A White House official described the meeting as “very productive” and noted that it was the first since the tense Oval Office meeting in February of this year.
According to Zelenskyy’s office, the two leaders sat down in St. Peter’s Basilica for about 15 minutes before moving on to the meeting photos that Kyiv and Washington released.
“President Trump and President Zelenskyy met privately today and had a very fruitful discussion. Following the meeting, White House communications director Steven Cheung will provide more information.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, described the 15-minute meeting as “constructive,” but he did not provide more details.
The two leaders were present at Pope Francis’ funeral service in the Vatican. Their meeting occurred as the US’s negotiations for a resolution of the Ukraine-Russia conflict grew more difficult.
Trump’s threat of sanctions
Trump boarded Air Force One and left Rome after the funeral service. He published a controversial post on social media where he addressed Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, “There was no reason for Putin to have fired missiles at civilian targets, cities, and towns, over the past few days. A Russian missile strike on a Kyiv apartment block on Thursday left 12 people dead.
“It makes me believe that maybe he doesn’t want to end the war, that he is just teasing me and needs to be handled differently, through “Banking” or “Secondary Sanctions”?” Too many people are persuading, “! Trump authored .
Trump’s usual rhetoric, which has seen Zelenskyy receive the harshest criticism, was a departure from the post, which he has frequently addressed favorably.
Zelenskyy wrote: “Good meeting. We had a great conversation one-on-one. We hope that all the topics discussed will come to an end.
He claimed that those subjects included: “The protection of our people’s lives.” A total and unwavering ceasefire. A trustworthy, long-lasting peace that will stop war from rekindling.
Zelenskyy continued, “If we get together, it could turn out to be historic.” President Donald Trump, I appreciate it.
No aides are visible.
The meeting’s photos, which were only available to Zelenskyy’s office, provided a rare glimpse into the private conversations. In a previous image, the two leaders were leaning in close as they spoke. They were seated opposite one another in a grand marble hall.
No assistants came up next to them.
The US president, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and French President Emmanuel Macron are seen in a close-knit image taken in the same setting.
At their most recent meeting, Zelenskyy and Trump both criticized for what they perceived as a lack of gratitude for American support. Zelenskyy was also accused of disrespect by not dressing up, by a US reporter.
Trump, who has urged a direct meeting between Moscow and Kyiv to reach a truce, claimed on Friday that the discussions between his envoy and Russian officials had been fruitful.
However, Kyiv and its European allies’ positions and Washington’s proposals diverge. A US proposal to legalize the designation of Crimea as Russian territory, which Ukraine and other European countries vehemently opposes, is a major sticking point.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi expressed his concern about the potential success of the nuclear negotiations, which are expected to continue next week, according to both countries.
Iran’s nuclear weapons pact with the Islamic republic, which is expected to be signed by US President Donald Trump, has sparked confidence.
A week after a second round of indirect negotiations in Rome that both sides described as constructive, Araghchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held on Saturday in Oman’s capital Muscat through Omani mediators for about six hours.
According to Araghchi, “the negotiations are extremely technical and serious,” and there are still disagreements over important points as well as details.
“Both sides take it seriously and with great care,” he said. “Our optimism about the success of the talks is still very cautious.”
A senior official in the US administration described the discussions as being constructive and fruitful, adding that “both parties agreed to meet once more in Europe soon.”
The official continued, “There is still much to do, but further progress was made in achieving a deal.”
Talks with Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi earlier had been scheduled for a second “high-level meeting,” which would take place on May 3. Oman will set the date, according to Aghchi.
Trump expressed cautious optimism earlier on Air Force One as he boarded the plane for Rome to pay homage to Pope Francis.
He claimed that “the Iran situation is very well emerging.” We have spoken with them frequently, and I believe we will reach a deal. I prefer the other option to a deal, in my opinion. That would benefit humanity.
Trump also made threats, saying: “There are some people who want to make a different kind of a deal – a much nastier deal – and I don’t want that happening to happen if we can avoid it.
The expert-level negotiations were “difficult, complicated, and serious,” according to an Iranian official who was informed about the discussions earlier.
According to Araghchi, the only goal of these discussions was to “increase confidence in Iran’s nuclear program’s peaceful nature in exchange for sanctions relief.”
The Iranian Foreign Ministry’s statement that the Oman negotiations were not going to be about the country’s missile and defense programs was reported to state TV.
In the indirect discussions with the United States, Esmaeil Baghaei said on Saturday, “the issue of defense capacities and the country’s missiles is not on the agenda.”
Since Trump withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with the world powers in 2018, there have been escalating tensions. Iran has since broken all restrictions on its nuclear program and has since increased its uranium to close to 90 percent, or close to the level required for weapons.
Iran has long been accused of attempting to acquire nuclear weapons by Western nations, including the US, insisting that its program is for peaceful civilian purposes. Tehran has consistently refuted this claim.
Iran would have to completely stop enriching uranium in accordance with a deal, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and import any enriched uranium necessary to power its sole operational atomic energy plant, Bushehr.
Iranian officials claim that Tehran is willing to negotiate some restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, but “Iran’s red lines that cannot be compromised” in the discussions include “iran’s red lines that cannot be compromised”
Numerous European diplomats have questioned whether a comprehensive agreement should include restrictions preventing Iran from putting a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile.
A team of scientists claims that technology has created a new color that people can’t see.
The researchers from the United States used a device named after the Wizard of Oz to inject laser pulses into their eyes to “experience” the color, which they called “olo.”
Olo is difficult to see with the unaided eye, but five witnesses who have seen it claim that it resembles teal.
What findings was made by the study?
On April 18, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington, School of Medicine, published an article in the journal Science Advances that described their discovery of a hue that is unrelated to human vision.
They explained that they had created Oz, a trick that can “trick” the human eye into seeing olo. The method is named in honor of the Wizard of Oz.
Frank Baum wrote about a man in Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, who deceives the populace of the fictional land of Oz into believing he was a wizard. For instance, it is thought that visitors to Oz’s capital, the Emerald City, must wear special glasses to protect their eyes because it is so vibrant and vibrant. One of the wizard’s tricks is using glasses, which give the city a more lush and lush appearance.
How are colors perceived by people?
The retina’s three different photoreceptor types are used to perceive color. M cones detect medium, green, and L cones detect longer, red wavelengths, while S cones detect shorter, blue wavelengths.
Francis Windram, a research associate in the department of life sciences at Imperial College London, explained to Al Jazeera that “the signals from these cones are then sent through a complex series of cells in the retina that clean up and integrate the signal before passing it down the optic nerve through parts of the brain.
The visual cortex is where visual information is passed from one area of the brain to another.
A doctor shows a human eye model [Shutterstock]
How was the “new” color discovered by scientists?
M cones serve a dual purpose in normal vision, with S and L cones and S and L cones serving as neighbors, so any light that strikes M cones activates the other two cones as well. The M cones cannot be used alone.
In an article published on the university’s website, Ren Ng, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, explained that “there is no wavelength in the world that can stimulate only the M cone.”
“I started to wonder what the results would be if all M cone cells were stimulated.” Would it be “the greenest green you’ve ever seen”?
Ng and Austin Roorda, both of whom are professors of optometry and vision science at UC Berkeley, collaborated on the technology.
The eye uses tiny microdoses of laser light to target individual photoreceptors, which Roorda called “a microscope for looking at the retina.” Eye disease research is already being conducted using the equipment, which needs to be extremely stable when in use.
James Carl Fong, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley who studies electrical engineering and computer science, started using Oz in 2018. The experiments that were conducted by Hannah Doyle, a second doctoral student at Berkeley, showed how human subjects could perceive the new color, olo.
Is the color olo really new?
Olo has always existed, but it has since gone beyond the range of hues that are visible to the average person. We cannot see any other shades of this nature. Therefore, from a physical or scientific perspective, olo is not a new color.
However, “from a sociolinguistic perspective, maybe it’s if people give new names to colors that were previously indistinguishable thanks to this technology! ” Windram said, “It all depends on how you say it.”
[Shutterstock] A palette reveals some of the colors that people typically see.
How many people have seen Olo?
Four men and one woman have seen the “new” color, totaling five. Everyone had a typical color vision.
Roorda and Ng, three of the subjects, are co-authors of the study, while the other two are researchers at the University of Washington employees who were unaware of the study’s purpose before they participated.
How does Olo appear?
Olo is described as being a teal or green-blue color, but it has never been seen before, according to those who have seen it.
It is described as a “blue-green color of unparalleled saturation” in the article by UC Berkeley.
The most saturated natural color was just pale in comparison, according to Roorda, who described it as “like a profoundly saturated teal.”
“Olo is a very striking olo, even though I wasn’t the subject of this paper. You are aware that the subject is “very blue-green,” Doyle said.
The researchers found that a photo of a teal square is the most similar color to olo. This square is not an olo-colored square, though. Simply put, the shade is invisible to the unaided eye.
“No time soon will we see Olo on any TVs or smartphones,” the statement states. According to a report in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Ng said, “And this goes a very, very far beyond VR headset technology.”
What if some colors are physically indistinguishable from one another because they are uncommon?
Olo, a hue that cannot be rendered but only experienced, was discovered by UC Berkeley researchers.
Olo might never or might not be a part of the Pantone Color System. https: //t. co/sBRGVhw85g pic. twitter.com/rxmbutd7y2
Could colorblindness be a benefit of this technology?
Researchers at Berkeley are examining whether colorblindness sufferers can benefit from Oz technology.
According to Windram, success would depend on a person’s colorblindness. The most prevalent type of color blindness is deuteranomaly, which results in lessened green light sensitivity.
According to Windram, “in this situation, a miniaturized version of this technology could theoretically be employed to correct this by directly stimulating the cones when the appropriate color of light hits them.”
Windram pointed out that images of the Oz experiment on a table with great stability are displayed in research publicity materials.
“This would require a lot of work to minimize the technology, which is likely to take a long time. This may not technically be a form of vision correction because the laser must stably hit the appropriate cones in order to stimulate them, he said.
How can we determine how people “see” color?
According to Windram, the physical and neurological components of the color have three main components: the biological processing of these light signals by humans, the societal or linguistic component, and the linguistic component, which affect how colors are named.
“In the end, I may see a color and pronounce it red,” while another may describe it as rot or rouge, or as rot, or as rot, or as rot, or as crimson, or as claret or crimson.
In order to evaluate this, neuroscience and artificial intelligence researcher Patrick Mineault created a website for entertainment in September 2024 that users can use to test their color perceptions against those of others.
Due to variations in “temperature” of light, humans also have a different perception of color. A photo of a dress went viral in 2015, causing debate between users regarding whether it was white, gold, or blue, and black.
According to Windram, those making the decision about the color of the dress were refining preconceived notions about whether the dress was photographed in warm or cool lighting.
Do people and animals have different color visions?
Yes, colors can change depending on the species.
For instance, humans only perceive three wavelengths of red, blue, and green light while the tiny crustacean mantis shrimp can see 12 channels of color instead of just three. The mantis shrimp can detect ultraviolet and polarized light, which humans cannot see, according to an article from the Australian Academy of Science.
However, the eyes of a mantis shrimp cannot combine color receptors, unlike the human eye can mix two colors and distinguish between them, such as purple when red and blue are combined.
According to state news agency IRNA, a powerful explosion and fire at Iran’s largest commercial left at least 14 people dead and 750 others injured.
More than 1, 000 kilometers (620 miles) south of Tehran’s capital, the Shahid Rajaei port, where helicopters dumped water on the raging fire on Saturday.
According to Hossein Zafari, a spokesperson for Iran’s crisis management organization, the explosion was brought on by the lack of proper chemical storage at Shahid Rajaei.
He claimed to Iran’s ILNA news agency that the chemicals inside the containers were the cause of the explosion.
Zafari said the director general of crisis management had previously warned this port during their travels and pointed out the possibility of danger.
However, an Iranian government spokesman claimed that the blast was likely caused by chemicals, but it was still difficult to pinpoint the exact cause.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sent his interior minister, who claimed the fire was still being worked out to stop it from spreading to other areas, to launch an investigation into the incident.
According to Press TV, the fire at Shahid Rajaei Port in southern Iran increased about 10 hours after the explosion.
Schools and offices in Bandar Abbas, the provincial capital of Hormozgan, have been ordered to close on Sunday because choking smoke is spreading throughout the area, according to Press TV, to allow authorities to concentrate on the need. They are located 14 kilometers away.
In the Iranian province of Hormozgan, thick black smoke billowing after an explosion at the Shahid Rajaei port dock, southwest of Bandar Abbas, is captured in this image.
According to a statement from the National Iranian Oil Products Refining and Distribution Company, the blast did not affect the nearby oil facilities.
The company claimed that Shahid Rajaei Port’s explosion and fire have no connection to any refineries, storage facilities, distribution centers, or oil pipelines connected to this business.
Esmaeil Malekizadeh, a representative for the Hormozgan Ports and Maritime Administration, claimed the explosion occurred close to the Shahid Rajaei port dock earlier.
A ball of fire was visible rising from the explosion site in a large plume of black smoke from a social media video.
Buildings and vehicles were also damaged in other videos. In addition to checking the damage to the properties, several people were seen in the area looking after the injured.
The Shahid Rajaei port, which primarily handles container traffic, also has petrochemical facilities like oil tanks.
Israel is accused of carrying out a significant cyberattack on the same port in May 2020, which halted travel for days after the facility’s computer system was destroyed.
As Iranian officials continue to discuss a potential new nuclear deal with American officials, the explosion occurs at a sensitive time.
The Sina container yard, which is associated with the Ports and Maritime Organization, was declared safe by Iran’s customs authority in a statement.
At least 11 people have died at a displacement camp in River Nile state as a result of a suspected drone attack by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, according to authorities.
The local governor claimed in a statement released late on Friday that the attack had caused a nearby power station for the fourth time in the two years that the RSF and the Sudanese army had been fighting.
A medical official reported that the attack was a deadly escalation of the conflict, leaving 23 others injured. At least nine children were reportedly among the injured, according to witnesses.
“My son, my cousin, the husband of my daughter, and the children of my cousin are all deceased. According to witness Haleema, the boy is ten years old, while the girl is reportedly two.
In central and northern Sudan, the RSF has been accused of attacking power infrastructure in Sudanese army-controlled areas.
Hemedti, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s RSF, denies carrying out drone attacks.
A makeshift camp was hit by the attack on Friday, which happened close to the Atbara power station in al-Damer, which was about 3 km (2 miles) away.
With little to no humanitarian assistance, about 180 families who had fled the capital’s capital, Khartoum, were residing in abandoned structures and tents.
Another victim of the attack, Mawaheb Mohamed, claimed that “the first drone attack came and landed right behind us.”
“Four more came fifteen minutes later, totaling four.” Because the scene was so challenging, there were corpses, dismembered bodies, and hospital personnel, he made the decision to leave.
As residents boarded buses heading for an unknown location, authorities were seen hosing down the smoldering remains of tents and belongings following the attack.
As drone and missile attacks plunged millions into weeks-long blackouts, further aggravated the humanitarian crisis in a nation that had been devastated by the civil war, the situation worsened as a result of the wider collapse of Sudan’s power grid.
In April 2023, the Sudanese army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF rekindled their hostility in an open conflict.
Al-Burhan has been ecstatic about recent victories made by the military, including those in Khartoum, but ground fighting is currently rifling in the Darfur region, where hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing.
One of the largest displacement crises in history has been caused by the conflict. More than 12.4 million people have been displaced from their homes, including 3.3 million who have emigrated to neighboring nations, according to the UN.
