US: Trump says will 'pass' on Ukraine talks if too difficult

Senior White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held indirect talks at Oman's embassy in Rome. 

It was the second time officials from the two sides have met in the past week to discuss Tehran's nuclear program.

While the US has yet to comment, Araghchi said "the negotiations are progressing well," according to Iranian state media.

Iran's Foreign Ministry has also said the talks were being held "in a constructive atmosphere."

"Indirect talks" at the technical level are expected to continue this week, and senior US and Iranian officials will meet for a third round of negotiations in Muscat next Saturday, the foreign ministry said.

US Vice President JD Vance held "cordial talks" with the Vatican's second-highest official, the Holy See has said.

Vance, who was raised in a Protestant family before becoming atheist and eventually converting to Catholicism, met Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state on Friday. Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See's secretary for relations with states, also attended the meeting, according to a statement from the Vatican.

The US vice president said he and Cardinal Parolin had discussed Catholicism in the US, the persecution of Christians around the world as well as Trump's "commitment to restoring world peace."

Vance did not meet with Pope Francis, who is still recovering from double pneumonia.

Pope Francis has previously described Trump's mass deportations of undocumented migrants as a "disgrace," and has condemned recent widespread cuts to foreign aid and domestic welfare programs.

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, and Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, are reported to be negotiating indirectly in Rome through an Omani official who will shuttle messages between the two sides.

The two interacted briefly at the end of the first round of talks last week, but direct negotiations have not taken place since 2015.

Ahead of the talks, Araqchi met with his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani, and called for all parties to "seize the opportunity to reach a reasonable and logical nuclear deal."

However, the Islamic Republic's utmost authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said this week he was "neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic" about the outcome of the negotiations.

US President Donald Trump has threatened military action against Tehran if diplomacy fails, telling reporters on Friday: "I'm for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can't have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific."

Washington wants Tehran to halt production of highly enriched uranium, which it believes is aimed at building an atomic bomb.

The United States is prepared to recognize Russian control of Ukraine's Crimea region as part of a broader peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, Bloomberg News reported.

Citing people familiar with the matter,  Bloomberg said a final decision on the US position had not yet been taken.

The concession would suggest that Washington is keen to finalize a ceasefire plan after US President Donald Trump on Friday expressed his frustration with the progress of negotiations.

Kyiv has repeatedly said it would not cede territory to Russia.

The Kremlin seized and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and continues to fully control the region.

Russia has declared the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya part of its territory, but does not fully control those areas.

Under a proposed peace deal presented by the US to allies in Paris on Thursday, the frontline in the three-year conflict would be frozen and most other Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia would remain under Moscow's control, Bloomberg reported.

Ukraine would also have to forgo its ambition of joining NATO, Bloomberg said, citing people familiar with the talks.

US Vice President JD Vance has arrived at the Vatican for talks with senior Catholic Church officials, the first in-person talks of Donald Trump's second presidency.

Vance, who is a Catholic, was due to meet Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, and deputies.

However, he is unlikely to meet Pope Francis, who is recovering after a long stay in hospital when he was treated for double pneumonia.

The Trump administration and the church are at odds over the US president's crackdown on illegal immigration.

Pope Francis has called the mass deportation of undocumented migrants from the United States a "disgrace."

The vice president has cited medieval-era Catholic teaching to justify the crackdown.

The pope has also criticized Trump's widespread cuts to foreign aid and domestic welfare programmes.

The Catholic Church's worldwide charity arm, Caritas, has called the Trump administration's aid cuts "catastrophic" in terms of its impact on the developing world.

The US Supreme Court has temporarily blocked the deportation of Venezuelan men held at an immigration center in northern Texas.

The court directed the Trump administration to keep holding the men at the Bluebonnet Detention Center, located 24 miles north of the city of Abilene, for now.

"The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court," the Supreme Court justices said in a brief, unsigned order issued early Saturday.

The ruling ensures that the detainees will have the opportunity to challenge their deportation in court.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented from the decision.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took legal action to block the deportations of dozens of Venezuelan men under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).

US President Donald Trump is using the legislation to swiftly remove alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, whom he accuses of staging "irregular warfare" against the US. 

The ACLU said in a court filing that some of the men had already been loaded onto a bus and were told they were to be deported.

Lower US courts have previously barred the removal of detainees under the AEA until due process has been followed. But no such order has been issued for northern Texas.

The ACLU said it went to the Supreme Court after lower courts in the area failed to act swiftly.

An Iranian delegation headed by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Italy ahead of nuclear talks with the United States, Iran's state television reported.

Araghchi was shown disembarking from an Islamic Republic airplane in Rome.

After the first round of indirect talks was described as productive, Araghchi is due to hold a second round later Saturday with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

The negotiations are being mediated by Oman.

The United States and Iran are to hold a new round of talks on Saturday in Rome about Iran's nuclear program. 

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will negotiate indirectly through mediators from Oman. 

These come after a first round of talks in Oman that both sides described as constructive.

US President Donald Trump on Friday repeated his aim for Iran to halt production of highly enriched uranium, which many believe is aimed at building an atomic bomb. 

"They can't have a nuclear weapon," Trump said on Friday ahead of the talks. "I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific."

For more on how last week's talks were viewed, watch this interview with Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics. 

The White House has unveiled a revamped COVID-19 website which promotes the contentious theory that the virus came from a Chinese laboratory. 

The CIA said in January in an assessment of the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak that it was "more likely" to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals.

But the CIA said it had "low confidence" in its judgement, suggesting the evidence was deficient, inconclusive or contradictory.

The new COVID-19 website contends that the pandemic's "true origins" was a human-made pathogen that leaked from an infectious disease laboratory in Wuhan, China. 

The World Health Organization remains open to all theories, including that the pandemic started with infected animals sold at a seafood wholesale market in Wuhan.

The failure of China to allow independent scientists access to Wuhan and various data sets means that the debate around the pandemic's origins is likely to remain unresolved.

However, the lab leak theory has recently gained mainstream traction in the US.

The revamped website is critical of US government steps taken during the pandemic like social distancing, and mask mandates.

A multitude of studies have shown that wearing a mask indoors can help stop spread of COVID-19 infections.

It also singles out individual government officials for criticism. 

The site previously focused on promoting vaccine and testing information.

More than 1 million people died of Covid-19 and related illnesses in the US.

The Trump administration's policy of refusing to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect their gender identities is likely unconstitutional, a judge ruled on Friday. 

District Judge Julia Kobick temporarily blocked the enforcement of the new passport rule for six transgender people who sued to challenge it.

In January, Trump signed an executive order directing the government to recognize only two biologically distinct sexes, male and female.

The State Department soon after changed its passport policy to only recognize a person's biological sex at birth — that is, people can only use the sex that is on their birth certificates rather than the sex they identify as.

The policy also only allowed passport applicants to list as male or female.

This meant people could no longer self-select their sex on their passport or chose the neutral "X" sex marker, often used by nonbinary people.

Kobick said the executive order and the passport policy are based on irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans.

They therefore went against the constitution's commitment to equal protection for all Americans. 

Friday's ruling only applies to six people. The ruling doesn't bar the government for using the new policy for other passport applicants. 

Transgender people in the US were first allowed to change their sex marker on their passports more than 30 years ago.

The United States will roughly halve the number of troops it has deployed in Syria in the coming months, the Pentagon confirmed on Friday.

The US has had troops in Syria for years as part of efforts against the so-called "Islamic State."

A Pentagon spokesperson said less than 1,000 US forces would be left in Syria in the coming months, down from about 2,000 troops spread across a number of bases. 

The US started withdrawing the first of its troops on Thursday, according to the New York Times.

The move is a reflection of the changed security situation in the Middle Eastern country. 

In December, a rebel coalition ousted Bashar Assad, bringing an end to much of the fighting that had mired Syria in civil war for more than 14 years. 

Despite IS having suffered major territorial losses and military defeats in Syria, analysts warn that the Islamic terrorist group still poses a "persistent danger."

US Senator Chris Van Hollen said that he met Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, at a hotel.

The Democratic senator spoke to reporters just after landing back in the United States following his three-day trip to El Salvador to press for Abrego Garcia's release.

Van Hollen said the case "is not only about one man," but also about President Donald Trump’s disregard of the American judicial system.

Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia was brought to his hotel after the senator attempted to visit the man, who has been imprisoned in El Salvador since he was sent there on March 16. 

Van Hollen accused El Salvador of trying to stage the meeting and glorify its treatment of Albrego Garcia to "deceive people about what's going on."

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Van Hollen said government officials put cocktail glasses on the table to make it look like the two men had been drinking. He also criticized initial plans to set up the meeting by a hotel pool.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele posted a photo on X on Thursday, showing the US senator and Abrego Garcia sitting together. 

Abrego Garcia is "sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!" the post said. 

According to Van Hollen, Abrego Garcia is "traumatized" by having been at CECOT, the notorious mega-prison designed to hold El Salvador's most dangerous gang members. 

The Trump administration has refused to adhere to a Supreme Court order to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. 

Abrego Garcia told the senator that he had been moved from CECOT to a different prison with better conditions.

The number of Republicans who say Russia is an enemy of the United States has fallen significantly over the past year.

Republicans are also less likely to say the US has a responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.

That's according to a newly released study by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based think tank.

Only 40% of Republicans now see Russia as an enemy, a considerable fall from 58% in 2024. 

Many more Democrats, some 62%, say Russia is an enemy.

Overall, half of Americans now call Russia an enemy, down from 61% in 2024.

Republicans and Democrats also differ widely in their view of the NATO defense alliance. 

Democrats are significantly more likely than Republicans to rate NATO positively, with 77% having a favorable opinion of NATO. 

Only 45% of Republicans see NATO favorably. 

Though views on NATO have shifted little over the past year among both Republicans and Democrats, the study found.

Russia said on Friday that contacts with the United States were rather complicated over Ukraine peace talks. 

"Contacts are quite complicated, because, naturally, the topic is not an easy one," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

He said that Russia had made "some progress," referring to a temporary truce agreed by Russia and Ukraine against strikes on energy infrastructure. But the truce has ended, Peskov added.

Russia's comment came after President Donald Trump said that the US would "pass" on helping bring an end to the war in Ukraine if no easy solution can be found.  

Trump insisted on Friday that both sides had to make progress. 

"Now, if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: 'You’re foolish. You’re fools. You’re horrible people' — and we’re going to just take a pass," Trump said.

President Donald Trump said the United States will "take a pass" on trying for peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine if "parties make it difficult."

Meanwhile, Russia responded, saying that contacts with the United States were rather complicated over Ukraine peace talks. 

And the number of Republicans who see Russia as an enemy of the United States has fallen by nearly a third since last year.

More follows throughout the day.