A major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine is now under way, according to a Ukrainian source familiar with the matter.

The swap started on Friday, with Kyiv and Moscow swapping hundreds of prisoners.

As with previous exchanges, Ukrainian and Russian authorities were not expected to publicly state that it was taking place until after it had been completed. However, US President Donald Trump broke that convention on Friday, announcing the swap on social media as it was unfolding.

The agreement to release 1,000 prisoners on each side was the only significant outcome of the meeting between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul last week, which marked the first time the two sides have met directly since soon after Russia’s full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Istanbul meeting was initially proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to a ceasefire-or-sanctions ultimatum given to Moscow by Kyiv’s European allies – which many saw as a clear attempt by the Kremlin leader to distract and delay.

But while the return of hundreds of Ukrainian detainees will come as a huge relief to their families and loved ones, it remains somewhat underwhelming as the only tangible outcome of the highly touted meeting.

Prisoner swaps have been happening regularly, most recently earlier this month.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a government department, said the exchange on May 7, which saw more than 200 Ukrainian service members return home, was the fifth swap this year and the 64th since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The department said at the time that at 4,757 Ukrainian citizens have been released since March 2022.

Ukraine and its allies demanded that Russia agree to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Istanbul, but that did not happen.

Kyiv also offered direct talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Hours after the Al Haj bakery handed out its last piece of bread on Thursday, Jihad Al Shafie was still waiting, his hope of bringing some food to his family long gone.

Like many in the crowd standing outside the bakery in central Gaza, Al Shafie lined up early in the morning, anticipating freshly baked pita from the first deliveries of flour to enter the besieged territory since early March. He was forced to leave empty-handed, as many of the promised truckloads of food remained in southern Gaza, a dozen or so miles away.

For one hour on Thursday afternoon, the bakery “experienced unprecedented invasions,” according to the owner, as a mob descended on the facility in a scramble for food. Through the small window separating the workers inside from the crowd, desperate hands reached in, trying to get lucky enough to secure a bag of bread. The chaos vanished as quickly as the bread, leaving scores with nothing.

Ina’am Al Burdeini walked an hour from Al-Maghazi refugee camp to the bakery, only to find a crowd already there when she arrived. She, too, left empty-handed. “It’s exhausting, and we feel lost and abandoned,” said Al Burdeini, directing her anger both inside and outside of Gaza. “People are desperate. It’s time for action, not empty promises. Hamas get out!”

This week, Israel began allowing in the first trucks with food and humanitarian supplies since imposing a complete blockade of humanitarian goods on Gaza on March 2. More than 300 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since Monday, according to Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which oversees deliveries.

It is a fraction of the aid that entered before the war, when 500 to 600 trucks per day came into Gaza, according to the United Nations. On Thursday, COGAT claimed “there is no food shortage in Gaza,” despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying this week that Israel was allowing “a basic amount of food” into Gaza “in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis.”

‘Needle in a haystack’

“The aid going in now is a needle in a haystack,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), on social media. “A meaningful & uninterrupted flow of aid is the only way to prevent the current disaster from spiraling further.”

And not all of the aid is reaching the Palestinian population, with some held up because of unsafe transit routes or looted on its way to distribution points. None of the trucks reached northern Gaza, where Israel has issued several evacuation warnings recently.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said 15 of its trucks were looted in southern Gaza while on their way to bakeries supported by the UN organization.

“Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity,” said the WFP in a statement Friday. “We need support from the Israeli authorities to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster, more consistently, and transported along safer routes, as was done during the ceasefire.”

The Palestinian NGOs Network condemned the looting of the humanitarian aid trucks. “The trucks, loaded with flour and intended to supply bakeries in Gaza City and the northern governorates, were looted — depriving children and families already enduring severe hunger of their basic food needs,” said the umbrella organization.

A joint US-Israeli aid program, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is supposed to start operating four distribution sites before the end of the month. But the UN and other humanitarian organizations have refused to work with the new group.

The new plan has come under criticism from top humanitarian officials, who warn that it is insufficient, could endanger civilians and even encourage their forced displacement.

The UN’s aid chief, Tom Fletcher, said last week that time should not be wasted on an alternative Gaza aid plan, writing on X: “To those proposing an alternative modality for aid distribution, let’s not waste time: We already have a plan.”

On Friday, the Bakery Owners Association in Gaza announced that bakeries would refuse to operate “in light of the difficult circumstances facing the Gaza Strip,” calling on the WFP to distribute flour to families first.

The chairman of the association, Abdel Nasser Al-Ajrami, appealed to international organizations to “urgently intervene” with Israel to allow the entry of “flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and diesel fuel” so that bread is available for everyone.

“It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of Sebastião Salgado, our founder, mentor, and eternal source of inspiration,” Instituto Terra said in a post on Instagram.

“Sebastião was much more than one of the greatest photographers of our time,” the post continued. “Alongside his life partner, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, he sowed hope where there was devastation and brought to life the belief that environmental restoration is also a profound act of love for humanity.”

At least twelve people were injured in a hot air balloon crash near an archaeological site in Mexico on Friday, local authorities say.

The balloon undertook a “forced landing” in San Martin de las Pirámides after hitting an air pocket, according to a statement from the Civil Protection Coordinator for the State of Mexico.

The twelve crew members are being treated for injuries at a local clinic, the statement said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Several people have sustained “life-threatening injuries” in a knife attack at Hamburg’s Central Station, German police said Friday evening.

Police said they have arrested a 39-year-old woman, who they believe acted alone, after a major police operation.

There are currently no reliable figures on the number of injured people, they added.

Investigations into the incident are ongoing.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The apparent sound made when the Titan submersible imploded in June 2023 has been revealed in new footage released Thursday by the Marine Board of Investigation, the US Coast Guard’s highest level of inquiry.

Cameras on the sub’s mother ship captured the moment when Wendy Rush – whose husband Stockton founded OceanGate, the company which built the ill-fated vessel, and was one of five people who died in its implosion – heard a faint cracking sound similar to a car door slamming.

“What was that bang?” she says, turning to the people next to her.

At that point, the sub had reached a depth of about 3,300 meters and was about 90 minutes into its descent to the ocean floor to give passengers on board an up-close view of the Titanic.

That “bang” is thought to be the moment the sub imploded. However, moments later, the crew on the support ship received a message from the sub saying it had dropped two weights – which may have created the false impression it was still operating normally.

Every system which transmits data through the water has “some inherent buffering or delay related to how they do the signal timing or processing,” he explained.

“If the ‘weights dropped’ message was sent a few seconds before the implosion … the computer may not show the message immediately when it is received. The timing is tight, but possible. It really depends on the system they were using.”

Six seconds after that message, the mother ship lost contact with the sub, according to the timeline established by authorities investigating the doomed expedition.

When the sub failed to resurface, a dramatic international search and rescue mission unfolded in the remote waters several hundred miles southeast of Newfoundland.

Authorities found the Titan’s wreckage on the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean days later, several hundred yards from the Titanic’s remains.

Rush, businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman; businessman Hamish Harding; and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet were all killed.

Since the implosion, the sub’s fate has been held up by some as an example of the dangers of hubris and greed.

Testimony given during the hearings into the disaster painted a damning portrait of OceanGate and Rush, who charged passengers about $250,000 per dive despite several concerns being raised about the sub’s durability.

Two documentaries scheduled for release in the coming weeks – one produced by the BBC and the other by Netflix – will further investigate the causes behind the disaster.

A federal judge temporarily halted the Trump administration’s ban on Friday, after the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college filed a suit in federal court. Harvard argued revocation of its certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program was “clear retaliation” for its refusal of the government’s ideologically rooted policy demands.

“They’re literally like, teenagers, thousands of miles away from their hometowns having to deal with this situation, which lawyers often fear to engage in,” said Sial, who is currently traveling overseas after exams and is uncertain if he’ll be able to return to campus.

About 27% of Harvard’s student body is international, with 6,793 international undergraduates and grad students hailing from nearly every country in the world.

Sial said the university and deans have been helpful in supporting international students at a time of uncertainty and “pure panic,” which is happening days after final exams ended and just one week before graduation.

As student body president, he says he is working to encourage the university to assist international students who want to transfer to other colleges and pushing for students’ financial aid packages to transfer, as well. But the window to transfer to other universities for the fall semester is already closed at most colleges, Sial said.

“Many of us have worked our entire lives to get to a university like Harvard, and now we need to wait around and see if we might have to transfer out and face difficulties with visas,” says rising junior Karl Molden, from Austria.

Molden, who is also traveling abroad and concerned he won’t be allowed to return to campus, said he feels international students are being used as a “ball in this larger fight between democracy and authoritarianism.”

Jewish students ‘being used as pawns,’ says one Israeli student

Harvard and Trump officials have been locked in conflict for months as the administration demands the university make changes to campus programming, policies, hiring and admissions to root out what the White House has called antisemitism and “racist” practices.

Like many other colleges and universities, Harvard drew intense criticism last year for its handling of pro-Palestinian protests and encampments following the start of the Israel-Hamas war, as well as complaints from Jewish alumni and students about antisemitism on campus.

Harvard has acknowledged antisemitism on its campus, particularly during the previous academic year, and said it has begun taking concrete action to address it.

An Israeli postdoctoral student studying at Harvard said she feels like Jewish students are “being used as pawns” by the Trump administration, which has accused the university of perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is “hostile to Jewish students” and “employs racist diversity, equity and inclusion practices.”

The Israeli student, who did not want to be named in fear of being denied reentry to the United States, said she believed the Trump administration was “using” the university to “have this battle with academia that is much bigger than Harvard.”

She said the government was clamping down on ideas that “don’t always align with the administration, rather than (having) an actual concern for the safety of Jewish students, Israeli students.”

“So, I do feel like we’re being used,” she said, adding that she thinks university leadership is taking the issue of antisemitism on campus seriously. “I don’t want to diminish anyone’s experience at the university. I know people have had tough experiences, but I do feel like I have, personally, 100% trust and faith in our leadership.”

Young researchers say they will leave US

“As a graduate student, we are just fully occupied with our research work, which I would say I spend 80 to 100 hours on each week,” said the Australian student, adding that the showdown between the Trump administration and Harvard will likely lead to researchers leaving the country. “If things really hit the fan, (I) would probably be trying to transfer to a school in the UK.”

Other graduate students said they are also feeling fear and uncertainty, with concerns for their research work, their future careers and their loved ones.

“There’s the ramifications for their family, you know, spouses, their children, their enrollment, their work status, their rent, housing, everything,” said Fangzhou Jiang, 30, from China. He is a Harvard Kennedy School student going into his second year of a master’s program. “You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Facing deportation from the US, and retribution at home

For some international students, like those from countries at war or experiencing political turmoil, the stakes are even higher.

Maria Kuznetsova, a former spokesperson for OVD-Info, a Russian independent human rights monitoring group, is currently a graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She’s graduating in a week and had planned to work on a Harvard-sponsored visa that had already been granted, but she fears it may be canceled now.

“From what I see, people are still in a state of panic – everyone’s waiting for the court’s decision,” Kuznetsova said.

“It’s not just me from Russia here – there are also many Ukrainians, a lot of political students from Venezuela, and people from Afghanistan and Palestine. I even have a classmate from North Korea. These are people who, quite literally, cannot return to their home countries,” she added.

Ivan Bogantsev, also from Russia, was planning to stay in the US after completing his program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His wife, currently in Russia and also on a Harvard-sponsored visa, is due to arrive for his graduation, but he’s unsure whether she’ll be allowed entry.

But he said going back to Russia is not an option he is considering.

“I was detained at rallies (in Russia), and let’s just say the atmosphere was growing increasingly tense. And secondly, most of my friends are essentially labeled (in Russia) as criminals, traitors or foreign agents.”

‘Harvard campus will not be the same’

“I was looking forward to celebrating commencement next week, but now, you know, I might leave this place and it will not look the same next semester, because without these international students and its international researchers, the Harvard campus will not be the same,” Gerdén said.

“We are being used essentially as poker chips in a battle between the White House and Harvard, and it feels honestly very dehumanizing.”

A popular Mexican singer, Julión Álvarez, says he and his band have had to cancel a show in Texas on Saturday night after the singer’s visa to enter the United States had been allegedly revoked.

The band, called Julión Álvarez y Su Norteño Banda, was due to play at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, around 30 miles west of Dallas, for a sold-out concert with nearly 50,000 tickets sold, the artist’s team said in a statement Friday.

The artist, show promoter CMN and management company Copar Music said that the show had been cancelled “due to unforeseen circumstances,” and that Álvarez was “unable to enter the United States in time for the event.”

Álvarez also announced the news on his Instagram account, saying in a video that he and his team were notified that his work visa had been revoked by US authorities earlier Friday.

“It is not possible for us to go to the United States and fulfill our show promise with all of you. It’s a situation that is out of our hands. That’s the information I have and what I can share,” he said in the video.

Álvarez said the stage had already been built and that his production team was already in Texas preparing for the show.

“I apologize to all of you, and if God permits, we will be in touch to provide more information,” he said.

The show’s promoter and Copar Music said they were working with Álvarez’s team to reschedule the performance. All previously purchased tickets will be honored for the new date and refund details will be provided for those who cannot attend, it said.

Álvarez and his band are the latest Mexican artists to allegedly have their US visas revoked amid Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

Last month, the State Department revoked the tourist visas of members of the Mexican band Los Alegres del Barranco, after they projected the face of a drug cartel boss onto a screen during a performance in the western state of Jalisco.

The Trump administration has also cracked down on foreign nationals allegedly linked directly or indirectly to drug cartels. This includes revoking the visas of artists whose work depicts drug cartels that the administration has deemed foreign terrorist organizations.

In 2017, Álvarez had his US work visa revoked after the US alleged he and around 20 other people – including soccer player Rafael Márquez – had ties to a drug trafficker linked to major cartels and were put under sanctions, according to a US Treasury statement.

Álvarez denied those allegations and said he was only connected to the trafficker over a real estate purchase.

Álvarez was removed from the sanctions list in 2022 and was able to regain his visa, making a return to the United States earlier this year with three sold-out shows at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles in April.

With nearly 17 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Álvarez is renowned in Mexico for his traditional music style with elements of banda, norteña, and mariachi. Some of his top hits include heartbreak hits like “Póngamonos de Acuerdo” and “Te Hubieras Ido Antes.”