By JAKE OFFENHARTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — The head of Columbia University gave a commencement speech Wednesday acknowledging the absence of student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was due to receive his diploma this week but is instead in a Louisiana jail facing deportation for his role in pro-Palestinian campus protests.

The brief address drew loud boos and chants of “free Palestine” from some graduating students. Acting president Claire Shipman also alluded to the crackdown on foreign students by the Trump administration that has roiled the Ivy League school in recent months.

“We firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising this right,” Shipman said, adding: “I know many in our community are mourning the absence of our graduate Mahmoud Khalil.”

Khalil, a graduate student in Columbia’s international affairs program, has remained detained since March 8 when immigration agents took him into custody at his off-campus apartment in Manhattan. While in custody, he missed the birth of his first child.

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As Shipman spoke, some students walked out while others booed and jeered. The acting president, who took over in late March, received a similarly icy reception during a smaller graduation ceremony Tuesday.

Some students and faculty have accused Columbia’s leadership of capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands at the expense of protecting foreign students.

Federal authorities have not accused Khalil of a crime, but have sought to deport him on the basis that his prominent role in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza may have undermined U.S. foreign policy interests.

By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and MELANIE LIDMAN

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — Israeli strikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip Wednesday, despite a surge in international anger at Israel’s widening offensive. The attacks killed at least 82 people, including several women and a week-old infant, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and area hospitals.

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Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need.

Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the U.N.’s humanitarian agency, said no trucks were picked up from the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the Israeli border crossing with southern Gaza.

U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Tuesday that although the aid had entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.

The Israeli defense body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza said trucks entered Gaza Wednesday morning, but it was unclear if that aid would move deeper into Gaza for distribution. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said its staff had waited several hours to collect aid from the border crossing but were unable to do so on Tuesday.

A few dozen Israeli activists opposed to Israel’s decision to allow aid into Gaza while Hamas still holds Israeli hostages attempted to block trucks carrying supplies Wednesday morning, but were kept back by Israeli police.

Diplomats come under fire in Jenin

A group of diplomats came under fire while visiting Jenin, a city in the Israel-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority. The diplomats were on official mission to observe the humanitarian situation in Jenin when shots rang out.

An aid worker, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, said a delegation of about 20 regional, European and Western diplomats were standing near the entrance of the Jenin refugee camp when they heard gunshots Wednesday, she said. No one was injured, she added.

The Israeli military said the delegation “deviated from the approved route” and Israeli soldiers fired warning shots to distance them from the area. The military apologized and said they will contact all of the countries involved in the visit.

Footage shows a number of diplomats running for cover as rapid shots rung out. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said firing even warning shots was unacceptable and called on Israel to investigate.

The Italian government of Premier Giorgia Meloni also demanded an explanation, saying that its vice consul was among those who came under fire.

Jenin has been the site of Israel’s widespread crackdown against West Bank fighters since earlier this year.

On Jan. 21 — just two days after its ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza — Israeli forces descended on Jenin as they have dozens of times since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The fighting displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians, one of the largest West Bank displacements in years.

International pressure on Israel

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom. suspended free trade talks with Israel over its intensifying assault, a step that came a day after the U.K., Canada and France promised concrete steps to prompt Israel to halt the war. Separately, the European Union was reviewing an EU pact governing trade ties with Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza, according to its foreign policy chief.

Israel says it is prepared to stop the war once all the hostages taken by Hamas return home and Hamas is defeated, or is exiled and disarmed. Hamas says it is prepared to release the hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory and an end to the war. It rejects demands for exile and disarmament.

Israel called back its senior negotiating team from ceasefire talks in the Qatari capital of Doha on Tuesday, saying it would leave lower-level officials in place instead. Qatari leaders, who are mediating negotiations, said there was a large gap between the two sides.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continued across Gaza. In the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel recently ordered new evacuations pending an expected expanded offensive, 24 people were killed, 14 from the same family. A week-old infant was killed in central Gaza.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes, but has said it is targeting Hamas infrastructure and accused Hamas of operating from civilian areas.

Desperate need for food

Experts have warned that many of Gaza’s 2 million residents face a high risk of famine. At one displacement camp in Gaza City, a charity group distributed thin and watery lentil soup.

Somaia Abu Amsha scooped small portions into bowls for her family, saying they have not have had bread for over 10 days and she can’t afford rice or pasta.

“We don’t want anything other than that they end the war. We don’t want charity kitchens. Even dogs wouldn’t eat this, let alone children,” she said, pointing at the soup.

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday called for aid to reach the Gaza Strip and for an end to the “heartbreaking” toll on its people during his first general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

Hospitals surrounded

Israeli troops also have surrounded two of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities, hospital staff and aid groups said this week.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday urged world leaders to take immediate action to end Israel’s siege on Gaza, issuing the appeal during a visit to Beirut, where he was expected to discuss the disarmament of Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s refugee camps.

“It is time to end the war of extermination against the Palestinian people. I reiterate that we will not leave, and we will remain here on the land of our homeland, Palestine,” Abbas said, demanding the immediate entry of aid, the release of detainees, and a full withdrawal from Gaza.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, and European Union.

The combatants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has destroyed large swaths of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut and Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

President Vladimir Putin visited Russia’s Kursk region for the first time since Moscow claimed that it drove Ukrainian forces out of the area last month, the Kremlin said Wednesday.

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Putin visited the region bordering Ukraine the previous day, according to the Kremlin.

Ukrainian forces made a surprise incursion into Kursk in August 2024 in one of their biggest battlefield successes in the more than three-year war. The incursion was the first time Russian territory was occupied by an invader since World War II and dealt a humiliating blow to the Kremlin.

Since the end of 2023, Russia has mostly had the advantage on the battlefield, with the exception of Kursk.

Putin has effectively rejected recent U.S. and European proposals for a ceasefire. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday accused Kyiv’s allies of seeking a truce “so that they can calmly arm Ukraine, so that Ukraine can strengthen its defensive positions.”

North Korea sent up to 12,000 troops to help the Russian army take back control of Kursk, according to Ukraine, the U.S. and South Korea. Russia announced on April 26 that its forces had pushed out the Ukrainian army. Kyiv officials denied the claim.

Ukraine says it stopped Russian attacks in Kursk

The Ukrainian Army General Staff said Wednesday that its forces repelled 13 Russian assaults in Kursk. Its map of military activity showed Ukrainian troops holding a thin line of land hard against the border but still inside Russia.

Putin’s unannounced visit appeared to be an effort to show Russia is in control of the conflict, even though its full-scale invasion of its neighbor has been slow and costly in terms of casualties and equipment.

Video broadcast by Russian state media showed that Putin visited Kursk Nuclear Power Plant-2, which is still under construction, and met with selected volunteers behind closed doors.

Many of the volunteers wore clothes emblazoned with the Russian flag and the Latin letters “Z” and “V”, which are symbols of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“What you are doing now during this difficult situation for this region, for this area, and for the country, will remain with you for the rest of your life as, perhaps, the most meaningful thing with which you were ever involved,” Putin said as he drank tea with the volunteers.

Ukraine’s surprise thrust into Kursk and its ability to hold land there was a logistical feat, carried out in secrecy, that countered months of gloomy news from the front about Ukrainian forces being pushed backward by the bigger Russian army.

Kyiv’s strategy aimed to show that Russia has weaknesses and that the war isn’t lost. It also sought to distract Russian forces from their onslaught in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine.

The move was fraught with risk. Analysts noted that it could backfire and open a door for Russian advances in Ukraine by further stretching Ukrainian forces that are short-handed along the roughly 620-mile front line.

The incursion didn’t significantly change the dynamics of the war.

Putin told acting Kursk Gov. Alexander Khinshtein that the Kremlin supported the idea of continuing monthly payments to displaced families that still couldn’t return to their homes.

Putin said that he would back a proposal to build a museum in the region to celebrate what acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein described as “the heroism of our defenders and the heroism of the region’s residents.”

Disgruntled residents had previously shown their disapproval over a lack of compensation in rare organized protests.

Putin last visited the Kursk region in March, when Ukrainian troops still controlled some parts of the area. He wore military fatigues – a rarely seen sight for the Russian leader, who usually wears a suit – and visited the area’s military headquarters where he was filmed with top generals.

Russia and Ukraine continue deep strikes with drones

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that its air defenses shot down 159 Ukrainian drones across the country overnight, including 53 over the Oryol region and 51 over the Bryansk region.

Flights were temporarily grounded twice at Moscow’s Domodedovo and Zhukosky airports, according to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, or Rosaviatsiya, as officials reported Ukrainian drones being shot down in the area.

In Ukraine, Russian drone attacks killed two people and wounded five others in the northern Sumy region, the regional administration said.

In the Kyiv region, four members of a family were injured when debris from a downed drone hit their home, according to the regional administration.

Russia launched 76 Shahed and decoy drones overnight at Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said.

The Ukrainian army said that its drones struck a semiconductor plant overnight in Russia’s Oryol region, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) northeast of Ukraine. According to the General Staff, 10 drones hit the Bolkhov Semiconductor Devices Plant, one of Russia’s key producers of microelectronics for the military-industrial complex.

It wasn’t possible to independently verify the claim.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Hill-Murray has created a maelstrom among some of its most loyal alumni with the school’s decision to move on from longtime girls basketball coach Erin Herman.

One of seven active coaches with 600 career wins, Herman has taken nine teams to the state tournament, most recently in 2023, Her Pioneers teams were the Class 3A runners up in 2010 and 2011.

When reached by text, Herman declined to comment, and school officials including president Melissa Dan, athletics director John Pohl and communications manager Elise Langenfeld have not returned phone messages or emails requesting comment, but the Pioneer Press has obtained an email sent to faculty and staff last Friday that reads, in part, “We have made the decision to move in a new direction with our girls basketball program.”

The letter, sent by assistant athletics director and head football coach Rob Reeves, states that the Maplewood private school is “deeply grateful to coach Erin Herman for her extraordinary, 35-year career leading Hill-Murray Girls Basketball. Coach Herman’s commitment, passion, and love for the game — and her players — have left an indelible mark on our community.”

In January, Herman’s team beat South St. Paul, 67-39, to earn the coach her 600th career victory. The Pioneers (22-7) lost to DeLaSalle, 69-65, in the section final.

“What’s happened here isn’t just wrong; it’s a heartbreaking failure to honor a legacy built on excellence, strength, and decades of unwavering dedication,” program alumna Nicole Persby Giefer said in an email to the Pioneer Press. “Erin Herman is Hill-Murray basketball. More than that, she’s a transformative force in the lives of hundreds of young women who have passed through her program.”

Hill-Murray’s decision has set off a chain reaction among alumni who played for Herman, as well as others in the Pioneers and coaching community. Herman just finished her 36th year with the Pioneers and has been inducted into the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

“Coach Herman’s termination marks not only the end of an era — but a heartbreaking and bewildering decision that has shaken the very foundation of the Hill-Murray basketball program,” former player Corrine McCallum said in an email to the Pioneer Press.

“Her influence extended far beyond the court,” McCallum said. “Under her leadership, Hill-Murray Girls Basketball wasn’t just a program — it was a family, built on grit, excellence, and unwavering commitment to her players.”

In his letter to faculty and staff, Reeves said the school “will soon begin the search for our next Girls Basketball Coach, who will continue to build on Hill-Murray’s commitment to excellence and tradition.”