The International Court of Justice said Israel has a legal obligation to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip by the UN and its entities to ensure the basic needs of Palestinian civilians there are met. An advisory opinion from the UN's top court also said Israel had not substantiated its allegations that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) lacked neutrality or that a significant number of its staff were members of Hamas or other armed groups.

The UN's chief hoped Israel would abide by the "very important decision". But Israel rejected it as "political" and insisted it would not co-operate with UNRWA, which it has banned. The opinion is non-binding, but it carries significant moral and diplomatic weight. In December, the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ for an opinion on Israel's obligations, as an occupying power and a member of the UN, towards UN agencies and other international organisations operating in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal 88 million euros ($102 million) worth of crown jewels in a weekend heist at the world's most visited museum, the Louvre, shocking the world. French officials described how the intruders rode a basket lift up the Louvre's facade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled on Sunday morning. The director of the Louvre Museum in Paris acknowledged a ″terrible failure.″ The culprits, who were still at large on Wednesday, spent less than four minutes inside the museum.

The Louvre's director on Wednesday acknowledged a "terrible failure" at the Paris tourist attraction, and said that she offered to resign but it was refused. In testimony to the French Senate, Louvre director Laurence des Cars said that the museum had a shortage of security cameras outside the monument and other ″weaknesses″ exposed by Sunday's (Oct. 19) theft.

In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the US government's gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday (Oct. 22), a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America's balance sheet. It's also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic - the US hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year. The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nation's daily finances.

Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury Department, told The Associated Press that a growing debt load over time leads ultimately to higher inflation, eroding Americans' purchasing power. The US hit $34 trillion in debt in January 2024, $35 trillion in July 2024 and $36 trillion in November 2024.

Japan's parliament elected ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi as the country's first female prime minister, and she underlined her commitment to boosting Japanese defense as she prepared to host visiting US President Donald Trump next week. Takaichi replaces outgoing Shigeru Ishiba after the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered disastrous losses in July elections for parliament's upper house and lost its majority in the lower house last year. Her election comes a day after the LDP struck a deal in a fragile coalition with a new partner expected to pull her governing bloc further to the right.

"I'm determined to build a strong Japanese economy and protect Japan's national interest with diplomacy and security," said Takaichi, a security hawk who was elected head of the LDP on Oct. 4. She cited the Japan-U.S. alliance as a "cornerstone" of Japanese diplomacy and stressed that Japan is an indispensable partner for America in its strategy to provide counterweights to China in the Indo-Pacific region.