By STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN and SAM McNEIL

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Iran’s foreign minister will meet in Geneva on Friday with counterparts from Germany, France and the United Kingdom, Iranian state media and European diplomats said, as Israeli airstrikes target his country’s nuclear and military sites and Iran fires back.

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Europe’s push for diplomacy is in sharp contrast to messages from Washington, with U.S. President Donald Trump openly weighing bombing Iran and calling for the unconditional surrender of the Iranian leadership.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will travel to Geneva for the meetings Friday, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. European diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential talks, confirmed the meetings.

“All sides must show restraint, refrain from taking steps which lead to further escalation in the region, and return to diplomacy,” read a joint statement issued Wednesday by France, Germany, the U.K. and the EU.

The three European countries, commonly referred to as the E3, played an important role in the negotiations over the original 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. But they have repeatedly threatened to reinstate sanctions that were lifted under the deal if Iran does not improve its cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

The meeting in Geneva could also provide the three European nations and the EU with a unique opportunity to reach out to Iran in what is going to be the first face-to-face meeting between Western officials and Tehran since the start of the conflict a week ago. It’s a timely moment for Europe to test the chances for a diplomatic solution and seek Iran’s positions amid escalating rhetoric between the U.S. and Iran.

Lammy is flying to Washington on Thursday to meet U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The U.S. may want to use the U.K.-controlled base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in a potential strike on Iran’s underground nuclear facility at Fordo but is not believed to have requested to do so yet.

“The EU will continue to contribute to all diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions and to find a lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear issue, which can only be through a negotiated deal,” said Anouar El Anouni, a spokesperson for the European Commission. “This is why, an intense outreach activity involving all relevant sides is currently underway to preserve room for diplomacy and create the conditions for a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.”

Germany says there must be movement from Iran

Germany’s foreign minister has underlined European countries’ willingness to talk to Iran about a solution to its nuclear program, but says there needs to be movement from Tehran.

Johann Wadephul said Wednesday that the three European countries, which were part of Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement, “still stand ready to negotiate on a solution.”

But he added: “Iran must now move urgently. Iran must take confidence-building and verifiable measures – for example, in that the leadership in Tehran makes it credible that it is not striving for a nuclear weapon.”

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz also discussed the Israel-Iran conflict with Qatar’s ruler ahead of the Geneva talks. A statement from the chancellor’s office said he and Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani agreed Thursday that the conflict must not expand to other countries in the region.

It added that “they stressed that room must be maintained for diplomatic efforts” and that Merz informed Al Thani about Friday’s planned meeting in Geneva.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Thursday that France and Europeans partners are ready to “resume negotiations” with Iran. Barrot did not confirm the Geneva meeting.

Iranian authorities’ message was “relatively clear: there is a willingness to resume talks, including with the United States, provided that a ceasefire can be reached,” Barrot said in a news conference in Paris.

“On our side, there is a willingness to resume negotiations, provided that these negotiations can lead to lasting, substantial steps backward by Iran regarding its nuclear program, its ballistic program and its activities to destabilize the region,” Barrot said.

No U.S. delegates at the Geneva talks on Friday

Trump has given increasingly pointed warnings about the U.S. joining Israel in striking at Tehran’s nuclear program even as Iran’s leader warned anew that the United States would be greeted with stiff retaliation if it attacks.

A U.S. official said Wednesday there no plans for U.S. involvement in nuclear talks set between senior European diplomats and Iran in Geneva, although that could change.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic communications, also noted that the Europeans have been wanting to play a role in the negotiations for months but have been held back by the U.S.

That position, the official said, may be changing as the hostilities intensify.

Israel asserts it launched its airstrike campaign last week to stop Iran from getting closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon. It came as Iran and the United States had been negotiating over the possibility of a new diplomatic deal over Tehran’s program, though Trump has said Israel’s campaign came after a 60-day window he set for the talks. Iran’s supreme leader rejectedU.S. calls for surrender in the face of more Israeli strikes Wednesday and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them.”

Iran long has insisted its nuclear program was peaceful, though it was the only non-nuclear-armed state to enrich uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, was still conducting inspections, though limited, in the country. U.S. intelligence agencies as well have said they did not believe Iran was actively pursuing the bomb.

McNeil reported from Barcelona. Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Lorne Cooke in Brussels, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Matt Lee in Washington and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

By SEUNG MIN KIM

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he plans to tap Chad Meredith, a former state solicitor general in Kentucky, for a federal judgeship in the state — a move that could face objections from Sen. Rand Paul, who opposed the nomination three years ago.

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Meredith was the starring player in a bit of judicial nominations drama in the previous administration, when then-President Joe Biden had agreed to nominate Meredith, who was enthusiastically supported by Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former Senate majority leader. It was a curious move at the time, because Meredith had a track record of defending Kentucky’s anti-abortion laws and the nomination would come in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that eliminated a constitutional right to the procedure.

But Paul indicated to the Biden White House at the time that he would block Meredith’s confirmation proceedings from moving forward, so the former president never formally nominated him. Biden’s decision to back off Meredith was also a relief to Democrats and abortion rights groups who had been enraged at the prospect of Biden tapping an anti-abortion lawyer for a lifetime judiciary seat.

In a social media post announcing the nomination, Trump called Meredith “highly experienced and well qualified.”

“Chad is a courageous Patriot who knows what is required to uphold the Rule of Law, and protect our Constitution,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday night.

McConnell said in a statement Wednesday that Trump made an “outstanding choice” in choosing Meredith, who also served as chief deputy general counsel for former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin.

“His demonstrated devotion to the rule of law and the Constitution will serve the people of Kentucky well on the federal bench,” McConnell said. “I look forward to the Senate confirming his nomination.”

Paul’s office did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday night on the nomination. Three years ago, Paul accused McConnell of cutting a “secret deal” with the White House as a reason why Meredith’s nomination never moved forward under Biden.

“Unfortunately, instead of communicating and lining up support for him, Senator McConnell chose to cut a secret deal with the White House that fell apart,” Paul said at the time.

Paul never made any substantive objections about Meredith himself. It’s unclear whether Paul would hold similar process concerns with Meredith’s formal nomination under Trump.

But Paul had effective veto power over a judicial pick in his home state because the Senate continues to honor the so-called blue slip rule, a decades-old custom that says a judicial nominee won’t move forward if there is opposition from his or her home-state senator. The Biden White House also deferred to that custom, which is why Biden never ended up nominating Meredith.

Though the rule has been eroded in part, namely for appellate court judges whose seat spans several states, the custom has remained intact for district court nominees who are more closely tied to their home states. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has so far made no indication that he would deviate from that longstanding custom.

Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program and an adviser at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, criticized Trump’s selection of Meredith given his “disturbing anti-abortion record.”

“The nomination of Chad Meredith to a lifetime judgeship should trouble everyone,” Zwarensteyn said.

By BEN FINLEY

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — A ceremonial groundbreaking will be held Thursday for the rebuilding of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches, whose congregants first gathered outdoors in secret before constructing a wooden meetinghouse in Virginia.

The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg officially established itself in 1776, although parishioners met before then in fields and under trees in defiance of laws that prevented African Americans from congregating. Free and enslaved members erected the original church house around 1805, laying the foundation with recycled bricks.

Reconstructing the 16-foot by 32-foot (5-meter by 10-meter) building will help demonstrate that “Black history is American history,” First Baptist Pastor Reginald F. Davis told The Associated Press before the Juneteenth groundbreaking.

“Oral history is one thing but to have an image to go along with the oral history makes a greater impact on the psyche of oppressed people,” said Davis, who leads the current 215-member congregation in a 20th Century church that is less than a mile from the original site. “Black Americans have been part of this nation’s history before and since the Declaration of Independence.”

The original building was destroyed by a tornado in 1834. First Baptist’s second structure, built in 1856, stood there for a century. But the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a living history museum, bought the property in 1956 and turned the space into a parking lot.

Colonial Williamsburg had covered the costs of building First Baptist’s current church house. But for decades it failed to tell the church’s pioneering history and the stories of other colonial Black Americans.

In recent years, the museum has placed a growing emphasis on telling a more complete story about the nation’s founding. Colonial Williamsburg’s rebuilding of the church is an opportunity to tell Black history and resurrect the stories of those who originally built it.

Telling Virginia’s untold story

Rebuilding First Baptist’s original meetinghouse will fill an important historical gap, while bolstering the museum’s depiction of Virginia’s 18th century capital through interpreters and restored buildings. More than half of the 2,000 people who lived in Williamsburg at the time were Black, many of them enslaved.

Rev. James Ingram is an interpreter who has for 27 years portrayed Gowan Pamphlet, First Baptists’ pastor when the original church structure was built. Pamphlet was an enslaved tavern worker who followed his calling to preach, sermonizing equality, despite the laws that prohibited large gatherings of African Americans out of fear of slave uprisings.

“He is a precursor to someone like Frederick Douglass, who would be the precursor to someone like Martin Luther King Jr.,” Ingram said. “Gowan Pamphlet was leading the charge.”

The museum’s archaeologists uncovered the original church’s foundation in 2021, prompting Pastor Davis to say then that it was “a rediscovery of the humanity of a people.”

“This helps to erase the historical and social amnesia that has afflicted this country for so many years,” he said.

The archaeologists also located 62 graves, while experts examined three sets of remains and linked them to the congregation.

Scientists at William & Mary’s Institute for Historical Biology said the teeth of a Black male in his teens indicated some kind of stress, such as malnutrition or disease.

“It either represents the conditions of an enslaved childhood or far less likely — but possibly — conditions for a free African American in childhood,” Michael Blakey, the institute’s director, said in 2023.

‘It was a marvel’

In the early 1800s, the congregation acquired the property for the original church from a local white merchant. The land was low, soft and often soggy — hardly ideal for building, said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg’s executive director of archaeology.

But the church’s congregants, many of whom were skilled tradespeople, made it work by flipping bricks on their side and making other adjustments to lay a level foundation.

“It was a marvel that they were able to build a structure there, but also that the structure persists and even grows bigger,” Gary said, adding that the church was later expanded.

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Based on their excavation, archaeologists surmise there was no heat source, such as a fireplace, no glass in the windows and no plaster finish, Gary said.

About 50 people could have sat comfortably inside, possibly 100 if they were standing. The congregation numbered about 500, which included people on surrounding plantations. Services likely occurred outside the church as well.

White planters and business owners were often aware of the large gatherings, which technically were banned, while there’s documentary evidence of some people getting caught, Gary said.

Following Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831, which killed more than 50 white people in Virginia’s Southampton County, the congregation was led by white pastors, though it was Black preachers doing the work, Gary said. The tornado destroyed the structure a few years later.

Boards are being cut

The museum is rebuilding the 1805 meetinghouse at its original site and will use common wood species from the time: pine, poplar and oak, said Matthew Webster, the museum’s executive director of architectural preservation and research. The boards are already being cut. Construction is expected to finish next year.

The windows will have shutters but no glass, Webster said, while a concrete beam will support the new church directly over its original foundation, preserving the bricks.

“When we build the earliest part of the church, we will put bricks on their sides and will lay them in that strange way because that tells the story of those individuals struggling to quickly get their church up,” Webster said. “And then when we build the addition, it will be this formal foundation that really shows the establishment of the church.”

Janice Canaday, who traces her lineage to First Baptist, said Williamsburg’s Black community never forgot its original location or that its graves were paved over in the 1950s.

“They will never be able to expunge us from the landscape,” said Canaday, who is also the museum’s African American community engagement manager. “It doesn’t matter if you take out the building. It doesn’t matter if you ban books. You will never be able to pull that root up because that root is so deep.”

By HOLLY RAMER

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Celebrations around the U.S. are marking Thursday as Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day in 1865 when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Texas.

An organization that promotes African American history and culture in New Hampshire got an early start commemorating the holiday, even as President Donald Trump’s administration works to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, in the federal government and is removing content about Black American history from federal websites.

The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire orchestrated a weekslong celebration that will culminate with a community dance and rededication of the African Burying Ground Memorial Park in Portsmouth.

Those who planned the history tours, community discussions and other events in New Hampshire said they wanted to highlight contradictions in the familiar narratives about the nation’s founding fathers ahead of next year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“Although they are historically courageous, smart men, they were also human. They held people in bondage. They had children with their enslaved,” said JerriAnne Boggis, the Heritage Trail’s executive director. “What would the story look like if the story of America was told from these Black descendants?”

Juneteenth has been celebrated by Black Americans for generations, but became more widely observed after former President Joe Biden designated it a federal holiday in 2021. It is recognized at least as an observance in every state, and nearly 30 states and Washington, D.C., have designated it as a permanent paid or legal holiday through legislation or executive action.

During his first administration, Trump issued statements each June 19, including one that ended with “On Juneteenth 2017, we honor the countless contributions made by African Americans to our Nation and pledge to support America’s promise as the land of the free.”

This year’s celebratory events come amid bitter national debates about Trump’s travel ban on visitors from select countries and his administration’s many anti-DEI initiatives.

New Hampshire, one of the nation’s whitest states, is not among those with a permanent, paid or legal Juneteenth holiday, and Boggis said her hope that lawmakers would take action making it one is waning.

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“I am not so sure anymore given the political environment we’re in,” she said. “I think we’ve taken a whole bunch of steps backwards in understanding our history, civil rights and inclusion.”

Still, she hopes New Hampshire’s events and those elsewhere will make a difference.

“It’s not a divisive tool to know the truth. Knowing the truth helps us understand some of the current issues that we’re going through,” she said.

And if spreading that truth comes with a bit of fun, all the better, she said.

“When we come together, when we break bread together, we enjoy music together, we learn together, we dance together, we’re creating these bonds of community,” she said. “As much was we educate, we also want to celebrate together.”