Our daily voyage around the world

🇺🇸🇷🇺 The US and Russia carried out their largest prisoner swap since the Cold War. Russia released 16 detainees as part of yesterday’s multinational deal, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, two other people with US ties, and several associates of deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In exchange, the US, Germany, Norway, Slovenia, and Poland released eight Russian prisoners, including state assassin Vadim Krasikov and several others charged or convicted of serious crimes. (Dive deeper: Inside the secret negotiations to free Evan Gershkovich)

🇿🇦 In a global first, South Africa is vaccinating seals against rabies. Rabid cape fur seals have infected at least seven people in South Africa in recent weeks, marking the first-ever documented outbreak of rabies in marine mammals. The vaccine trial will target migratory seals and those who regularly come into contact with humans to prevent rabies from spreading to other colonies.

🇦🇺 Australia launched the world’s first national program to treat peanut allergies in babies. Children under a year old with an allergy will be given gradually increasing daily doses of peanut powder for at least two years to build immunity. The free program is available in ten participating hospitals across Australia, which is often dubbed the “allergy capital of the world” due to its high rate of food sensitivity diagnoses (1 in 10 infants; an estimated 3% of the population has a peanut allergy).