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The United States officially left the World Health Organization on Thursday after a year of warnings that doing so would hurt public health in the U.S. and globally, saying its decision reflected failures in the U.N. health agency’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Donald Trump gave notice that the U.S. would quit the organization on the first day of his presidency in 2025, via an executive order.

According to a press release from the U.S. Health and State Departments, the U.S. will only work with the WHO in a limited fashion in order to effectuate the withdrawal.

“We have no plans to participate as an observer, and we have no plans of rejoining,” a senior government health official said. The U.S. said it plans to work directly with other countries - rather than through an international organization - on disease surveillance and other public health priorities.

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Many of the countries that signed on to join President Trump’s “Board of Peace” to stabilize Gaza are also banned from immigrant visas by the State Department. 

Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Morocco, Mongolia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan are among the 75 countries the Trump administration has deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed consular officers to halt immigrant visa applications from these nations earlier this year. 

“President Trump has made clear that immigrants must be financially self-sufficient and not be a financial burden to Americans,” the State Department “The Department of State is undergoing a full review of all policies, regulations, and guidance to ensure that immigrants from these high-risk countries do not utilize welfare in the United States or become a public charge,” it added.wrote in a release last week.

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Former special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday staunchly defended his stymied efforts to prosecute President Trump, saying in his first public testimony that he doesn’t regret taking on the failed probes — even as he stares down the threat of prosecution himself.  

Over some five hours of questioning before the House Judiciary Committee, Smith remained steadfast that the evidence collected by his team of lawyers showed Trump engaged in criminal activity, both in his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 presidential election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

The hearing often grew contentious, as Republican lawmakers portrayed the former Justice Department official’s probes as politically motivated and tensions boiled over from within the public gallery. 

And it’s likely not the last time Smith will face the limelight. Here are five takeaways from the hearing.

Hearing an extension of the battle over Trump

Trump is the most polarizing president in modern history, and Thursday’s hearing was a direct reflection of the massive chasm between the parties when it comes to his leadership credentials, particularly related to his actions and rhetoric surrounding Jan. 6, 2021.

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A Minnesota federal magistrate judge refused to sign a complaint charging independent journalist Don Lemon in connection with a protest inside a church in St. Paul on Sunday, multiple sources familiar with the proceedings told CBS News.

"The attorney general is enraged at the magistrate's decision," said a source familiar with the matter. Attorney General Pam Bondi has been in Minnesota for two days, as the Justice Department has sought to surge prosecutorial and law enforcement resources there.

A different source stressed that the process is not over, and the Justice Department could find other avenues to charge Lemon. 

The magistrate judge who declined to approve charges for Lemon was Douglas Micko, sources told CBS News. Micko previously worked as a federal public defender.

Lemon's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement Thursday that the magistrate's actions "confirm the nature of Don's First Amendment protected work this weekend in Minnesota as a reporter."

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President Donald Trump has suddenly stepped back from threats to annex Greenland while in Europe.

For weeks, Trump has declined to rule out using military force for a U.S. takeover of the icy island, which is a self-governing territory of NATO member Denmark. He has emphasized the U.S. needs control of the island for national security.

But at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, Trump said, "I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland."

Later that day, he announced he reached a "framework of a future deal" with NATO on Greenland and would not be imposing the 10% tariffs on eight European countries he had previously threatened.

The whiplash on tariffs calls back to the early months of his return to office, when the status of tariffs on imports from countries, ranging from our biggest trade partners to an uninhabited island, was dizzying. It garnered the nickname "TACO trade," which some social media users quickly brought back this week.

What does it mean?

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The U.S. is moving additional military assets into the Middle East amid speculation Trump could green light an attack on Iran at any moment. More than a dozen F-15 fighter jets have been deployed along with the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. The sense that an overt war is imminent has abated and the protests, riots, and bloodshed in the streets of Iran that took place earlier this month have, for now, ended, yet the incendiary situation remains liable to develop into wider conflict.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that if Iran sought to assassinate him, “the whole country’s going to get blown up.” “I have very firm instructions,” he continued. “Anything happens, they’re going to wipe them off the face of this earth.” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that any attempt to assassinate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation.”

Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill spoke to Dr. Foad Izadi, professor of American studies and international relations at University of Tehran, on Wednesday. They discussed the origins of the protests, the narrative war, how Iran might respond to another military attack by the U.S. and more.

“The U.S. wants to repeat the Libya experience, disintegrate Iran, take out the oil-rich southern part, and then the rest of the country would fall apart. This is the ultimate plan they have,” said Izadi. “I don’t think they have given up. I think Trump has basically given the Iran portfolio to Netanyahu. He decides what to do. And then basically Trump implements whatever Netanyahu has decided to do. And Trump is going to be in office for another three years. So I don’t think they are done with Iran.”

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Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys, three journalists and a woman, hospitals said, on one of the war-battered enclave ‘s deadliest days since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect in October.

The United States is trying to push the deal forward and implement its challenging second phase.

mong the dead were three Palestinian journalists who were killed while filming near a displacement camp in central Gaza, a camp official said. Israel’s military said it had spotted suspects who were operating a drone that posed a threat to its troops.

The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one, a 13-year-old, his father and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the three had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas.

he other 13-year-old was shot by troops in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, Nasser Hospital said after receiving the body. In a video circulated online, the father of Moatsem al-Sharafy is seen weeping over it.

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US President Donald Trump told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Russian President Vladimir Putin had accepted an invitation to join an US-led “Peace Council” to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza.

The council, which is intended to provide international oversight of the levelled Palestinian territory in the wake of a US-brokered ceasefire, has been snubbed by many European leaders over concerns that it could undermine the role of the United Nations.

As per AFP, Trump said of Putin that “he was invited, he’s accepted. Many people have accepted.”

Although the Kremlin received Trump’s invitation on Jan. 19, it has not yet confirmed its acceptance. “The Russian foreign ministry has been charged with studying the documents that were sent to us and to consult on the topic with our strategic partners,” Putin told a televised cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

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