By SONIA PÉREZ D.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo said Friday he has not signed an agreement with the United States to take asylum seekers from other countries, pushing back against comments from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

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Noem and Arévalo met Thursday in Guatemala and the two governments publicly signed a joint security agreement that would allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to work in the capital’s airport, training local agents how to screen for terrorism suspects.

But Noem said she had also been given a signed document she called a safe third country agreement. She said she reached a similar deal in Honduras and said they were important outcomes of her trip.

“Honduras and now Guatemala after today will be countries that will take those individuals and give them refugee status as well,” Noem said. “We’ve never believed that the United States should be the only option, that the guarantee for a refugee is that they go somewhere to be safe and to be protected from whatever threat they face in their country. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the United States.”

Asked about Noem’s comments Friday during a news conference, Arévalo said that nothing new was signed related to immigration and that Guatemala was still operating under an agreement reached with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February. That agreement stipulated that Guatemala would continue accepting the deportation of its own citizens, but also citizens of other Central American nations as a transit point on their way home.

Arévalo said that when Rubio visited, safe third country was discussed because Guatemala had signed such an agreement during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term in office. But “we made it clear that our path was different,” Arévalo said.

He did add that Guatemala was willing to provide asylum to Nicaraguans who have been unable to return to their country because of the political situation there out of “solidarity.”

The president’s communications office said Noem had been given the ratification of the agreement reached through diplomatic notes weeks earlier.

During Trump’s first term, the U.S. signed such safe third-country agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. They effectively allowed the U.S. to declare some asylum seekers ineligible to apply for U.S. protection and permitted the U.S. government to send them to those countries deemed “safe.”

By AAMER MADHANI and WILL WEISSERT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday scoffed at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s heated warning to the U.S. not to launch future strikes on Iran, as well as the Iranian supreme leader’s assertion that Tehran “won the war” with Israel.

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Trump, in remarks to reporters and later in an extended statement on social media, said the ayatollah’s comments defied reality after 12 days of Israeli strikes and the U.S. bombardment of three key nuclear sites inflicted severe damage on the country’s nuclear program. The president suggested Khamenei’s comments were unbecoming of Iran’s most powerful political and religious figure.

“Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth,” Trump said of Khamenei. “You got beat to hell.”

The U.S. president spoke out a day after Khamenei insisted Tehran had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a U.S. air base in Qatar and warned against further attacks by the U.S. or Israel on Iran. Khamenei’s pre-recorded statement, which aired on Iranian state television, was the first time that Iranians had heard directly from the supreme leader in days.

The heated rhetoric from Trump and Khamenei continued as both leaders face difficult questions about the impact of the strikes.

Trump and his aides have pushed back vociferously after an early damage assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency became public and indicated that the U.S. bombardment likely only set back Tehran’s nuclear program by months. The 86-year-old Khamenei, the most powerful figure in Iran’s theocracy, meanwhile, has appeared intent on demonstrating his authority and vigor amid speculation about his health and how involved he was in making Iran’s wartime decisions through the 12-day conflict.

In a social media post Friday, Trump also appeared to refer to a plan presented to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the first days of the Israel-Iran conflict to try to kill Khamenei. Trump vetoed that plan, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!”

Trump, after the U.S. airstrikes, sent chilling warnings via social media to Khamenei that the U.S. knew where he was but had no plans to kill him, “at least for now.”

After launching the U.S. strikes — including with U.S.-made bunker-buster bombs — Trump has been insistent that Iran’s nuclear sites have been “obliterated.” Administration officials have not disputed the contents of the DIA report but have sought to focus on a CIA statement and other intelligence assessments, including those out of Iran and Israel, that said the strikes severely damaged the nuclear sites and rendered an enrichment facility inoperable.

Trump also said that he expects Iran to open itself to international inspection to verify it doesn’t restart its nuclear program.

Asked if he would demand during expected talks with Iran that the International Atomic Energy Agency or some other organization be authorized to conduct inspections, Trump told reporters the Islamic Republic would have to cooperate with the IAEA “or somebody that we respect, including ourselves.”

White House officials have said they expect to restart talks soon with Iran, though nothing has been scheduled.

U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff earlier this week said there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries. A sixth round of U.S.-Iran negotiations was scheduled for earlier this month in Oman but was canceled after Israel attacked Iran.

Trump expressed confidence that Iran’s nuclear ambition has faded.

“Can I tell you, they’re exhausted. And Israel’s exhausted, too,” Trump said. He added, “The last thing they’re thinking right now is nuclear.”

At war with their own

In the non-fictional version of Orwell’s “1984,” the world of Tehran, constant war is the norm. Violent unrest with the West serves to tighten the grip of the robed religious zealots over what should be a vibrant modern society. The population is controlled by a never-ending war emergency.

When not at war with other countries Iran’s leaders are at war with their population.

This should stand as a warning to democracies that might be struggling in the standoff against authoritarian control backed by misplaced religions steeped in politics.

Joe Danko, North St. Paul

The closing of Sonnen’s Pet Shop

My family had a restaurant in the heart of downtown St. Paul in the 1960’s and ’70s. I used to go downtown with my father on Saturday mornings and, after visiting with the staff, would go wandering around. Downtown St. Paul was a fun place to wander around in those days.

Sonnen’s Pet Shop was always one of my stops and often my longest one. Mr. Charles Sonnen, who had purchased the pet shop originally, was endlessly patient with my chattering and questions. I bought two aquariums and all my tropical fish from him. His son Dave was already his righthand man at the time. I remember that Mr. Sonnen was also the organist at Assumption Catholic Church downtown for decades. He and his son were very kind to me.

The closing of the shop is the closing of a personal chapter for me as well as a loss for the Hamm Building and St. Peter Street.

Mary Yee, St. Paul

What’s the plan for downtown?

Downtown is in dire need of attention from our mayor and city council. Relying on a return of state workers to downtown is not going to make a significant difference. Nor will spending $114 million on a River Balcony, $3 million on Osborn Plaza, $60 million on a Mississippi River Learning Center, or $500 million on Xcel Arena. What have the mayor and the Planning and Economic Development Department been doing these past five years to revitalize downtown?

Judy Schultz, St. Paul

Some dogs are lucky

I spent 20 years in active duty military and live with the effects of PTSD.

I now beat PTSD every day in part because of a wonderful service animal named, Peyton. Peyton was trained by the same organization the Melissa and Mark Hortman family volunteered with.

Peyton is such a blessing, no amount of words can describe the impact he has had on my life. I’ve taken him places like Mount Rushmore and the White House because I want him to experience as much of the world as he can. I know that sounds silly, and also Peyton is nonplussed by it all. He would prefer just a patch of unfamiliar grass to roll around in.

The Hortmans’ dog, Gilbert, was killed by the assassin. Gilbert went through the same training as Peyton did. Although Gilbert never graduated to be a service animal, I imagine he had the same kind of impact on the Hortman family as Peyton has on me.

I’m glad Peyton doesn’t know what happened to Gilbert. I think often about how much evil and malice is in this world and how lucky Peyton doesn’t have to know about any of it. I’m glad he just gets to know about pure love. Some dogs are lucky.

All dogs go to heaven. Service dogs get their wings. I know Gilbert got his too.

Ryan Radunzel, St. Paul

All that mulch

I was really amused by Joe Soucheray’s “The mountains of mulch arrived and our lives changed” column.

Years ago, I ordered 12 yards of mulch based on a formula I had somehow secured. Whether the formula was defective or I miscalculated, the amount of mulch I ordered was WAY more than I needed.

To this day, I can still see what 12 yards looked like on my driveway and can only imagine the shock of seeing 40 yards of mulch, 3-1/2 times more than the amount I ordered.

As I was reading Joe’s column, I was laughing so hard I got tears in my eyes.

Chuck Gudknecht, St. Paul

Celebrating each other

The Pioneer Press should be sainted for printing a picture on the front page of Sunday Life the June 15 edition, of two high school graduates from apparently different cultures, celebrating their accomplishments.

We need more pictures/articles celebrating each other.

Carol Gallivan, St. Paul

The greatest school in history isn’t Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or any other university you know. And no matter how hard you try, your kids won’t get in. Why? Partly because it was so selective it only admitted one student — but mainly because it closed in 336 BC. For me, Aristotle’s seven-year tutelage of Alexander is the education against which all others should be judged (after all, more than 2,300 years later we still refer to the lone pupil as “The Great”). It’s the ultimate testament to the power of tutoring — a power that artificial intelligence is poised to unlock.

The problem with tutoring is it can’t scale. Or it couldn’t. Because even as we’re besieged by concerns that AI-aided plagiarism is destroying education, we’re starting to see evidence that AI-enabled tutoring might supercharge it. Getting the technology right, though, will require lots of real-life experimentation. While there’s a limit to how much our traditional public school system allows for this kind of test-and-learn approach, this need creates an opportunity for the country’s growing crop of charter schools to make a unique contribution to the future of education.

The wealthy’s appreciation of tutoring did not die with Alexander. I paid rent my first year out of college as a private math tutor and today there are a host of companies offering tutoring services, with those at the high end often charging more than $1,000 per hour.

But for every student who can afford tutoring, there are hundreds more who could benefit from it. A meta-analysis of dozens of experiments with K-12 tutoring, conducted with students of all socioeconomic statuses, found that the additional academic attention significantly boosts student performance. And let’s say you could overcome the cost issue — with more than 50 million students in US primary and secondary schools, there will never be enough tutors to work with them all.

Early experiments with AI-based tutoring suggest it might help fill the gap. In a study of three middle schools in Pennsylvania and California, researchers found that a hybrid human-AI tutoring model — where the technology supported human tutors, allowing them to work with many more pupils — generated significant improvements in math performance, with the biggest increases going to the lowest-performing students. And in a study of four high schools in Italy, researchers replaced traditional homework in English classes with interactive sessions with OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 and found that all the AI-aided groups did at least as well as those engaged in traditional homework — with some performing significantly better.

It could help at a college level, too. In a Harvard University physics course, for example, professors trained an AI tutor to work with some students (replacing their normal class time) while others had a traditional instructor-guided class. Students with AI tutors performed better — in fact they learned twice as much — and were more engaged with the lessons than those in the normal class, even though they had less interaction with a human instructor.

The most impressive findings may come from the developing world. Rising Academies, a network of private schools with more than 250,000 students across Africa, has implemented Rori, an AI-based math tutor for students, and Tari, a support system for teachers, both powered by Anthropic’s Claude and accessible via WhatsApp. Students who used Rori for two 30-minute sessions twice a week for eight months showed an improvement in their math performance “equal or greater than a year of schooling.”

None of this means AI-aided tutoring is a panacea. But it does suggest that such tutors are, if well-designed and implemented, very likely to be helpful even if they remain inferior to the best human options. Since many families can’t access or afford traditional tutoring, what matters is if they are better than no tutors at all.

But “well-designed and implemented” is a crucial part of that sentence. We don’t yet know what the best practices are for AI tutors. Learning this will require extensive experimentation. And, much as it pains me to say this as a proud product of public schools, that kind of free-form experimentation is likely to be a struggle for public school bureaucracy.

Research by the Department of Education and the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University suggests that charter schools, which operate with more freedom about how they staff and teach, are often more innovative than traditional public schools. And because charters are not private schools, they cannot charge tuition or be selective about who they admit. This lets them generate useful data about what does and doesn’t work.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that charter schools are better than their public counterparts. Most innovations fail. But however painful failure is for an individual school, it can actually benefit the system because even bad outcomes produce useful information. Successful AI-based tutoring programs pioneered at charters can and will be adopted by public schools, and failed ones avoided. Given the potentially revolutionary change in education AI is driving, learning should be our primary goal — and charters are likely to be our best instrument toward it.

Gautam Mukunda writes about corporate management and innovation. He teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management and is the author of “Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter.” He wrote this column for Bloomberg Opinion.