Ukraine has launched a “large-scale” drone attack against Russian military bombers in Siberia, striking more than 40 warplanes thousands of kilometres from its own territory, a security official said.

The claims could not be independently verified. But if confirmed, the attacks would mark Ukraine’s most damaging drone strike of the war to date, amid an escalation in cross-border incursions before planned peace talks in Istanbul on Monday.

“Ukrainian security services are carrying out a large-scale special operation aimed at destroying enemy bombers far from the front, in Russia,” the official was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying, adding a fire had broken out at the targeted Belaya airbase.

Doctors’ associations, medical schools and student advocates warn that a proposal in the Republican-led budget bill being considered by Congress restricts graduate federal student loans and could worsen a national shortage of doctors.

The new Republican proposal would limit federal student loans for “professional programs” – such as medical school – to $150,000, eliminate a federal graduate loan program and put limits on loan forgiveness.

Medical students rely heavily on federal student loans to finance lengthy and expensive educations, particularly since 2006, when Congress broadly lifted caps on borrowing limits to allow for the full cost of tuition and living expenses.

A Palestinian father who had lost nine of his 10 children in an Israeli airstrike has died from wounds sustained in the same attack, local health officials have said.

Hamdi al-Najjar, 40, a doctor at Nasser hospital, was critically injured when Israeli forces bombed the family house in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on 23 May, killing nine of his children. He had just returned home after accompanying his wife Alaa, a paediatrician at the Nasser medical complex, to work when the building was struck. He had initially survived alongside his son Adam, 11, who is still in hospital.

Russian investigators said they believed “explosions” had caused two bridges in the border regions of Kursk and Bryansk to collapse overnight, derailing trains, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens.

In Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, a road bridge collapsed on to a railway line late on Saturday, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow and killing at least seven people. A rail bridge in neighbouring Kursk also collapsed overnight, derailing a freight train and injuring the driver, officials said. Kursk also borders Ukraine.

State media said Russian investigators were investigating the bridge blasts as “acts of terrorism”. The Kremlin said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had been briefed throughout the night.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply criticised Hamas’s reaction to the latest ceasefire proposal, aligning with US envoy Steve Witkoff’s stance.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, has cautioned against blaming only Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the destruction in Gaza.

“The problem will not be resolved by scapegoating him, ignoring the rest,” Albanese posted on social media.

She emphasised that Israel’s broader policies—ranging from occupation and annexation to apartheid and what she called acts of genocide—must be confronted and dismantled.

Albanese’s comments highlight growing criticism of efforts to reduce the crisis to one individual’s actions, without addressing the systemic violence driving the assault on Gaza.

India’s chief of defence staff says the country suffered initial losses in the air during a recent military conflict with neighbouring Pakistan, but declined to give details.

“What was important is, why did these losses occur, and what we will do after that,” General Anil Chauhan told the Reuters news agency on Saturday on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.

For months, pundits have decried the absence of a “Joe Rogan of the left” — an online media figure who can galvanize young men to support Democrats in the way that popular right-wing creators like Rogan, Adin Ross, and the NELK Boys have done for President Donald Trump. Now, it appears that Democratic operatives have a $20 million plan to build such a figure.

Nina Smith, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Stacey Abrams, said instead of propping up a creator who checks the perfect ideological boxes, Democrats should embrace the online spaces for young men that already exist.

For example, creators like Hasan Piker, a left-leaning creator with over 5.5 million subscribers on Twitch and broad popularity among young men, has largely been ignored by the Democratic establishment. Piker’s political content leans farther left, sharing a populist economic message paired with strong criticism of U.S. foreign policy in Israel.

“There is a tendency to shy away from those spaces because our favorite thing to do in the Democratic Party is to, pardon my language, shit on the left,” said Smith.

A US military contractor, Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), has signed an agreement with a little-known Palestinian company, “Three Brothers”, to run one of four Israeli-approved aid distribution hubs, the Financial Times reported. The scheme — developed under the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — has been rejected by nearly all major aid groups, with former GHF chief Jake Wood resigning days before launch, citing ethical concerns.

SRS, founded by a former CIA officer, reportedly approached numerous reputable Palestinian firms to help staff the new aid centres, but was turned away. Prominent businessmen warned that the project undermines humanitarian concerns and serves as a political cover for Israeli efforts to forcibly relocate Palestinians under the guise of aid.

With established actors refusing to take part, SRS turned to lesser-known entities. Three Brothers, the company eventually contracted, is reportedly well known to the Israeli security establishment. According to multiple Palestinian businessmen and officials, the firm had little prominence before receiving Israeli approval to import goods earlier in the genocide. Its monopoly allowed the unknown group to resell permits at inflated prices.

The UN and most NGOs have refused to participate in the scheme, which bypasses international mechanisms in favour of militarised contractor-run sites. These centres are coordinated with Israeli forces and, according to sources, rely on foreign operatives and mercenaries — including reports of warlords, drug traffickers and former Daesh members enlisted to help enforce order.

Bokeo province, Laos – Khobby was living in Dubai last year when he received an intriguing message about a well-paying job working online in a far-flung corner of Southeast Asia.

The salary was good, he was told. He would be working on computers in an office. The company would even foot the bill for his relocation to join the firm in Laos – a country of 7.6 million people nestled between China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar.

With the company paying for his flights, Khobby decided to take the plunge. But his landing in Laos was anything but smooth.

Khobby discovered that the promised dream job was rapidly becoming a nightmare when his Ghanaian passport was taken on arrival by his new employers.

With his passport confiscated and threats of physical harm ever present, he endured months working inside a compound which he could not leave.

The 21-year-old had become the latest victim of booming online cyber-scam operations in Southeast Asia – an industry that is believed to have enslaved tens of thousands of workers lured with the promise of decently paid jobs in online sales and the information technology industry.

Harvard University on Thursday won a brief reprieve in its fight to continue enrolling international students after a federal judge upheld a block on a governmental order.

US district judge Allison Burroughs ruled to uphold the terms of a temporary restraining order (TRO), which froze the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) revocation of the university’s student and exchange visitor programme (SEVP) certification programme, the process that enables universities to enrol foreigners, and preserved the status of international students.

The news came as Harvard’s Class of 2025 was assembling for commencement exercises. The order grants relief to around 7,000 international students - a quarter of Harvard’s student body - whose lives have been thrown into limbo over the last few weeks.