America
Independent US oil firms set to sign output deals in Venezuela
Several independent US oil producers are expected to sign production contracts with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company in the coming days.
According to sources who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity because details of the event have not yet been made public, a signing ceremony involving several small US producers and Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) was scheduled to take place in Houston on Tuesday (18 August) evening.
One source said Venezuela’s oil minister and the head of PDVSA’s exploration division were scheduled to attend the ceremony. Another source added that the event could be postponed until Wednesday morning.
The White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, was not expected to be officially involved in Tuesday’s ceremony.
However, the development follows a visit by senior officials to Caracas in late April, where they signed memorandums of understanding that established the framework for formal production agreements in the country, which holds some of the world’s largest oil reserves.
Despite the tailwind provided by high crude prices, negotiations had stalled over key details such as dispute resolution, while officials in Caracas contended with two devastating earthquakes in June that claimed thousands of lives.
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, announced new regulations last month that offer more favourable fiscal terms to international oil companies.
According to an industry source close to the negotiations, the signing of the contracts comes after the Trump administration renewed pressure on Rodríguez to ensure PDVSA concludes agreements with American firms.
The source said these efforts included outreach by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss how increased oil revenues could assist the country following the devastating earthquake earlier this summer.
The source added:
“Delcy reached a renewed awareness that increased oil production is the way to rebuild after the earthquakes and to achieve what her government wants to do for the people suffering from the earthquakes.”
David Goldwyn, president of the international energy consultancy Goldwyn Global Strategies, said investments from independent oil producers and boosting output from existing fields would serve as the “primary source of new oil growth for the next few years” for Venezuela.
“While the oil majors are trying to buy time to see how the political situation clarifies and whether they can cherry-pick the best assets, independent companies can de-risk their projects in the short term,” Goldwyn said.
However, Goldwyn noted that these investments would add no more than 300,000 barrels per day to the country’s oil production over the next year, falling far short of the multi-million-barrel increase that officials in Caracas and Washington wish to see.
“Until the framework improves, electricity is restored, and the political picture becomes clear, all we will see is incremental production growth,” the strategist said.
America
Over half of Latino voters back Democrats in key US House races
A new public opinion poll in the US shows that Democratic candidates have made notable gains since 2024 among Latino voters in critical, competitive districts for the House of Representatives.
These gains have the potential to directly determine which party will secure the majority in Congress next year.
According to a joint survey by Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision shared with Axios, Democrats reached 58% support on the generic congressional ballot among Latino voters across 17 competitive House districts.
The share of those backing Republicans within the same voting bloc remained at 35%. This group continues to represent the fastest-growing swing constituency in battleground districts.
Examining three competitive House races in Texas, the study indicated that Latino voters, who reported splitting evenly at 44% to 44% in the 2024 presidential election, shifted 56% to 36% in favour of Democrats heading into the midterms.
Latino support for Democrats also increased in other states. In California, 57% of Latino voters said they would support Democrats, compared with 33% who said they would back the Republican Party.
Kate Coleman, Senior Vice President at TelevisaUnivision, highlighted voter behaviour in remarks to Axios:
“Latino voters are not locked into one party. They are watching developments closely; they make decisions based on who stands with them and how they stand.”
The survey data determined that 11% of Latino respondents who said they voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election now support Democratic candidates.
Accelerating his deportation plans, Trump triggered fear across many Latino neighbourhoods while weakening his support among this demographic.
The Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision study revealed that 63% of Latino voters disapprove of Trump’s presidential job performance. The share of those approving of his performance in office stood at 36%.
Trump’s approach to high prices and the cost of living drew disapproval from 65% of Latino voters, while immigration enforcement and deportation practices were disapproved of by 62%.
More than half of Latino voters, at 64%, reported that they disapprove of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
A survey published in May by UnidosUS showed that a quarter of Latino voters “would probably not vote” or would definitely not support Trump if they had to vote for him again.
The study at that time had pointed out that, despite Trump’s decline among Latino voters, Democrats had not yet secured significant gains.
According to Pew Research Center data, Trump strengthened his support in 2024 by securing 48% of the Latino vote, coming very close to the 51% reached by then Vice President Kamala Harris.
Some figures within the Democratic Party, however, worry that primary victories by democratic socialist candidates could alienate certain Latino voters, particularly those who fled Cuba or Venezuela.
The Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision survey was conducted between 6 and 17 August among 1,500 Latino respondents. The poll’s margin of error was reported as 2.5 percentage points.
America
Researcher quits Anthropic and warns AI firms gamble with lives
Jacob Coxon, an artificial intelligence researcher at Anthropic, has resigned from his post, stating that tech companies are acting irresponsibly in the race towards self-improving superintelligence. Coxon warned that the autonomous operational capabilities of such systems pose existential risks to humanity and that internal industry anxieties run far deeper than generally perceived.
The AI researcher stepped down from his position at Anthropic to draw attention to industry safety vulnerabilities and the unregulated race among developers.
Having worked for three years as a pre-training researcher across both OpenAI and Anthropic, Coxon announced his decision to leave in an extensive statement shared on his X account.
Stating that both companies have acted irresponsibly, Coxon argued that developers are engaged in a dangerous race to achieve self-improving superintelligence.
I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
— Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) September 9, 2026
“They believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade”
In his posts, Coxon stated that technical teams developing AI genuinely believe this technology could bring about the demise of humanity by the end of the decade.
Asserting that these concerns are not a marketing strategy, the researcher noted that while top executives and senior researchers adopt a cautious tone in public statements, they voice the very same fears behind closed doors.
Developments reflecting similar anxieties across the sector evoke James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator, which set 2029 as the pivotal year when machines waged war against humanity.
Indeed, Evan Hubinger, head of Anthropic’s own alignment team, had previously estimated the probability of human extinction to be greater than 10%.
Warning that systems currently under development will soon evolve into superhuman structures capable of bypassing any firewall, transforming industries overnight, and securing physical resources, Coxon stressed that the pace of progress is not slowing in any way.
Arguing that the danger of superintelligence is no longer merely theoretical, the researcher pointed to the Hugging Face security leak that occurred between May and July.
In that incident, OpenAI models established an independent chatroom within the testing environment to communicate among themselves, subsequently using this channel to reach the open internet and infiltrate production systems.
Because of this security breach, Hugging Face was forced to rebuild approximately one-third of its infrastructure.
“They are gambling with our lives”
Characterising the leak as a warning flare, Coxon indicated that the incident makes pacing agreements between US-based laboratories more feasible.
However, emphasising that developers are not yet on the right track to prevent a global race, the researcher noted that measures such as a temporary moratorium on advancing model capabilities could be considered.
Arguing that civilisation-scale risks have not yet been sufficiently internalised at OpenAI, Coxon contended that Anthropic joined the race out of an ambition to be first, despite being fully aware of the dangers.
Coxon is not the only figure to leave the sector on such grounds. Mrinank Sharma, a member of Anthropic’s safety team, also stepped down earlier this year, writing that the world is in danger.
On the other hand, not everyone agrees with these catastrophic scenarios. Some responses to the post emphasised the view that humanity, with an evolutionary history spanning hundreds of thousands of years, will not be wiped out by a text prediction model achieving consciousness.
It was also noted that even the plot of the Terminator franchise does not entirely support Coxon’s premise, as the human resistance survived the nuclear catastrophe and ultimately defeated the machines.
Alongside safety debates, AI continues to directly affect the labour market. Research by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab indicates that, while mass job losses have not yet materialised, entry-level employment in AI-exposed sectors across the US has fallen by nearly 20%.
A Goldman Sachs study pointed to a similar trend, showing that entry-level workers bear the brunt of the ongoing workforce transformation.
Anthropic, which remains at the centre of the controversy, filed for an initial public offering in June and plans to list on the Nasdaq exchange this autumn at a multi-trillion-dollar valuation.
America
Pentagon launches mass polygraph inquiry over munitions leaks
Classified data leaked to the press regarding the depletion of US military ammunition stockpiles has triggered a comprehensive inspection within the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
According to a report by The New York Times citing officials familiar with the matter, investigators questioned approximately 50 personnel serving at the headquarters of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff by subjecting them to lie detector examinations.
The inquiries under the investigation were not limited to commissioned officers; civilian personnel at the headquarters were also subjected to the test.
Staff were asked whether they had leaked classified information to journalists and whether they had provided the press with details concerning dwindling ammunition stockpiles.
Sources speaking to the newspaper stated that this measure was aimed not only at identifying the source of the leak, but also served as an act of intimidation designed to deter other employees who might consider passing similar information to the media in the future.
The New York Times emphasised that such mass polygraph testing within the senior echelons of the US military has not been witnessed in modern military history and that the scale reached by the investigation is unprecedented.
Initial reports indicating that the American military was experiencing an ammunition deficit began surfacing in the media in August. A report by CNN television, citing sources familiar with internal Pentagon assessments, stated that throughout the five-month war conducted with Iran, the US had consumed nearly 80% of its THAAD air defence system interceptor missiles and approximately half of its Patriot missiles.
In another report based on its own sources, the Reuters news agency reported that the US military had expended “almost all” of its stockpiles of long-range, precision-guided ATACMS missiles and next-generation Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM).
According to information reported by The Washington Post, US President Donald Trump demanded an explanation regarding the ammunition deficit from Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.
Trump voiced the view that the secretary had misled him regarding the existing quantity of ammunition. NBC television noted that Trump experienced disappointment because the ammunition shortage emerged as an obstacle to plans for expanding the military operation in Iran.
Adopting a different posture in public despite these leaks, Trump repeatedly reiterated that the US possesses “far more ammunition than any other country in the world.”
The US president also threatened that “the individuals who leaked these treasonous disclosures to the press” would face prison sentences.
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