There is a grey bar at top of my iPhone Home Screen

I have an iPhone 16 pro which I just got from Verizon. After setup and a few days I have a grey bar that drops down from the home screen. It is very small and doesn't have anything clickable. I even replaced the phone thinking I may have a defective screen, but it's back on the new phone. I have reset my home screen to default settings and that hasn't changed anything. I have rebooted and played with the transparency setting but that didn't help. It doesn't appear to be a defective screen but maybe a setting or even a bug. I am on software version iOS 18.5. As you can see in the image, the time and other icons are barely visible in the grey area. it cannot be clicked or swiped up. The time stamp is different than the regular time stamp too.

[Edited by Moderator]

Original Title: Grey bar at top of home screen