Pope Leo XIV meets with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado in a surprise audience

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV met with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado in a private audience at the Vatican on Monday.

The meeting, which hadn’t been previously included in the list of Leo’s planned appointments, was later listed by the Vatican in its daily bulletin, without adding details.

Machado is touring Europe and the United States after she reemerged in December after 11 months in hiding to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.

Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, has called for Venezuela to remain an independent country after U.S. forces captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from his compound in Caracas and flew him to New York to face federal charges of drug-trafficking.

Leo had said he was following the developments in Venezuela with “deep concern,” and urged the protection of human and civil rights in the Latin American country.

Venezuela’s opposition, backed by consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations in the U.S., had vowed for years to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But U.S. President Donald Trump delivered them a heavy blow by allowing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume control.

Meanwhile, most opposition leaders, including Machado, are in exile or prison.

After winning the 2025 Nobel Prize for Peace, Machado said she’d like to give it to or share with Trump.

Machado dedicated the prize to Trump, along with the people of Venezuela, shortly after it was announced. Trump has coveted and openly campaigned for winning the Nobel Prize himself since his return to office in January 2025.

The organization that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize — the Norwegian Nobel Institute — said, however, that once it's announced, the prize can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others.

“The decision is final and stands for all time,” it said in a short statement last week.

This image released by Vatican Media shows Pope Leo XIV meeting with Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado of Venezuela, right, inside his private library at the Vatican, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP, HO)

This image released by Vatican Media shows Pope Leo XIV meeting with Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado of Venezuela, right, inside his private library at the Vatican, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP, HO)

This image released by Vatican Media shows Pope Leo XIV meeting with Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado of Venezuela, right, inside his private library at the Vatican, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP, HO)

FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk's company xAI, as concerns grew among global authorities that it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images.

The moves reflect growing scrutiny of generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text and concern that existing safeguards are failing to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children.

Last week, Grok limited image generation and editing to paying users following a global backlash over sexualized deepfakes of people, but critics say it didn’t fully address the problem.

An emailed request for comment by The Associated Press to xAI resulted in an automated reply from the media support email address which stated, “Legacy Media Lies.” This was the same message received from a different email when asked for comment regarding the global backlash.

Regulators in the two Southeast Asian nations said that existing controls weren't preventing the creation and spread of fake pornographic content, particularly involving women and minors. Indonesia’s government temporarily blocked access to Grok on Saturday, followed by Malaysia on Sunday.

"The government sees nonconsensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity and the safety of citizens in the digital space,” Indonesian Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement Saturday.

The ministry said the measure was intended to protect women, children and the broader community from fake pornographic content generated using AI.

Initial findings showed that Grok lacks effective safeguards to stop users from creating and distributing pornographic content based on real photos of Indonesian residents, Alexander Sabar, director-general of digital space supervision, said in a separate statement. He said that such practices risk violating privacy and image rights when photos are manipulated or shared without consent, causing psychological, social and reputational harm.

In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission ordered a temporary restriction on Grok on Sunday, after what it said was “repeated misuse” of the tool to generate obscene, sexually explicit and nonconsensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors.

The regulator said that notices issued this month to X Corp. and xAI demanding stronger safeguards drew responses that relied mainly on user reporting mechanisms.

“The restriction is imposed as a preventive and proportionate measure while legal and regulatory processes are ongoing,” it said, adding that access will remain blocked until effective safeguards are put in place.

Launched in 2023, Grok is free to use on X. Users can ask it questions on the social media platform and tag posts they’ve directly created or replies to posts from other users. Last summer, the company added an image generator feature, Grok Imagine, that included a so-called spicy mode that can generate adult content.

The Southeast Asian restrictions come amid mounting scrutiny of Grok elsewhere, including in the European Union, the United Kingdom, India and France.

On Monday, the U.K.'s media regulator said that it launched a formal investigation into whether Grok “complied with its duties to protect people in the U.K. from content that is illegal.”

The regulator, Ofcom, said that Grok-generated images of children being sexualized or people being undressed may amount to pornography or child sexual abuse material.

“The content created and shared using Grok in recent days has been deeply disturbing," Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said.

Edna Tarigan reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.

FILE - Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in downtown San Francisco, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

FILE - Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Oval Office of the White House, May 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)