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(HAMBURG, GERMANY) — At least 12 people were injured, including three critically, in a stabbing attack at a train station in Germany on Friday, authorities said.
The suspect in the stabbing — a 39-year-old woman — has been arrested, police said.
The incident occurred at a train station in Hamburg. A knife was used in the attack, police said.
Police have not publicly identified the suspect. She is believed to have acted alone, according to Hamburg police, who said they are investigating her background. Police believe she may have been in “mental distress.”
“So far, we have no evidence that the woman could have acted with political motivation,” Hamburg police spokesperson Florian Abbenseth told reporters. “Rather, we have findings on the basis of which we are now investigating in particular whether she may have been in a state of mental distress.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(PARIS) — A verdict was reached Friday in the 2016 jewelry heist of Kim Kardashian in Paris.
Nine men and one woman were accused in connection with the robbery, during which five masked men posing as police officers allegedly stormed into Kardashian’s hotel suite.
The suspects allegedly made off with valuables worth at least $6 million, including a diamond engagement ring given to Kardashian by her then-husband Kanye West. That ring alone was said to be worth about $4 million.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — More than a dozen World Food Programme trucks were looted in southern Gaza late Thursday as 2 million people in the Strip face “extreme hunger and famine without immediate action,” the aid group said.
The organization said 15 trucks were looted “while en route to WFP-supported bakeries.” The WFP, which is part of the United Nations, did not say who looted the trucks.
“These trucks were transporting critical food supplies for hungry populations waiting anxiously for assistance. Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity,” the WFP said in a statement.
“Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity,” the WFP continued. “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 looting came just days after the Israeli government ended the blockade as a part of a three-phase plan to start getting more aid into Gaza. Aid trucks started slowly re-entering Gaza in the past two days, according to the U.N. and the Gaza Government Media Office.
An Israeli blockade on food and aid entering Gaza has been in place since March 2.
“WFP cannot safely operate under a distribution system that limits the number of bakeries and sites where Gaza’s population can access food. WFP and its partners must also be allowed to distribute food parcels directly to families — the most effective way to prevent widespread starvation,” the WFP said.
The Israeli blockage on humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip has caused widespread malnutrition and conditions likely to lead to famine, according to the U.N. and other international aid organizations.
One in five people in Gaza, about 500,000 people, faces starvation, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification platform said on May 12, according to the U.N.
The Israeli government is working with the U.S. to set up aid distribution points in southern and central Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday. But the plan faces criticism from established aid organizations that have been operating inside of Gaza for the past 19 months.
“We will not take part in any scheme that fails to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement about the U.S.-Israeli deal.
The Israeli-American system for distributing aid in Gaza is set to begin on Monday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Russia and Ukraine have begun a large exchange of prisoners of war on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said, with around 1,000 soldiers from each side expected to be swapped at the Ukraine-Belarus border when completed.
There have been 270 Russian soldiers and 120 Russian civilians swapped for 270 Ukrainian soldiers and 120 Ukrainian civilians on Friday, according to the defense ministry. The exchange is expected to continue “in the coming days,” Russia said.
“We are bringing our people home,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “The first stage of the ‘1000-for-1000’ exchange agreement has been carried out.”
“Thank you to everyone who is helping and working 24/7 to bring Ukrainian men and women back home,” he continued. “It is very important to return everyone who remains in captivity. We are verifying every surname, every detail about each person. We will continue our diplomatic efforts to make such steps possible.”
The Russian soldiers and civilians were in Belarus, “where they are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Though the meeting — the first direct talks between the combatants since the spring of 2022 — failed to result in a ceasefire, the two sides did agree to Friday’s prisoner swap.
Such exchanges have taken place throughout Russia’s 3-year-old invasion, though the swap — once completed — will be by far the largest to date. Prisoner exchanges are one of the few areas in which Moscow and Kyiv have been able to reach an accord during the conflict.
President Donald Trump also held a high-stakes phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, saying afterward that Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” start negotiations toward a ceasefire. Trump said he also spoke with Zelenskyy after the call with Putin.
Fierce fighting and long-range drone exchanges continued regardless — and despite continued U.S.-led efforts to produce a ceasefire agreement.
Russia carried out a “large-scale aerial attack” on Ukraine overnight Friday using 175 drones and one ballistic missile, the Ukrainian air force said.
Ukrainian air defenses neutralized 150 of those Russian drones, but damage was reported in the Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Odesa, Chernivtsi, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, according to the Ukrainian air force.
Ukraine’s air force on Wednesday reported 76 Russian drones launched into the country overnight, of which 63 were shot down or lost in flight without causing damage. The air force reported damage in four Ukrainian regions.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces downed at least 162 Ukrainian drones overnight.
ABC News’ Natalia Popova and Tanya Stukalova contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Israel has likely killed Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Sinwar is the current head of the terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He took over from his brother in October 2024.
”We eliminated tens of thousands of terrorists,” Netanyahu said, adding of Hamas targets, “We eliminated the leaders of the murderers Deif, Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and it appears we also eliminated Mohammed Sinwar.”
Netanyahu spoke of the ongoing military operation in Gaza, saying the strip will be under Israel’s control at the end of the war.
“Our forces are seizing more and more territory in Gaza. At the end of the move, all areas of the Strip will be under Israeli security control,” he said.
“I am ready to end the war on clear terms that will ensure Israel’s security — all the hostages returned home, Hamas lays down its weapons, its leadership is overthrown, Gaza is completely demilitarized and the Trump plan is implemented,” Netanyahu said.
“Anyone who calls on us to stop the war before these goals are achieved is calling on us to leave Hamas in power,” he added.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LONDON) — The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused President Donald Trump of undermining “global strategic balance and stability” by pushing ahead on his “Golden Dome” missile defense shield program — and urged the U.S. to abandon the project.
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the project at an Oval Office briefing on Tuesday, confirming reports that the administration was seeking to establish a missile defense umbrella the president said would be capable of “intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space.”
The project will cost around $175 billion and be operational in three years, Trump said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters at a Wednesday briefing that the proposed shield will “heighten the risk of turning the space into a war zone and creating a space arms race and shake the international security and arms control system,” according to a readout posted to the ministry’s website.
“It plans to expand the U.S. arsenal of means for combat operations in outer space, including R&D and deployment of orbital interception systems,” Mao said.
“That gives the project a strong offensive nature and violates the principle of peaceful use in the Outer Space Treaty,” she added, referring to the 1967 agreement which — among other things — prohibited the use of nuclear weapons in space and limited any usage of all “celestial bodies” for peaceful purposes.
“This is yet another ‘America First’ initiative that puts the U.S.’ absolute security above all else,” Mao continued. “It violates the principle of ‘undiminished security for all’ and will hurt global strategic balance and stability,” she said. “China is gravely concerned.”
“We urge the U.S. to give up developing and deploying global anti-missile system, and take concrete actions to enhance strategic trust between major countries and uphold global strategic stability,” Mao said.
Trump began calling for a U.S. missile defense shield inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome — which is used to intercept short-range projectiles — a year ago on the campaign trail after watching Israel and its Western allies defeat some 300 missiles and drones fired during an attack by Iran. The attack was thwarted by a range of anti-missile systems and military aircraft.
Military officials said at the time that they hadn’t expressed a need for such a comprehensive shield to defend the U.S. Critics of Trump’s plan noted the U.S. wasn’t under threat from its neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and is buffered by two oceans.
The “Golden Dome” project has echoes of the failed Cold War-era “Star Wars” program, which likewise sought to introduce a defense umbrella against nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. At the time, critics — including leaders in the Soviet Union — said such a project was both unworkable and could spark a new arms race.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty, Luis Martinez and Nathan Luna contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, on the 2024 campaign trail, repeatedly promised voters he personally could end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office — or even before.
But four months into his term, peace not only remains elusive but he’s saying he could soon “back away” from being involved.
His comment came hours after his highly-anticipated phone call Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin produced no breakthrough — even though Trump had earlier suggested it could.
Just last week, after Putin snubbed an invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to attend peace negotiations in Istanbul — something Trump had encouraged — he told reporters: “Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together, OK?”
“I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together, but we’re going to have to get it solved, because too many people are dying,” Trump said.
After his hourslong conversation with Putin on Monday, though, Trump said that conditions for a ceasefire and an ultimate end to the conflict “will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be.”
Direct talks between just Ukraine and Russia, Trump said, would begin “immediately” and possibly be hosted by the Vatican. The two sides already began engaging in Turkey last week in what was the first known meeting between representatives of Moscow and Kyiv since spring 2022.
Trump had also previously pushed for an “immediate ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, but that was not pushed further in his public comments following his Putin call.
Still, Trump sought to put an optimistic spin on Monday’s talks.
“I think something’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s got very, very big egos involved, I tell you, big egos involved. But I think something’s going to happen.”
“And if it doesn’t, I just back away and they’re going to have to keep going again,” Trump said. “This is a European situation. It should have remained a European situation.”
He did not answer whether he would be meeting with Putin — something he had suggested was likely in the not too distant future.
Trump and various top administration officials had said Trump’s personal history with Putin and strongman persona would get results.
In his debate against then-Vice President Kamala Harris in September, Trump said he’d get the Russia-Ukraine war ended “before even becoming president” because Putin and Zelenskyy “respect me.”
During an exclusive interview with ABC News on the 100-day mark of his term, Trump posited that, “If it weren’t for me, I think [Putin would] want to take over the whole country, personally.”
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, said on ABC’s “This Week” this past Sunday that the “president has a force of personality that is unmatched.”
“I believe that the president is going to have a successful call with Vladimir Putin,” Witkoff said. “They know each other. The president is determined to get something done here. And hopefully, if he can’t do it, then nobody can.”
Trump said last week he wanted to hold a summit with Putin as soon as possible.
“We have to get together. I think we will probably schedule it. Because I’m tired of having other people go and meet and everything else,” Trump told Fox News on May 16. He added, “I think I’m the only one that’s going to be able to do that one. And I think we will do it fast, too.”
On Monday, Trump said that he’d asked Putin to meet during their phone call, but did not say whether Putin expressed interest in doing so.
“I said, ‘When are we going to end this, Vladimir?'” Trump told reporters of their discussion. “I said, ‘When are we going to end this bloodshed, this, this bloodbath?’ It’s a bloodbath. And, I do believe he wants to end it.”
Putin, in his own comments to journalists in Sochi after the call, only said he was ready to work on “memorandum on a possible future peace agreement” with Ukraine, but did not elaborate on what that would look like.
Putin showed no signs of making concessions, only saying both sides must “determine the most effective ways of moving towards peace.”
Trump and other top officials have said Ukraine will have to forgo NATO membership and likely concede some territory occupied by Russia in order to bring the conflict to an end. They have not made similar public demands of Russia, which started the war when it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Trump, at times, has threatened more sanctions on Moscow. On Monday, he suggested trade with the U.S. after the war is over could be a motivator for pursuing peace.
Meanwhile, Russia only ramped up strikes inside Ukraine overnight following the Trump-Putin call.
In late April, Trump wondered aloud if Putin was “tapping me along” as strikes increased. If so, he said, he’d have to be “dealt with differently.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said over the weekend that the U.S. was trying to find out if Russia was “tapping us along” and said “we’ll find out pretty soon.”
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, who Trump also spoke with on Monday, said the negotiation process “must involve both American and European representatives.”
“It is crucial for all of us that the United States does not distance itself from the talks and the pursuit of peace, because the only one who benefits from that is Putin,” Zelenskyy said.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge is probing whether the Trump administration deported migrants to South Sudan on Tuesday in violation of an earlier order barring deportations of migrants to countries other than their own without giving them sufficient chance to contest their removal.
An order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy late Tuesday directs the government to “maintain custody and control” of anyone deported to South Sudan covered under a lawsuit challenging the administration’s practice of deporting migrants to third countries “to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful.”
The judge’s order comes after attorneys with the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and other groups filed an emergency motion to bar the government from deporting migrants to South Sudan, saying they had indications at least 12 migrants had been sent to the East African country.
Lawyers said they believed one of the men, a native of Myanmar identified in court filings as “N.M.,” was removed from the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. The attorneys also allege a Vietnamese migrant referred to as T.T.P. “appears to have suffered the same fate.”
Both men named in the filing have orders of removal to their home countries, the attorneys said.
During a hastily arranged virtual hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boston, a Justice Department lawyer told the judge that N.M. had been deported to Myanmar, not South Sudan. But the lawyer declined to say where T.T.P had been sent, saying the information was classified, according to an account of the hearing in The New York Times.
The lawyer also said the current location of the plane carrying the migrants to be removed as well as its final destination were classified, according to the Times.
Murphy, a Biden appointee, told the DOJ lawyer that officials who carried out deportations in violation of his earlier order could face criminal contempt proceedings, according to the Times. Attorney Trina Realmuto, of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, who was present for the hearing, confirmed this account.
ABC News has reached out to DHS for comment about the alleged removals to South Sudan.
As a part of his order, Murphy also instructed the government to be prepared to identify the affected deportees and to provide more details about their removal and the opportunity each individual had to raise a fear-based claim.
The U.S. State Department currently advises American travelers not to visit South Sudan due to the threat of crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.
Another hearing in the case is set for Wednesday at 11 a.m.
Last month, Murphy issued an order requiring the Trump administration to provide individuals with written notice before they’re removed to a third country and a “meaningful opportunity” to raise concerns about their safety. The preliminary injunction also prohibits the government from removing a migrant to a third country without screening for possible risks to their safety in that country and a 15-day window to contest the government’s determination based on that screening.
In a declaration, one of the attorneys for N.M. said he was also one of the men whom the Trump administration attempted to deport to Libya earlier this month setting off a legal scramble to block it. In that instance, the judge said removing the men to Libya without due process would “clearly violate” his order.
(GAZA STRIP) — After almost three months of a total aid blockade in Gaza and intensified attacks from Israel, children are suffering the most severe consequences, a local doctor says, from death and injuries to starvation.
A senior Palestinian pediatric doctor described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “unbelievable,” witnessing children dying from hunger and preventable injuries, scenes he said he had studied in textbooks, but never imagined seeing in real life.
In an interview with ABC News this week, Dr. Ahmmed Al-Farra, head of pediatrics and maternity in Gaza’s Nasser Medical Complex, said hospitals are collapsing across the region.
No public hospitals are operating in the north of the strip and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, once the largest hospital in southern Gaza, has repeatedly been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.
Al-Farra said that many patients have died on the operating table due to a lack of essential equipment and medication. “If a patient in North Gaza has chest pain or is injured, he will lose his life,” said Al-Farra. “All the hospitals there are gone: Shifa, Kamal Adwan, the Indonesian Hospital. Destroyed or inoperable.”
He paints a devastating picture of life in Gaza, over 19 months into the war. “We’re seeing children with marasmus — skin and bone,” he said. “Some are just 40% of their expected weight. Severe malnutrition, no protein, no vitamins.”
Marasmus is a form of severe malnutrition characterized by protein-energy deficiency, caused by insufficient calorie intake leading to severe fat and muscle loss, according to the National Institutes of Health. While it can occur in anyone with severe malnutrition, it usually occurs in children.
Siwar Ashour, a child in Gaza, was born small, but was a relatively healthy baby six months ago, according to Al-Farra.
But today, she is acutely malnourished and fighting for her life in the Nasser Hospital, the doctor said. The facility has been repeatedly bombed by Israel, including attacks on Monday. Israel Defense Forces officials say they are targeting terrorists hiding there.
Siwar is bound in plastic, according to Al-Farra. The doctor says her weight loss is so severe that she can no longer regulate her own body temperature. And at 6 months old, she weighs just over 7 pounds. That is less than half the weight of an average American baby girl, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
“If she does not take the suitable formula of milk, unfortunately, she will not survive,” Al-Farra said.
Nearly 500,000 people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger, according to a report released by 17 UN agencies and NGOs. Israeli officials have disputed the agency’s figures and say their warnings have been wrong in the past.
Detailing the only option that his colleagues have in hospitals to fight the severe malnutrition in children, Al-Farra said that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, has managed to provide small amounts of emergency baby formula, known as F-75 and F-100, to treat acute malnutrition in babies.
The doctor, however, said children’s conditions often deteriorate again after being discharged from the hospital. “We give the children a bit of formula — F-75, F-100 — from MSF, just in the hospital,” he explained. “They get a little better, and then we have to send them home, because we need the bed for the next child. But outside, there’s no food, no milk, no protein. They come back a week later, worse than before.”
Al-Farra also highlighted the widespread hunger afflicting Palestinians of all ages and all walks of life in Gaza, now 11 weeks into Israel’s ban on humanitarian aid entering the strip. Even as a doctor with a relatively stable income, he said he has gone without fresh meat, chicken and fish for over three months. “I haven’t had any chicken or meat protein in the past three months. … If this is my reality, imagine what it’s like for the people in the streets,” he said.
Following repeated international warnings on the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, Israel allowed five trucks of aid to enter the territory on Monday, according to COGAT, the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. A top Israeli official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the aid trucks contained flour, baby food, medical supplies and staples for central kitchens in Gaza.
Israel says they imposed the humanitarian aid blockade on March 2 to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages. The temporary ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas ended on March 1. The ceasefire fully collapsed on March 18 when Israel resumed military operations in Gaza.
Israel on Sunday agreed to allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza, saying it didn’t want a “starvation crisis.”
Israel allowed 100 aid trucks to enter Gaza on Tuesday, UN OCHA Deputy Spokesperson Jens Laerke said. But no aid has been distributed in Gaza yet, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said during his daily briefing from UN Headquarters in New York Tuesday.
The amount of aid was described as “a drop in the ocean” by the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, UNOCHA.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the decision to allow in aid came after pressure from U.S. lawmakers.
The war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorist fighters entered Israel and killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages. There are still 58 hostages held captive by Hamas, 20 of whom are presumed to be alive. Hamas is believed to be holding the bodies of four Americans.
The war has taken a large toll on Palestinians, with over 53,000 killed since October 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. While statistics do not distinguish between military and non-military casualties, women and children make up tens of thousands of this number, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Highlighting the dire situation of the survivors of the war in Gaza, especially children, Al-Farra pleaded for immediate aid coming into the strip. “We’re not asking for miracles. We’re asking for food, for medicine,” he said. “They are not numbers on paper — they are human beings created by God. They have the right to survive.”
ABC News’ Lama Hasan, Samy Zyara, Diaa Ostaz and Jordana Miller contributed to this report
Iranian Leader Press Office/ Anadolu via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed doubt about his country’s nuclear negotiations with the United States, saying he does not think the talks will come to a result, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
However, Khamenei, who is supreme leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, acknowledged that the final outcome remains uncertain, he said during a Tuesday morning meeting with some Iranian authorities.
He clarified that Iran will not stop its enrichment.
Diplomats from the United States and Iran have held a series of high-level but “indirect” nuclear talks in Muscat. Tehran described the first four rounds of talks as “difficult but useful.” Washington said was “encouraged” by the outcomes so far.
Khamenei mentioned on Tuesday that “indirect” talks happened during the late President Ebrahim Raisi as well, but ended in no result, adding that “It is the same now.”
“We don’t think it will lead to any results. We don’t know what will happen,” he said.
The Iranian supreme leader used strong language warning American officials who have asked Iran to stop enrichment.
“Speaking of negotiations, I would like to give a reminder to the other party,” Khamenei said. “The American side that enters into these indirect negotiations and talk, they should try not to talk nonsense.”
“To say that we will not allow Iran to enrich, this is a big mistake. No one is waiting for their permission. The Islamic Republic has a policy, it has a method, it pursues its own policy,” the Iranian leader added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi followed the leader’s speech by saying, “Today, the Supreme Leader set the task completely clear.”
“We are witnessing completely unreasonable and illogical positions of the Americans. Enrichment is not a topic for negotiable at all,” he added.
While Iranian authorities have consistently stated that the principle of uranium enrichment is non-negotiable, they have said they are open to negotiating measures to increase transparency in their enrichment activities and to come up with ways with other parties to demonstrate that these activities are for peaceful purposes.
