The battle among billionaires for bragging rights as the world's richest person got heated Wednesday with the surprising surge of an old contender: Larry Ellison.

In a stunning few minutes after markets opened, stock in Ellison's Oracle Corp. rocketed more than a third, enough for him to temporarily wrest the title from its longtime holder Elon Musk and hand it to the software giant's co-founder.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk pledged Thursday to push ahead with a "great modernization program" for his country's military, a day after Russian drones crossed into Poland and forced the NATO alliance to confront a potential threat in its airspace for the first time.

European officials described Wednesday's incursion, which occurred during a wave of unrelenting Russian strikes on Ukraine, as a deliberate provocation. It deepened longstanding fears that the three-year war between Poland's neighbors could precipitate a wider conflict. U.S.-led efforts to steer Moscow and Kyiv toward a peace settlement have so far failed to get traction.

Qatar's prime minister said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "killed any hope" of releasing hostages still held in the Gaza Strip after Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.

The comments from Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, ahead of appearing at the United Nations on Thursday, underscored the wider anger among Gulf Arab countries over Israel's strike that killed at least six people.

The head of Russia's state-owned gas company Gazprom says it has a deal to build a pipeline to China, but there are many unanswered questions about the details of the agreement.

South Korea's president said Thursday that Korean companies will likely hesitate to make further investments in the United States unless Washington improves its visa system for their employees, as U.S. authorities released hundreds of workers who were detained from a Georgia factory site last week.

In a news conference marking 100 days in office, Lee Jae Myung called for improvements in the U.S. visa system as he spoke about the Sept. 4 immigration raid that resulted in the arrest of more than 300 South Korean workers at a battery factory under construction at Hyundai's sprawling auto plant west of Savannah.

France's finances and politics are in turmoil. President Emmanuel Macron has just appointed a new prime minister — the fourth person to hold the job in the past 12 months. The deficit is out of control. Borrowing costs are rising. And parliament can't muster a majority to tackle spending.

It's a serious comedown for a major industrial power that has the second-largest economy in Europe.

NATO allies swiftly held talks Wednesday on the incursion by multiple Russian drones into Polish — and alliance — airspace and the shooting down of some of the weapons by Polish and Dutch fighter jets.

The consultations at NATO headquarters were part of a regular meeting of ambassadors from the alliance's 32 member states known as the North Atlantic Council, but Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told Parliament that they came under Article 4 of the treaty that founded NATO in 1949 in the aftermath of World War II.

Americans are marking 24 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with solemn ceremonies, volunteer work and other tributes honoring the victims.

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of President Donald Trump who played an influential role in rallying young Republican voters, was shot and killed at a Utah college event in what the governor called a political assassination.

Authorities say Kirk was killed with a single shot from a rooftop on Wednesday. Whoever fired the gun then slipped away amid the chaos of screams and students fleeing the Utah Valley University campus. Federal, state and local authorities were still searching for an unidentified shooter early Thursday and working what they called "multiple active crime scenes."

Poland said early Wednesday that multiple Russian drones entered and were shot down over its territory with help from NATO allies, describing the incident as an "act of aggression" carried out during a wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine.

Several European leaders said they believed Russia was intentionally escalating the war, and NATO was discussing the incident in a meeting. It came three days after Russia's largest aerial attack on Ukraine since the war began, an attack that for the first time hit a key government building in Kyiv.