US grants visas to Iran’s leaders; Claude AI helps build its own successor

The U.S. and Iran are at war, so why is the Trump administration letting Iran's president

and foreign minister into the country next week? Plus, President Trump endorsed her

Now Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar is telling him his immigration crackdown

has gone too far. And AI is helping build the next generation of AI

Anthropix says Claude is now doing a quarter of the work on developing the models that

come next. The stories that matter. The facts you can trust. From across the country to around the world, this is Unbiased Updates from Straight Arrow

Hey everybody, I'm Christian Bryant. The U.S. and Iran are at war, but next week Iran's president and foreign minister will be allowed into 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 says it approved visas for Iran's core delegation and essential staff, including President Massoud Pazeshkin and Foreign Minister Abbas Aranchi

They will face restrictions on where they can travel and what they can buy while they're here

The decision comes with the U.S. and Iran still locked in a war that has now lasted more than six months

And 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 says his country will not send military assets to the Middle

East in a way that could pull it into the conflict, despite President Trump's calls

for Seoul to take a more active military role. And overnight, another attack was reported in the Strait of Hormuz. British maritime officials say a vessel was hit by an unknown projectile starting a fire on board. The crew is reported safe

Iran's Revolutionary Guard separately claimed it struck a ship making what it called an illegal passage through the strait. It's not yet clear whether Iran is claiming the same attack

The Postal Service has stopped building a new computer system that would have changed how mail ballots are handled this election It was ordered by President Trump and the Supreme Court blocked it last week Postmaster General David Steiner says once that court ruling came down the work stopped

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 only be sent

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 says, yes, they had some trouble building something this big this fast

but he's confident it would have been ready around September 15th. For this election, though, the Postal Service says it's back to business as usual

A Republican congresswoman in Florida has a message for President Trump about his immigration

crackdown. She thinks some of it has gone too far. And she's putting that message directly

into a campaign ad less than seven weeks before the midterms. This is Congresswoman Maria Elvira

Salazar, a Trump-endorsed Republican running for reelection in a Miami area district where nearly

three quarters of the population is Hispanic. And in her new ad, she directly calls out the president

Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July

50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors

are telling you about immigration policies. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White

House in 2024 feel betrayed today. Salazar has broken with Trump on immigration before

She pushed for a legal work status for some undocumented immigrants who have been here for

years, pay taxes, and don't have a criminal record. Democratic opponent Elliot Rodriguez

a former Miami news anchor, has also made Trump's immigration policies part of his campaign

He released this ad back in January. Yes, secure borders matter, but so does due process and our Constitution

When our leaders stay silent as these rights are trampled on, that silence is not leadership

Trump endorsed Salazar earlier this year. The White House has not yet responded to her new ad

There's a new rule this morning in the fight over the Kennedy Center. If anyone plans to demolish it or make other major changes to the building they have to give more than 30 days notice first That order came from a federal judge Thursday And right now the Kennedy Center is closed and

crews have been putting up fencing outside. Kennedy Center officials say the current shutdown

is only for seven days because of safety problems inside the building. They say that's a separate

issue from the board's plan to close for roughly two years of renovations

Representative Joyce Beattie is challenging 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 to do this, but or unless it has

Donald Trump's name on the building. And then there are these pictures captured

through the windows of Air Force One. Trump was photographed looking at a large printout that

appears to say Kennedy Center demolished. We don't know 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, quote

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 provide a detailed

update by Wednesday. AI is now helping build the next generation of AI

Anthropix says its Claude model is doing more and more of the work developing its own successor

And this has happened fast. Back in February, Claude was leading basically none of Anthropix model research and development

Six months later, it was leading 26%. Anthropics says that 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 Anthropics' research and development now involves some level of collaboration with Claude

And here's where this gets interesting. Anthropics CEO Dario Amadei has been one of the people calling for a slowdown in AI development over safety concerns And his own company says AI models helping accelerate their own development could eventually make them harder for humans to understand or control

Finally this morning, imagine taking in a stray cat and years later finding out it's a species

scientists didn't even know existed. That's basically what happened in Bolivia, and it has

now led to the first new living cat species identified in more than a century. Meet Leopardus

Tilkayo, a tiny species of tiger cat, 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. One of the cats was actually kept as a pet by a local

family before being taken to a wildlife sanctuary. Researchers eventually tested its DNA and

found its lineage split from other tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago. There's still

plenty scientists don't know about these cats. Camera traps indicate they may be more active at

night and researchers are still working out their diet and how many there actually are. So yes

they may spend their days sleeping. That part at least sounds like a cat. And before we go

a few things we're watching today at two 30, president Trump is set to make an announcement

on healthcare from the white house. Later at six 30, protesters will gather outside the Kennedy

Center before forming a human chain around the building. The group is protesting Trump's changes

to the center and his talk of possible demolition. Then tonight at 7, Trump will attend a MAGA Inc

dinner in Virginia, with the midterms now less than seven weeks away. No noise, no sides. Unbiased

updates gives you the facts straight. You can watch us anytime at san.com or on our app

or join our other listeners on Spotify or your favorite podcast platform

At Straight Arrow, we fear no fact. By the way, have you signed up for the Unbiased Updates newsletter

It's a great way to start your day a little smarter. Sign up at san.com slash newsletters

And a special shout out to our viewers on YouTube. I really appreciate the engagement

And that's Unbiased Updates for this Friday. We'll see you back here Monday. Have a great weekend

And thank you from all of us here at Straight Arrow. I'm Christian Bryan. Take care