President Donald Trump's national security adviser on Wednesday sidelined about 160 National Security Council aides, sending them home while the administration reviews staffing and tries to align it with Trump's agenda.

The career government employees, commonly referred to as detailees, were summoned Wednesday for an all-staff call and told they will be expected to be available to the council's senior directors but would not need to report to the White House. The council provides national security and foreign policy advice to the president.

In the days since a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank and suspected Jewish settlers have rampaged through two Palestinian towns.

The violence comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces domestic pressure from his far-right allies after agreeing to the truce and hostage-prisoner exchange with the Hamas militant group. U.S. President Donald Trump has, meanwhile, rescinded the Biden administration's sanctions against Israelis accused of violence in the territory.

Saudi Arabia's crown prince said Thursday the kingdom wants to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years, comments that came after President Donald Trump earlier put a price tag on returning to the kingdom as his first foreign trip.

Trump's 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia upended a tradition of U.S. presidents first heading to the United Kingdom as their first trip abroad. It also underscored his administration's close ties to the rulers of the oil-rich Gulf states as his eponymous real estate company has pursued deals across the region as well.

If this is Mohamed Salah's final season at Liverpool, he is going out in style.

The Egypt striker scored his 50th European goal for Liverpool and his 22nd in all competitions this season to help Arne Slot's team secure a place in the Champions League round of 16 with a 2-1 victory over Lille on Tuesday.

The U.N. chief ratcheted up his warning about climate change and said the world's thirst for fossil fuels is a "Frankenstein monster" that spares no one, while calling for greater attention to risks posed by artificial intelligence if its ascent goes ungoverned.

António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, headlined a flurry of activities and talk sessions on Wednesday as the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos.

Prince Harry claimed a monumental victory Wednesday as Rupert Murdoch's U.K. tabloids made an unprecedented apology for intruding in his life over decades and agreed to pay substantial damages to settle his privacy invasion lawsuit.

News Group Newspapers offered a "full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion by The Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators," Harry's attorney, David Sherborne, read from a statement in court.

Indonesian rescuers retrieved two more bodies after they resumed their search Wednesday for people missing after floods and landslides on Indonesia's main island of Java, bringing the death toll to 19.

Waters from flooded rivers tore through nine villages in Pekalongan regency of Central Java province and landslides tumbled onto mountainside hamlets after the torrential rains Monday.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded an apology from the Episcopal bishop of Washington after she made a direct appeal to him during a prayer service marking his inauguration to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and migrant workers who are in the United States illegally.

Referencing Trump's belief that he was saved by God from assassination, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde said, "You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now."

Israel says it will maintain control of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the ceasefire with Hamas.

A statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday denied reports that the Palestinian Authority would control the crossing.

China's relations are starting to improve with Japan, India and other countries that former U.S. President Joe Biden courted, just as Donald Trump brings his more unilateralist approach back to the White House.

The change of leadership in Washington on Monday could be an opportunity for China, which has long railed against Biden's strategy of building partnerships with "like-minded countries" to counter its growing influence.