🇺🇸⚡️- Vice President Vance has entered the Senate chamber.

🇺🇸⚡️- BREAKING: Pete Hegseth has been confirmed as the Secretary of Defense after Vice President Vance's tiebreaker vote.

🇺🇸⚡️- The Senate has also ended the debate on Kristi Noem's confirmation as Secretary of Homeland Security via a cloture call - a roll call vote on her confirmation to happen in the future.

🇺🇸⚡️- OpenAI has launched Operator, an "A.I. agent" which does online tasks like grocery shopping and restaurant reservations automatically. It navigates websites and executes actions, though sometimes needs user input, unlike OpenAI flagship ChatGPT which is centered around text.

🇺🇸⚡️- Kristi Noem has been confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security.

🇺🇸🇵🇦⚡️- Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Panama and other Latin American nations in early February. This follows President Trump’s push to reclaim the Panama Canal due to Panama ceding control to China.

🇵🇸🇨🇭⚡️- Ali Abunimah, director of the pro-Palestinian news website Electronic Intifada, has been arrested and detained in Switzerland ahead of a conference. This follows last year’s home raid of the website's UK editor, Asa Winstanley.

🇺🇸⚡️- The New York Post reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun deportation raids in Los Angeles, California.

🇮🇷🏳️⚡- Abbas Araghchi, Iran's Foreign Minister, arrives in Kabul, Afghanistan.

🇧🇾⚡- Belarusian presidential elections have begun.

🇷🇺🇧🇾⚡- "I have never discussed the unification of Russia and Belarus with Putin," - Aleksandr Lukashenko, President of Belarus.

🇧🇾⚡- Lukashenko said he did not wish to participate in the current presidential elections.

🇧🇾⚡- Lukashenko arrived to vote in the elections.

🇧🇾🇦🇲⚡- "Calm him [Pashinyan] down! He will destroy Armenia. He has problems from the East, from the West. Now he is turning Russia against himself," - Aleksandr Lukashenko, President of Belarus.

🇧🇾⚡- The Belarusian Central Election Commission says the turnout as of 12pm (Minsk time) is 57%.

🇰🇷⚡- South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol indicted on insurrection charges.

🇷🇺🇮🇱⚡- "Israel will not forget the feat of the Russian people and Israel will be represented at the parade on May 9 [in Moscow]" - Simona Galperin, Israeli Ambassador to Russia.

🇺🇸🇯🇴🇪🇬⚡️- President Trump has revealed he has been speaking with the leaders of Jordan & Egypt, and other Arab states about taking in one million Gazans “either short term or long term”.

🇧🇾⚡️- Alexander Lukashenko has won the 2025 Belarussian presidential election.

🇺🇸🇨🇴⚡️- "Colombia turned away two US military aircraft with migrants being deported as part of President Trump's immigration crackdown." - Reuters, citing an unnamed US official.

🇾🇪🇺🇳⚡- Ansarullah detain 7 UN staff members in Yemen, which was confirmed by the UN Secretary-General. In response, the UN suspended all official work in the territories under Houthi control.