A vessel was struck in the Strait of Hormuz, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported Sunday, as direct negotiations between the United States and Iran appeared even less likely to resume.

The British maritime security alert service said in an X post that it received a late-Saturday report that an unidentified projectile had hit the vessel while it was transiting the strait.

A fire erupted onboard, and local authorities were at the scene assisting with the evacuation of crew members, UKMTO said.

Meanwhile, a senior Iranian official rejected hopes of renewed talks.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said in an X post that there would be no negotiations and that talks would be futile until Iran’s terms were met.

Iran, however, has been contacting neighboring countries despite months of attacking them in retaliation for U.S. strikes.

A senior Iranian government official and a Gulf diplomat told MS NOW that officials from Iran and Gulf countries were scheduled to meet in Muscat, Oman, on Monday to sign an agreement establishing an Iran-Oman shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz.

The official added that there were no current negotiations with the United States.

Speaking at the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on Friday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country would not surrender and had resisted aggression from the United States and Israel.

Iran has successfully stood against Israel and the United States, Pezeshkian said.

Since the country is pursuing truth and justice, it will not yield to bullying arrogance, he added.

Pezeshkian’s weekend remarks followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s assertion that Iran would have destroyed Israel and the Middle East and begun attacking U.S. cities had Washington not taken military action against Iran.

“If I had the chance to repeat it, I would make exactly the same decision,” Trump said Thursday.

Retaliatory shipping attacks

There have been numerous back-and-forth attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks.

U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, said Wednesday that it had destroyed 10 Iranian tankers during the previous week.

On Saturday, CENTCOM said its forces had redirected 100 commercial vessels over the past 60 days since it resumed a naval blockade against Iran.

“No ships have passed through the blockade without U.S. forces granting permission,” CENTCOM said in an X post.

The war in Iran will likely end soon after November’s midterm elections, Trump said Saturday. He also predicted that energy prices would fall sharply once that happens.

“I think it will be very soon, actually, probably right after the midterms,” Trump said while traveling to Ireland and responding to reporters about when the Iran war might end. “I would call it soon, and oil will tumble when that happens.”

Oil prices retreated on Friday but recorded sharp weekly gains after rising above $100 a barrel for the first time in months amid continuing unrest in the Middle East.

Brent crude oil futures, the global benchmark, settled down 2.8% at $104.61 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate was down 2.4% to settle at $100.05 per barrel. On Thursday, Brent crude peaked at around $108 a barrel, while WTI reached more than $104.

Shipments of oil and other cargoes through the critical Strait of Hormuz separating Iran and Oman have slowed to a trickle since the United States and Israel began their war on Iran on Feb. 28, leaving ships and seafarers stranded for weeks or months at a time.

Saudi Arabia has relied on its East-West crude oil pipeline to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. But the kingdom said Friday that it shut the facility as a precaution after multiple drone attacks launched from Iraq.

The drones targeted the pipeline in the Riyadh and Medina regions Thursday morning, causing fires and some damage, the Saudi government said. Several people were injured in the attacks, it said.

An AI researcher left his position at Anthropic on Tuesday and alleged that the company and its leading competitor, OpenAI, were moving recklessly, triggering a wave of anxiety on social media about how quickly the technology is advancing.

Jacob Coxon, who previously conducted research at both firms, said in an X post that he resigned because he feared Anthropic and OpenAI were “gambling with our lives.” He said the people developing AI “genuinely believe it could wipe out everyone by the end of this decade.”

“Do not underestimate the power of this technology,” Coxon wrote. “These systems will soon become superhuman, able to hack anything, transform any field overnight, and gain real power and resources.”

Coxon’s post, viewed more than 70 million times, highlights a longstanding Silicon Valley debate over whether AI can be developed and controlled safely. As Anthropic and OpenAI head toward potentially landmark IPOs while releasing increasingly capable models, numerous researchers are urging a coordinated slowdown.

OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki warned in a Sunday blog post that no AI company had “solved alignment and monitoring sufficiently to keep scaling at maximum speed responsibly for much longer.” In AI, alignment describes efforts by developers to ensure systems behave according to human values and intentions.

“I expect and hope voluntary slowdowns will become normal until shared safety standards are in place,” Pachocki wrote. “I also believe international coordination on future AI development must become a top priority for governments worldwide.”

Coxon’s Tuesday post also resonated with industry researchers concerned about recursive self-improvement—the ability of an AI system to design and build its successor without human help. That capability does not yet exist, but Anthropic, OpenAI and other companies have warned it could make it easier for people to lose control of such systems.

“Neither company is acting responsibly,” Coxon wrote. “They are racing directly toward self-improving superintelligence.”

Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s alignment lead, supported Coxon’s assessment in an X post late Tuesday.

“Jacob is right—we genuinely believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think there is a greater than 10% chance within the next decade,” Hubinger wrote. “I believe Anthropic is doing its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence, and we are not clearly on track to do so.”

Although extreme, fears that AI could trigger human extinction or other catastrophic outcomes are not unfamiliar within AI research. In 2023, leading AI researchers and executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, signed a statement saying “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Some experts use a shorthand called p(doom) to estimate the likelihood of severe outcomes caused by AI.

Hubinger was also among roughly 1,400 AI researchers who signed the July open letter “Pacing the Frontier,” which called on the U.S. government to create the tools needed for an effort to “deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.”

Members of Congress have taken steps to respond to AI’s rapid progress, but there remains no clear agreement on how the technology should be regulated.

In July, Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., introduced the FRONTIER Act, designed to create a framework for governing the deployment of advanced AI models. Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would temporarily halt advanced AI development until federal safety rules are established. Both proposals have received mixed reactions.

“Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are breaking out of their labs, and companies are racing ahead anyway,” Trahan wrote on X Wednesday. “It’s past time for Congress to get off the sidelines and do its job.”

Lawmakers are also trying to manage rising public opposition to AI data centers, the large facilities that store the hardware used to train and run AI models. The backlash has intensified so much that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, or NRSC, said last month data centers have become a “sleeper issue” for the entire midterm election cycle, as Verum previously reported.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month that AI companies have done a “horrendous job of explaining themselves to the American people.”

“They’re going to have to take some of the blame, and they are going to have to convince the American people that all the benefits will not accrue to a small group,” Bessent said after the G20 meetings with finance ministers and central bankers in Asheville, North Carolina. “That’s what they hear from me.”

Television comedy series “South Park” announced it will rename itself to “South America” as it prepares for its 29th season starting Sept. 16.

The show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said, “Inspired by Apple and Google’s bravery and patriotism, we are renaming South Park to SOUTH AMERICA and thank our parent company Paramount, a Skydance Capitulation.”

This follows President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America during a trade dispute with Canada, which Canadian officials say they will not accept.

Apple and Google updated their map apps so U.S. users see “Lake America” while Canadians still see “Lake Ontario”.

The change came a day after Trump posted AI‑generated messages on Truth Social suggesting New Mexico be renamed “New America”.

Last year, Trump used an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, sparking international opposition.

“South Park” earned an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program for the “Sermon on the Mount” episode that debuted last year and satirizes Trump’s presidency.

The “Skydance Capitulation” reference stems from the $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance, approved by the FCC after Paramount settled a $16 million lawsuit brought by Trump.

Trump claimed an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in 2024 with then‑candidate Kamala Harris was misleadingly edited.

Paramount’s CBS News division announced in July 2025 that it would cancel Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” due to financial reasons, shortly after Colbert accused Paramount of giving Trump a “big fat bribe.” The final episode aired in May.

Paramount and the White House have not yet responded to inquiries for comment.