The United States and Iran are set to begin a third round of nuclear talks this weekend, entering what experts describe as a more difficult phase of technical negotiations as Washington lays out its conditions.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the US does not envision Iran enriching its own nuclear material, but rather importing the nuclear fuel – uranium – needed for a civilian energy program. Iran has repeatedly stated that its right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable.

Both the US and Iran have described previous talks as positive, despite President Donald Trump’s threat of US and Israeli military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites should Tehran fail to accept a deal.

But Saturday’s talks may prove more complex, as they are set to involve negotiations on the details of Iran’s nuclear program, an area where Tehran and Washington remain sharply divided.

Here’s what we know.

How the two sides got here

A nuclear deal was reached in 2015 between Iran and world powers, including the US, under which Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions that have crippled its economy.

Formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 deal allowed Iran to enrich uranium at a level that ensured that its nuclear program would be exclusively peaceful.

That agreement was abandoned by Trump in 2018 during his first presidential term. Iran retaliated by advancing its uranium enrichment up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% level that is needed to make a bomb.

Iran insists its nuclear program remains peaceful.

What does Trump want and what are the key issues?

The president has said that he wants a “stronger” deal with Iran than the one reached in 2015 under the Obama administration, but US officials have flip-flopped on their demands over the past month.

In its bid to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, it remains unclear whether the US is demanding a full dismantling of its nuclear program – including its civilian energy component – or whether it would allow such a program if Iran abandons domestic uranium enrichment.

This month, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Iran talks, said there’s no need for Iran to enrich uranium beyond what is needed for a nuclear energy program. He stopped short of demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium altogether or dismantle its nuclear program.

He reversed his position a day later in a statement on X in which he said any final deal with Iran would require it to “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth meanwhile has called on Tehran to fully dismantle its nuclear program.

Then, in an interview on Wednesday, Rubio said that Iran could have a civilian nuclear program but it would have to import the nuclear fuel needed rather than produce it domestically.

“There’s a pathway to a civil, peaceful nuclear program if they want one,” Rubio told The Free Press. “But if they insist on enriching (uranium), then they will be the only country in the world that doesn’t have a ‘weapons program,’ but is enriching. And so, I think that’s problematic.”

While most countries that enrich uranium domestically also have a nuclear weapons program, others don’t. Brazil, for instance, enriches some uranium domestically for its energy program, according to World Nuclear Association. Meanwhile, the British-German-Dutch nuclear fuel consortium Urenco operates enrichment plants in Germany and The Netherlands, neither of which has nuclear weapons. Those countries, like Iran, are party to the United Nations’ Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

Last week, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told The New York Times in Saudi Arabia that Riyadh and Washington were on a “pathway” to reaching an agreement that could see the kingdom enrich uranium.

“The issue is control of sensitive technology. Are there solutions to that that involve enrichment here in Saudi Arabia? Yes,” he said.

What is Iran saying?

Iran has doubled down on its right to enrich uranium and has accused the Trump administration of sending mixed signals.

“Iran’s enrichment (program) is a real and genuine matter, and we are ready to build trust regarding potential concerns, but the issue of enrichment is non-negotiable,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is representing Iran at the nuclear talks, was cited as saying by the state-run Iranian broadcaster Press TV.

Tehran has laid out its “red lines” in talks, including “threatening language” by the Trump administration and “excessive demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program.” The US must also refrain from raising issues relating to Iran’s defense industry, Iranian media said, likely referring to its ballistic missile program, which the US’ Middle Eastern allies see as a threat to their security.

Meanwhile, Iran’s highest leadership has approached the talks with extreme caution. In his first comments on the issue, Khamenei said that Tehran was “neither overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic” about the negotiations with the US.

The Islamic Republic has also tried to present a potential nuclear deal as beneficial to the US. This week, Araghchi touted the possibility of US companies playing a role in Iran’s nuclear energy program, promising “tens of billions of dollars in potential contracts.”

What other possible hurdles ahead lie?

Alongside high-level talks between Araghchi and Witkoff Saturday, technical teams will begin to hammer out the details of a potential agreement.

Michael Anton, the State Department’s head of policy planning, will head the technical team from the US side, spokesperson Tammy Bruce said on Thursday.

Technical talks are “challenging” as they will try to address issues that were not pursued in the 2015 deal, said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Washington DC-based Quincy Institute. “This requires technical expertise to make sure these different ideas actually can become feasible.”

As well as the issue of enrichment, complications may emerge if “poison pills” are introduced, including a demand to fully dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, “Libya-style,” as Israel has pushed for, he added.

Libya in 2003 dismantled its nuclear program in the hopes of ushering in a new era of relations with the US after its two-decade oil embargo on Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.

After relinquishing its nuclear program, Libya descended into civil war following a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled Gadhafi’s regime and led to his killing. Iranian officials have long warned that a similar deal would be rejected from the outset.

Another hurdle could surface if the US demands that restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program “be in perpetuity,” Parsi said. “Meaning, this would not be like normal arms control agreements, (where) restrictions are time-limited and over time expire.”

The 2015 deal had an expiration date, ending in October 2025 unless otherwise decided by the United Nations Security Council.

When he pulled out of the deal in 2018, Trump lambasted the agreement’s 10-year time limit, saying that even “if Iran fully complies, the regime can still be on the verge of a nuclear breakout in just a short period of time.”

Parsi said there may be an opportunity to extend the timeline. “But anything that pushes toward infinitive and in perpetuity restrictions is very likely going to fail, and perhaps by design.”

Where does Israel stand?

Israel has been among the staunchest advocates for Iran to fully dismantle its nuclear program so it can never acquire a nuclear bomb.

The only deal that Netanyahu would view as acceptable is a Libya-style nuclear deal.

The New York Times reported last week that Trump had waved Israel off striking Iran’s nuclear sites as soon as next month to let talks with Tehran play out. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not deny the veracity of the article, instead asserting that Israel’s actions have delayed Iran’s nuclear program.

Responding to the report, Trump said: “I wouldn’t say waved off,” but “I’m not in a rush to do it because I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death.”

Pope Francis’ wooden coffin is to be sealed on Friday night, in a private rite that officially ends three days of his body lying in state at the Vatican.

About 250,000 people filed through St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their final respects to Francis, who was the first pope from Latin America and the first from the Jesuit order.

The liturgical rite of sealing his coffin is being led by the Cardinal Camerlengo Kevin Farrell, the acting head of the church, who is tasked with making arrangements for the pope’s funeral. Farrell, a Dublin-born cleric who became a naturalized American citizen, was formerly the Bishop of Dallas, in Texas.

Other church officials will assist, including the Venezuelan archbishop, the Brazilian prelate and the late pope’s secretaries. A US cardinal accused of mismanaging clerical sexual abuse – the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony – has also been listed as playing an official role.

The ceremony, which will take place behind closed doors, includes several short songs, spoken prayers and a moment for silent prayer.

Farrell will spread a white silk veil over the late pope’s face and sprinkle the body with holy water, according to an order of service released by the Vatican press office earlier this week.

In keeping with tradition, the camerlengo will place several possessions inside the coffin before sealing it, including the pope’s pallium – the long white robe he wore – coins minted during his pontificate and a deed summarizing the highlights of his tenure.

The rite will conclude with a hymn to Mary.

As part of Francis’ push to simplify the papal funeral rites, his body is in a single wooden coffin, rather than having three nested coffins of cypress, lead and oak as was tradition.

Outside the basilica, the streets leading to the Vatican were much busier on Friday afternoon than they were earlier in the week, with thousands joining the line to file past the coffin before the church closed to the public at 7 p.m. local time (1 p.m. ET).

Friday marks the fourth day of national mourning in Italy and a public holiday – Liberation Day – meaning many locals had more time to join the line. Others traveled from much farther away following news of the pope’s death.

“It was wonderful to see him,” said Joana Veiga, from Porto, Portugal, who arrived with her sister in the morning. “It was very peaceful – calm.” Her sister missed a chance to see Francis last year in Portugal, and was thankful that they made it in time for his lying in state.

Pope Francis’ funeral will take place on Saturday on the steps outside of St. Peter’s Basilica at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET). That will mark the beginning of the ancient tradition of the Novemdiales, nine days of mourning for the deceased pope during which funeral Masses are held each day inside the basilica.

His final resting place, in Rome’s Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, will also be simple in style. It will be made of marble from Liguria, northern Italy, where his great-grandfather was from. He asked that the tomb not have ornate decoration, instead only including an image of the cross he wore as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and the Latin inscription of his papal name: Franciscus.

The Magic Circle has readmitted a female magician expelled for tricking her way into the previously all-male institution by disguising herself as a man.

“We’re proud to welcome back magician Sophie Lloyd to The Magic Circle,” said the London-based magic society in an Instagram post Thursday.

“Over 30 years ago, Sophie took extraordinary steps to pursue her passion — disguising herself as ‘Raymond Lloyd’ to join our then all-male society,” reads the post.

“Though she passed her exam and earned her place, she was expelled when her true identity was revealed – on the very day we finally voted to admit women. Today, we right that wrong,” it adds.

The Magic Circle’s purpose is to “promote and advance the art of magic,” according to its website.

Magicians have to prove their skill to be admitted, and must promise to abide by the society’s Latin motto, “Indocilis private loqui” (“not apt to disclose secrets”).

Founded in 1905, the magic society didn’t admit women in the late 1980s when Lloyd, an actress, was persuaded by her friend, a magician called Jenny Winstanley, to apply for membership.

Winstanley didn’t think she would get away with playing the role of a man, so she enlisted Lloyd’s help.

The women trained for 18 months in magic as well as how to act, dress and sound like a man.

Lloyd passed the entrance exam, which required her to perform tricks in front of members of the society, and started as an apprentice before becoming a full member in March 1991.

A campaign to admit women into the all-male society was successful in October that year, and it was after this vote that Lloyd revealed her true self – only to be kicked out.

In November 2024, the Magic Circle’s chairwoman, Laura London, launched a campaign to track Lloyd down. She had found it “difficult to find her,” adding that the “orchestrated deception” was “so brilliantly put together, almost like a heist.

More than three decades later, Lloyd said she is “beyond thrilled” to be welcomed back.

Speaking on the Today program on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, Lloyd recounted how she wore a bodysuit, gloves and plastic cheek plumpers to disguise her true identity.

“I did a 20-minute show in front of 200 people, three examiners, and spoke to an examiner for an hour and three quarters afterwards,” she said.

Despite being expelled after admitting her deception, Lloyd said it was “emotional” to be readmitted, given that Winstanley, who was the brains behind her character Raymond, had died in 2004.

“I think Jenny would have loved it,” she said.

The society now has more than 80 female members, according to its website. This makes up about 5% of its cohort of more than 1,700 members.

Among the most famous members are magician Dynamo, actor Stephen Fry and even King Charles III, who joined when he was still a prince in 1975, after performing a cups and balls trick, according to the Magic Circle.

Ruma was having lunch on a summer day in 2021 when her phone began blowing up with notifications.

When she opened the messages, they were devastating. Photos of her face had been taken from social media and edited onto naked bodies, shared with dozens of users in a chat room on the messaging app Telegram.

The comments in screen shots of the chat room were demeaning and vulgar – as were the texts from the anonymous messenger who had sent her the images. “Isn’t it funny? … Watching your own sex video,” they wrote. “Tell me you honestly enjoy this.”

The harassment escalated into threats to share the images more widely and taunts that police wouldn’t be able to find the perpetrators. The sender seemed to know her personal details, but she had no way to identify them.

While revenge porn – the nonconsensual sharing of sexual images – has been around for nearly as long as the internet, the proliferation of AI tools means that anyone can be targeted by explicit deepfakes, even if they’ve never taken or sent a nude photo.

South Korea has had a particularly fraught recent history of digital sex crimes, from hidden cameras in public facilities to Telegram chat rooms where women and girls were coerced and blackmailed into posting demeaning sexual content.

But deepfake technology is now posing a new threat, and the crisis is particularly acute in schools. Between January and early November last year, more than 900 students, teachers and staff in schools reported that they fell victim to deepfake sex crimes, according to data from the country’s education ministry. Those figures do not include universities, which have also seen a spate of deepfake porn attacks.

In response, the ministry established an emergency task force. And in September, legislators passed an amendment that made possessing and viewing deepfake porn punishable by up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won (over $20,000).

Creating and distributing non-consensual deepfake explicit images now has a maximum prison sentence of seven years, up from five.

South Korea’s National Police Agency has urged its officers to “take the lead in completely eradicating deepfake sex crimes.”

But of 964 deepfake-related sex crime cases reported from January to October last year, police made 23 arrests, according to a Seoul National Police statement.

Victims taking action

Ruma was a 27-year-old university student when her nightmare first began. When she went to the police, they told her they would request user information from Telegram, but warned the platform was notorious for not sharing such data, she said.

Once an outgoing student who enjoyed school and an active social life, Ruma said the incident had completely changed her life.

“It broke my whole belief system about the world,” she said. “The fact that they could use such vulgar, rough images to humiliate and violate you to that extreme extent really damages you almost irrevocably.”

She decided to act after learning that investigations into reports by other students had ended after a few months, with police citing difficulty in identifying suspects.

Ruma and fellow students sought help from Won Eun-ji, an activist who gained national fame for exposing South Korea’s largest digital sex crime group on Telegram in 2020.

Won agreed to help, creating a fake Telegram account and posing as a man in his 30s to infiltrate the chat room where the deepfake images had circulated. She spent nearly two years carefully gathering information and engaging other users in conversation, before coordinating with police to help carry out a sting operation.

When police confronted the suspect, Won sent him a Telegram message. His phone pinged – he had been caught.

Two former students from the prestigious Seoul National University (SNU) were arrested last May. The main perpetrator was ultimately sentenced to 9 years in prison for producing and distributing sexually exploitative materials, while an accomplice was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.

Excerpts of the ruling shared by Ruma’s lawyers state, “The fake explicit materials produced by the perpetrator are repugnant, and the conversations surrounding them are shocking … They targeted victims as if they were hunting prey, sexually insulted the victims and destroyed their dignity by using photos from graduations, weddings, and family gatherings.”

Ruma’s case is just one of thousands across South Korea – and some victims had less help from police.

Public often unsympathetic

“My hands started to shake,” she recalled. “When could this photo have been taken, and who would upload such a thing?”

But she said the situation worsened two days later. Her hair was made messy, and her body was altered to make it look like she was looking back. The manipulated picture of her face was added onto nude photos. The sophisticated technology made the images unnervingly realistic.

Police told her that their only option to identify the poster was to request user information from Twitter, the social media platform bought by Elon Musk in 2022 and rebranded as X in 2023, with an emphasis on free speech and privacy.

Kim and a colleague, also a victim of a secret filming, feared that using official channels to identify the user would take too long and launched their own investigation.

They identified the person: a quiet, introverted student “someone you’d never imagine doing such a thing,” Kim said.

The person was charged but regardless of what happens in court, she said life will never be the same.

She said a lack of public empathy has frustrated her too. “I read a lot of articles and comments about deepfakes saying, ‘Why is it a serious crime when it’s not even your real body?’” Kim said.

According to X’s current policy, obtaining user information involves obtaining a subpoena, court order, or other valid legal document and submitting a request on law enforcement letterhead via its website.

X says it’s company policy to inform users that a request has been made.

Its rules on authenticity state that users “may not share inauthentic content on X that may deceive people or lead to harm.”

Pressure on social platforms to act

Won, the activist, said that for a long time, sharing and viewing sexual content of women was not considered a serious offense in South Korea.

Though pornography is banned, authorities have long failed to enforce the law or punish offenders, Won said.

Societal apathy makes it easier for perpetrators to commit digital sex crimes, Won said, including what she called “acquaintance humiliation.”

“Acquaintance humiliation” often begins with perpetrators sharing photos and personal information of women they know on Telegram, offering to create deepfake content or asking others to do so. Victims live in fear as attackers often know their personal information – where they live, work, and even details about their families – posing real threats to their safety and allowing anonymous users to harass women directly.

Since South Korea’s largest digital sex exploitation case on Telegram in 2020, Won said the sexual exploitation ecosystem had fluctuated, shrinking during large-scale police investigations but expanding again once authorities ease off.

Online platforms are also under pressure to act.

Telegram, which has become a fertile space for various digital crimes, announced it would begin sharing user data with authorities as part of a broader crackdown on illegal activities.

The move came after the company’s CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in August in France on a warrant relating to Telegram’s lack of moderation, marking a turning point for a platform long recognized for its commitment to privacy and encrypted messaging. Durov is under formal investigation but has been allowed to leave France, he said in a post on Telegram.

Last September, South Korea’s media regulator said Telegram had agreed to establish a hotline to help wipe illegal content from the app, and that the company had removed 148 digital sex crime videos as requested by the regulator.

Won welcomed this move, but with some skepticism – saying governments should remove the app from app stores, to prevent new users from signing up, if Telegram doesn’t show substantial progress soon. “This is something that has been delayed for far too long,” she said.

A meaningful breakthrough occurred this January, marking the first time Korean authorities successfully obtained crime-related data from Telegram, according to Seoul police.

Fourteen people were arrested, including six minors, for allegedly sexually exploiting over 200 victims through Telegram. The criminal ring’s mastermind had allegedly targeted men and women of various ages since 2020, and more than 70 others were under investigation for allegedly creating and sharing deepfake exploitation materials, Seoul police said.

“No matter how much punishments are strengthened, there are still far more victims who suffer because their perpetrators have not been caught, and that’s why it feels like the verdict is still far from being a true realization of change or justice,” Ruma said. “There’s a long way to go.”

Two Mexican activists who publicized a grisly “extermination camp” linked to organized crime were killed on Thursday in Jalisco, according to Mexican authorities.

The victims are María del Carmen Morales and her son Jaime Daniel Ramírez Morales, both activists for the rights of missing people in Mexico.

Morales is part of the Warrior Searchers of Jalisco, a group dedicated to finding missing people. Morales’s son, Ernesto Julián Ramírez Morales, disappeared on February 24, 2024, in Las Villas de Tlajomulco, Jalisco according to the Warrior Searchers.

In March, her group announced the discovery of the Izaguirre ranch – a site with secret crematoriums and buried human remains, believed to have been a criminal group’s center of operations. The group labeled it an “extermination camp,” where criminals lured prospective recruits and held them against their will, though Mexican authorities have not used that term when discussing the property.

“But that does not mean that it is not being investigated, all avenues must be exhausted”, said Denis Rodríguez, spokesperson for the Jalisco Attorney’s Office.

At her morning briefing on Friday, President Claudia Sheinbaum said that the Mexican Undersecretary for Human Rights would reach out to the Morales family to offer them assistance and called for further investigation.

“This must be thoroughly investigated,” Sheinbaum said. “There can be no conclusion like ‘it had nothing to do with [Morales’s] work.’ It must be thoroughly investigated.”

This is the second case in less than a month of people seeking justice for the disappearance of family members being killed in Jalisco.

Teresa González died on April 2nd after six days in a hospital following a gun attack. According to the group Luz de Esperanza Desaparecidos Jalisco, which participated in the investigations at the Izaguirre ranch, González was attacked with a firearm during an attempted kidnapping.

González was searching for her brother, who disappeared in February 2024 in Guadalajara, the second-largest city in Mexico and one of the areas where most people have disappeared in recent years in the country.

Gunmen have killed at least 20 people in an attack in a gold mining village in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara state, residents and Amnesty International said.

Details on a possible motive for the attack were not immediately known but Zamfara state has grappled with kidnappings for ransom by armed gangs, who also target security forces.

Zamfara police’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Ismail Hassan, a resident, told Reuters that gunmen in their hundreds opened fire on miners on Thursday afternoon and a firefight ensued with over 20 people dead in the mining village of Gobirawa Chali in the Maru local government area of Zamfara state.

Another resident, Isah Ibrahim, said they had recovered 21 bodies following the attack and that several were injured.

Amnesty International said in a statement the gunmen went house-to-house in Gobirawa Chali, killing over 20 people.

Armed gangs of men have killed and kidnapped hundreds across northwest Nigeria over the past two years, typically operating from remote forests. The country’s thinly stretched armed forces have struggled to secure the large, remote regions.

Nigeria’s military is stretched by insecurity across the country, including an Islamist insurgency in the northeast, deadly farmer-herder clashes in the central belt and clashes with separatist movements in the south.