Our daily journey around the world

🇺🇦🇷🇺 Ukraine and Russia carried out their largest prisoner exchange of the ongoing war. The swap, brokered by the UAE, returned 248 Russian soldiers for 230 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. The two countries periodically exchanged prisoners-of-war through third parties since Russia invaded in February 2022, but rates dropped in mid-2023 after Moscow alleged that Ukraine violated a previous exchange deal. The last swap between the two countries occurred in August.

🇳🇿 A New Zealand fisherman survived nearly 24 hours floating in the ocean after falling off his boat. Local authorities said the unidentified man initially fell overboard after hooking a large marlin 30 miles off the New Zealand coast. He then floated for the next 23 hours, which included a close shark encounter, before being rescued when a nearby fisherman noticed the sun reflecting on the man's watch and took him to an ambulance crew waiting on shore.

🇸🇻 El Salvador said its murder rate fell by 70% last year following a crackdown on gang violence. President Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency in early 2022 that allowed police to arrest suspected gang members without court approval, and to withhold suspected gang members’ right to a lawyer. Since the new regulations went into effect, El Salvador law enforcement has arrested ~75,000 suspected gang members, though human rights groups have reported nearly 5,000 abuses related to the crackdown.

+Update: The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for a pair of bombings that killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds more at a memorial service in Iran on Wednesday.