes. Allow to cool completely before running a sharp paring knife around the edges of each cup to help release the bites. (Alternatively, you could use a silicon muffin mold.)

4. These egg bites stay fresh in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and in the freezer for up to 3 months. To reheat, just microwave them for 10 seconds at a time until warmed through.

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