The U.S. grants visas to Iran’s president and foreign minister for next week’s U.N. General Assembly, even as the two countries remain at war.
Plus, Trump-endorsed Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar criticizes his immigration crackdown, warning that Hispanic voters who backed him now “feel betrayed.”
And Anthropic says Claude is now leading roughly a quarter of its AI development work, putting AI to work building the next models.
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US grants visas to Iranian officials ahead of UN meeting
The U.S. and Iran are at war. Yet next week, Iran’s president and foreign minister will be allowed to enter the United States.
The Trump administration has approved visas for Iran’s top delegation to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The State Department said it approved visas for Iran’s “core delegation” and essential staff, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. They will face restrictions on where they can travel and what they can buy while they’re here.
The decision comes as the U.S. and Iran remain locked in a war that has now lasted more than six months. Washington is still trying to squeeze Tehran financially, imposing another round of sanctions this week aimed at what the Treasury Department calls Iran’s “critical financial lifelines.”
At the same time, one U.S. ally is drawing a line on how far it will go in the war. South Korea’s president said his country will not send military assets to the Middle East in a way that could pull it into the conflict, despite Trump’s calls for Seoul to take a more active military role.
Overnight, another attack was reported in the Strait of Hormuz. British maritime officials said an unknown projectile hit a vessel, starting a fire on board. The crew is reportedly safe.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard separately claimed it struck a ship making what it called an “illegal passage” through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s not yet clear whether Iran is claiming the same attack.
USPS pauses mail-voting system despite postmaster general claims it was ready
The U.S. Postal Service has halted work on a new computer system that would have changed how it handles mail-in ballots this election.
Trump ordered it, and the Supreme Court blocked it last week.
Postmaster General David Steiner said the work stopped once the court ruling came down.
Trump’s executive order called for federal agencies to build state citizenship lists and feed them into a new postal service portal. The idea was that mail ballots could be sent only to voters cleared through that system.
But earlier this month, a whistleblower report said the system wasn’t ready and had serious problems.
Steiner doesn’t agree with that. He said yes, they had some trouble building something this big this fast, but he’s confident it would have been ready around Sept. 15.
For this election, though, USPS said it’s back to “business as usual.”
Trump endorsed her. Now Salazar says his immigration crackdown went too far
A Republican congresswoman in Florida has a message for Trump about his immigration crackdown. She believes some of it has gone too far and delivered that message directly in a campaign ad less than seven weeks before the midterms.
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Trump-endorsed Republican running for reelection in a Miami-area district where nearly three-quarters of the population is Hispanic, called out the president in her new campaign ad.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50% of the 50,000 people detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar
Salazar has previously broken with Trump on immigration. She’s pushed for legal work status for some undocumented immigrants who have lived here for years, pay taxes and don’t have a criminal record.
Her Democratic opponent, Eliott Rodriguez, a former Miami news anchor, has also made Trump’s immigration policies central to his campaign. He released an ad in January, saying: “Yes, secure borders matter, but so does due process and our Constitution. When our leaders stay silent as these rights are trampled, that silence is not leadership.”
It’s time to raise our voices and call out cruel policies targeting immigrants and American citizens alike. pic.twitter.com/QVPOUuhn9P
— Eliott Rodriguez (@ERodCBS4) January 27, 2026
Trump endorsed Salazar earlier this year. The White House has not yet responded to her new ad.
Judge limits Kennedy Center changes, requires 30 days’ notice before any demolition
A new rule has emerged in the fight over the Kennedy Center. Anyone planning to demolish it or make other major changes to the building must provide more than 30 days’ notice. A federal judge issued the order Thursday.
The Kennedy Center is currently closed, and crews have been installing fencing outside. Kennedy Center officials said the shutdown will last only seven days due to safety issues inside the building. They said that’s separate from the board’s plan to close for roughly two years for renovations.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, has challenged that in court.
“We want to make sure that we keep the Kennedy Center healthy. And certainly, as you know, we have been dealing with the unlawful naming. And it is being held hostage every time there’s an issue that comes up; it has been connected. We will consider doing this, but only if Donald Trump’s name is on the building,” she said.
Then there are pictures taken through Air Force One’s windows. Trump was photographed looking at a large printout that appears to read “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.” It’s unknown who made it, what the rest of it says, or whether the administration is actually considering tearing the center down.
The White House didn’t answer that question Thursday.
In a statement, they said: “For years, Democrats let the Kennedy Center rot. As President Trump said last night, without his intervention, the Kennedy Center will inevitably continue to decline.”
The judge declined to hold an emergency hearing but ordered the center to submit a detailed update by Wednesday.
Anthropic taps Claude to help build future AI models
Anthropic has tapped AI to help build the next generation of AI. The company said its Claude model is doing more and more of the work in developing its own successor.
This has happened quickly.
Back in February, Claude was leading essentially none of Anthropic’s model research and development. Six months later, it was leading 26%. Anthropic said this means Claude can now take a high-level prompt and do most of the work on a task from start to finish.
Humans are still supervising it, so Claude isn’t building its replacement all by itself. But about 90% of Anthropic’s research and development now involves some level of collaboration with Claude.
Here’s where this gets interesting: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been among those calling for a slowdown in AI development due to safety concerns. His own company said AI models that help accelerate development could eventually become harder for humans to understand or control.
New wild cat discovered in Bolivia for the first time in 100+ years
Imagine taking in a stray cat and years later learning it’s a species scientists didn’t even know existed. That’s what happened in Bolivia, and it has led to the identification of the first living cat species in more than a century.
Meet Leopardus tilcayo, a tiny tiger cat species first described this week in the journal Current Biology.
And tiny is the word. It’s smaller than your average house cat, about 18 inches long and weighing just three pounds.
A local family kept one of the cats as a pet before taking it to a wildlife sanctuary. Researchers later tested its DNA and found its lineage diverged from other tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago.
Scientists still don’t know much about these cats, but camera traps suggest they may be more active at night. Researchers are still working out their diet and how many are actually out there.
So yes, they may spend their days sleeping. That part, at least, sounds like a cat.
More from Straight Arrow:
55+ housing communities are surging. But what must they actually offer?
Communities geared for the 55-and-older set exist primarily as a legal and marketing concept, not as a national standard for home and community design.
Baby Boomers are reliably buying into new and existing subdivisions, lured by promises of sustainably affordable amenities and houses designed for aging in place. But such communities do not adhere to any national or local set of design or community guidelines. That means that prospective homeowners are on their own to discern if the amenities and home design actually align with aging-in-place best practices.
“As a builder, you set your standards in your market,” J. Wayne Hiott told Straight Arrow. He runs Tyler Chandler Homes, a builder in the Atlanta area, and is on the board of trustees for the 55+ Housing Industry Council of the National Association of Home Builders.
“It’s really driven by local or state rules,” Hiott said. In his market, the county sets specific building codes for senior living. In other markets, either county or state codes might prevail.
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