SOLON, Maine (AP) — From the outside, it looks like any other New England church building: a boxy, white structure with a single steeple surrounded by an old stone wall, set against rolling hills and pine forest.
Inside, though, the South Solon Meeting House has a secret unknown even to some who drive through the tiny Maine town every day. The interior of the building is covered in 70-year-old fresco murals that encourage some in the state's art community to describe it as “Maine's Sistine Chapel.”
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A fresco depicting community members with a model of South Solon Meeting House is seen through a window in the lobby of the building, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Veronique Plesch, an art professor at Colby College, gives a lecture to art teachers about the frescoes that adorn the walls and ceiling of the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
The unassuming South Solon Meeting House, built in 1842, is pictured Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Veronique Plesch, an art professor at Colby College, pauses during a tour of the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
The South Solon Meeting House, a clapboard building with Gothic architectural influences, is pictured, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A rock wall surrounds the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Visitors view the frescoes at the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
The murals were painted by artists in the 1950s and, while they have long been appreciated by visitors, the recent creation of a website dedicated to them by students at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, has generated new interest in the paintings.
Véronique Plesch, a Colby professor of art, hopes the building inspires more appreciation of frescoes.
“I fell in love with the place, because I have studies frescoes all my life,” said Plesch, who is a member of the board of the historical society that cares for the meeting house. She added that the paintings should stay in public places and not be in private institutions.
The meeting house was built in 1842 and hosted church services until the 1940s, though there were periods of closure, such as times of war. A decade later, Margaret Day Blake found the building in a state of disuse and the former student at the nearby Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture put out a call for young artists to paint frescoes under the school's supervision in 1951.
The artists were given creative freedom and told there would be no limits to subject matter, but that Biblical scenes would “offer rich and suitable” imagery. The interior was covered in such scenes from 1952 to 1956 and the walls remain adorned with frescoes, including one that references Leonardo da Vinci's “The Last Supper."
Another fresco depicts the binding of Isaac, in which a hooded Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son on God's orders. The Great Flood is depicted as it was by Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
Two of the 13 artists — Sigmund Abeles of New York City and Sidney Hurwitz of Newton, Massachusetts — both in their 90s, are still living. Both spoke fondly about their time at the meeting house.
“We would go out there and paint and then take a lunch break in the cemetery behind the building. It was a very idyllic time,” Hurwitz said. “I very much enjoyed it.”
Today, the meeting house, which is open to the public without locks on its doors, serves as a community gathering and performance space. Many of its old features, including box pews made for smaller people of a different time, are still intact.
Abeles recalled painting the scene of Jacob wrestling with the angel from the Book of Genesis.
“It's a very, very special place, and it was a unique experience" to work on the frescoes, Abeles said.
On a recent Sunday morning, Plesch gave a lecture at the meeting house before a group of members of the Maine Art Education Association as part of the group's spring conference. Long ago, attendants of the building might have been preparing for an Easter service, but on this day it was full of teachers fascinated by the frescoes.
Suzanne Goulet, an art teacher at a nearby high school, said she was previously aware of the frescoes and confessed she had peeked into the windows of the old building, adding that it's great the paintings are still inspiring art lovers decades later.
“The inspiration is that we bring it back to our students,” Goulet said.
A fresco depicting community members with a model of South Solon Meeting House is seen through a window in the lobby of the building, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Veronique Plesch, an art professor at Colby College, gives a lecture to art teachers about the frescoes that adorn the walls and ceiling of the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
The unassuming South Solon Meeting House, built in 1842, is pictured Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Veronique Plesch, an art professor at Colby College, pauses during a tour of the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
The South Solon Meeting House, a clapboard building with Gothic architectural influences, is pictured, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A rock wall surrounds the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Visitors view the frescoes at the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
President Donald Trump met with the new Syrian leader, a onetime insurgent, in a stunning engagement on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia. Trump was to wrap up his visit to the kingdom later in the morning and head to Qatar, the second leg of his three-nation Middle East tour this week.
Trump said the rapprochement with Syria came at the urging of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“There is a new government that will hopefully succeed,” Trump said of Syria, adding, “I say good luck, Syria. Show us something special.”
On Tuesday, Trump received a lavish welcome in Riyadh, where he announced he would move to lift sanctions on Syria to give the country “a chance at peace.” He also focused on dealmaking with the kingdom, a key Mideast ally, and touched on shared concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and the war in Gaza.
Trump also urged Iran to take a “new and a better path” as he pushes for a new nuclear deal and said he wanted to avoid conflict with Tehran. Trump and Prince Mohammed, the kingdom's de facto ruler, signed a host of economic and bilateral agreements.
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi expressed displeasure at Trump’s announcement about the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Syria.
Araghchi, who is Iran’s nuclear negotiator, slammed Trump as having a “very deceitful viewpoint.”
“What he stated about the hope of regional nations for a progressive, flourishing path, is the same path that people of Iran decided through their revolution,” Araghchi said.
“It was the U.S. that blocked progress of Iranian nation through sanctions for more than 40 years as well as its pressures, military and nonmilitary threats,” he added.
Trump told GCC leaders in Riyadh that he wanted to secure a deal that would prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
He said he hoped for a “future of safety and dignity of the Palestinian people” but not with Gaza’s current leaders, Hamas, who he said “delight in raping, torturing and murdering innocent people.” He said his sanctions relief for Syria would “give them a fresh start.”
He told the room of regional leaders that the the world was watching them “with envy” but added: “if we can simply stop the aggression from a small group of pretty bad actors.”
Trump also dove into U.S. politics, making sure to mention his victory in the 2024 election, which he called historic. He said the Biden administration “created havoc and bedlam.”
The photos show Syrian interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, shaking hands with the Saudi crown prince, with Trump standing behind them. The three leaders later posed for a photo, Trump smiling broadly. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had joined the gathering by phone.
The source of the photos was not immediately clear, though Syrian activists and others shared them and local Saudi-owned media began publishing them.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said later in a statement that Trump urged al-Sharaa to “do a great job for the Syrian people.”
He also asked him to diplomatically recognize Israel, “tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria” and help the U.S. stop any resurgence of the Islamic State group, as well as having Syrian government “assume responsibility” for detention centers holding IS militants.
For his part, al-Sharaa expressed "hope that Syria would serve as a critical link in facilitating trade between east and west, and invited American companies to invest in Syrian oil and gas,” Leavitt wrote.
French President Emmanuel Macron strongly denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to block aid from entering Gaza as “a disgrace” that is causing a major humanitarian crisis.
“I say it forcefully, what Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is doing today is unacceptable,” Macron said Tuesday evening on TF1 national television as he was asked about the situation in Gaza.
“There’s no medicine. We can’t get the wounded out. Doctors can’t get in,” Macron said. “What he’s doing is a disgrace, it’s a disgrace!”
Macron, who visited injured Palestinians in El Arish hospital in Egypt last month, called on reopening the Gaza border to humanitarian convoys as a priority. “Then, yes, we must fight to demilitarize Hamas, free the hostages and build a political solution,” he said.
The Israeli prime minister made the request during his visit to Washington last month, according to the official. The official says the request was made out of concern that a cross-border attack similar to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault, could come from Syria.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the request with the media.
Israel fears that the new Syrian president and his Islamist past could pose a threat on its northern border.
Trump on Tuesday said he would ease sanctions on Syria and move to restore ties with its new leader. The move is just the latest disagreement between the U.S. and Israeli leaders who have differed on how to approach Iran and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, among other regional issues. Trump’s first term policies were overwhelmingly favorable to Israel.
— By Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel;
The meeting between Trump and Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa was the first such encounter between the two nations’ leaders in 25 years.
It took place on the sidelines of Trump sitting with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Reporters were not allowed in to witness the stunning engagement.
It was a major turn of events for a Syria still adjusting to life after the over 50-year, iron-gripped rule of the Assad family.
People across Syria cheered in the streets and shot off fireworks Tuesday night to celebrate after Trump announced he would move to lift U.S. sanctions on Syria, hopeful their nation locked out of credit cards and global finance might rejoin the world’s economy when they need investment the most.
The strikes took place overnight on Tuesday and early Wednesday, the Indonesian Hospital in Jabaliya reported.
They came a day after Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage in a deal brokered by the United States, and as Trump was in Saudi Arabia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that there was “no way” Israel would halt its war in Gaza, dimming hopes for a ceasefire spurred by the Trump administration's efforts in the region.
Israel's military spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee has urged people to evacuate the ports of Ras Isa, Hodeida and Salif, where he says the Iran-backed Houthi rebels operate.
The warnings came as Trump continues his visit to the region and after the U.S. reached a ceasefire deal with the Houthis. The Israeli military made a similar warning for people to evacuate the ports on Sunday but did not follow that up with strikes.
Last week, Israel carried out a two-day strike on the Houthis, including the airport in Yemen’s capital, after the Houthis launched a missile that struck the grounds of Israel’s main international airport.
Syrians cheered Trump's announcement that America will move to lift sanctions on the beleaguered Middle East nation. People in the capital, Damascus, whistled and cheered the news as fireworks lit the night sky.
The state-run SANA news agency published video and photographs of Syrians cheering in Umayyad Square. Others honked their car horns or waved the new Syrian flag in celebration.
Trump’s planned meeting with the country’s rebel-turned-leader Ahmad al-Sharaa represents a remarkable political turnaround for Syria, which has been locked in a bitter war since the 2011 Arab Spring. In December, rebels led by al-Sharaa toppled Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad’s government.
Al-Sharaa, who was imprisoned in Iraq for his role in the insurgency following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, will be the first Syrian leader to meet an American president since Hafez Assad met Bill Clinton in Geneva in 2000.
▶Read more about sanctions on Syria
The U.S. once offered $10 million for information about the whereabouts of the insurgent then known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani. He had joined the ranks of al-Qaida insurgents battling U.S. forces in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and still faces a warrant for his arrest on terrorism charges in Iraq.
Syria’s new president came back to his home country after the conflict began in 2011, and led al-Qaida’s branch that used to be known as the Nusra Front.
He later changed the name of his group and cut links with al-Qaida before they finally succeeded in overthrowing President Bashar Assad in December.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday night called Trump's statement about the sanctions a pivotal turning point for the Syrian people as they "seek to emerge from a long and painful chapter of war.”
The statement also was careful to describe the sanctions as coming “in response to the war crimes committed by the Assad regime against the Syrian people,” rather than the war-torn nation’s new interim government.
“The removal of these sanctions offers a vital opportunity for Syria to pursue stability, self-sufficiency and meaningful national reconstruction, led by and for the Syrian people,” the statement added.
The Israeli military issued a statement on Wednesday morning announcing the missile fire from Yemen after sirens sounded in the country.
“A missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” the Israeli military said. “Sirens were sounded in accordance with protocol.”
The Houthis had launched another missile just after Trump addressed an investment summit in Riyadh on Tuesday. Trump had earlier announced a ceasefire between America and the rebel group.
The Houthis have been attacking Israel over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s decision to bar aid to the beleaguered Palestinian enclave. The Iranian-backed rebels also are locked in a stalemated war with a Saudi-led coalition backing the country’s long-exiled government.
The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack, though it can take hours or even days for them to acknowledge an assault.
The foreign ministry bolstered its travel cautions for New Zealanders visiting the United States, the first such update since Trump took office, officials said Wednesday. The travel advice hadn’t been fully updated since 2023, the statement said.
Language added to the guidance for U.S.-bound travelers included an alert that visitors “may encounter scrutiny from U.S. border authorities,” including inspection of their travel documents, reason for travel and personal belongings.
It also warned travelers to “expect strict enforcement” of entry conditions and caution of “detention, deportation and ban from re-entry” if travelers don’t comply.
Syrians wave Saudi and Syrian flags in celebration after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans during his visit to Saudi Arabia to ease sanctions on Syria and normalize relations with its new government, in Homs, Syria, late Tuesday, May 13, 2025.(AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Syrians celebrate after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans during his visit to Saudi Arabia to ease sanctions on Syria and normalize relations with its new government, in Homs, Syria, late Tuesday, May 13, 2025.(AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Syrians wave Saudi and Syrian flags in celebration after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans during his visit to Saudi Arabia to ease sanctions on Syria and normalize relations with its new government, in Homs, Syria, late Tuesday, May 13, 2025.(AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Syrians celebrate after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to ease sanctions on Syria and move toward normalizing relations with its new government to give the country 'a chance at peace,' in Idlib, Syria, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
President Donald Trump waves as he leaves the Royal Palace after a signing ceremony with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman walk for a signing ceremony at the Royal Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pose for a photo at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gesture as they meet delegations at the Royal Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
