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On Saturday, hours after U.S. forces in Caracas killed at least 80 people and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump sounded less like a wartime commander than a developer surveying a newly acquired property. The countrys future, he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort, belonged to very large United States oil companies, which would soon be pumping a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground. The land in question includes the largest proven oil reserves on Earth at some 300 billion barrels, roughly 17 percent of global totals. But after years of political turmoil and U.S. sanctions, Venezuela accounts for barely 1 percent of global crude production. Its true that they know the oil is there, said Samantha Gross, the director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution. But the aboveground risks are huge. Chevron is the only major U.S. firm still operating in Venezuela, after other oil giants pulled out in 2007 when former president Hugo Chávez nationalized the industry. By continuing to operate as a minority partner under the state oil companys terms, Chevron preserved its infrastructure, personnel, and legal foothold giving it geopolitical leverage in the ongoing tug-of-war between the United States, China, and the Maduro government. We play a long game, CEO Mike Wirth explained in November at a U.S.-Saudi investment summit in Washington. Today, Chevron is uniquely positioned in the aftermath of the invasion: Its leadership and board have long orbited Republican circles, with deep ties to the Trump administration and a history of big GOP donations. Chevrons in [Venezuela], Trump said on Saturday, but theyre only there because I wanted them to be there. The company did not respond to requests for comment. When Trump returned to office, his administration revoked Biden-era licenses that had allowed the oil major to operate in Venezuela despite the sanctions. Though told to stop producing by April, the company made no attempt to wrap up contracts, pull out personnel, or wind down supply chains. Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American energy program at Rice University, said in March that it appeared Chevron is very confident it can obtain an extension. President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, on January 3. [Photo: Molly Riley/The White House via Getty Images via Grist] Behind the scenes, executives were busy meeting with Trump and top officials, spending almost $4 million on lobbying in the first half of the year to keep their Venezuelan foothold alive. In March, Wirth joined Trump in the Oval Office, hashing out how to tweak or extend Chevrons license. The president finds Wirths TV appearances entertaining, regularly calling him after cable news appearances. The CEO followed that blitz up with private sit-downs with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and staffers from the National Security Council, making the case for his companys continued presence in the country. By July, the gamble had paid off. The administration issued a new license, letting Chevron resume operations in Venezuela. As it did so this fall, the company saw record-breaking production and earned $3.6 billion in its last reported quarter. Though Venezuela accounts for just 100,000 to 150,000 barrels daily a sliver of Chevrons production that oil is heavy, the kind the companys Gulf Coast refineries are designed to process. Having access to Venezuelan crude can help those facilities run more efficiently, increasing supplies and reducing costs. Just before Chevron celebrated its renewed lifeline, it scored another victory: After years of wrangling with the Federal Trade Commission, it finally acquired Hess Corporation, one of the biggest independent oil producers in the United States. Last year, the agency had banned CEO John Hess from joining Chevrons board as part of its anti-trust review, alleging that he had colluded with OPEC representatives to fix oil prices. That victory, however, did not occur in a vacuum. The Hess family is a major donor to the Republican party and contributed more than $1 million to Trumps first inauguration. (Chevron, for its part, donated $2 million to the presidents 2025 ceremony.) Hess whom Trump has called a friend of mine for a long time petitioned the FTC to revisit its decision. The agency later reversed course, unlocking the deal. On July 18, Chevron officially closed its $53 billion merger, and Hess took his seat on the board. President Donald Trump shakes hands with John Hess, CEO of Hess Corp., before signing a series of bills related to Californias vehicle emissions standards on June 12, 2025. [Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images via Grist] This bought Chevrons entry into what many analysts call the decades most consequential oilfield, in Guyana, Venezuelas neighbor. In 2015, Exxon Mobil announced a huge reserve off the tiny countrys shoreline. That discovery catapulted Guyana a nation of fewer than 1 million people into the petroleum spotlight. Hess 30 percent stake in the project was a key part of Chevrons recent acquisition. Thanks to Trump, one of the largest remaining political obstacles to the Guyana project was just removed. Maduro had challenged Guyanas control over the offshore area. Venezuela has periodically claimed the territory since the 1960s under a long-running border dispute. As production in the region ramped up in 2019 and as Venezuelas own industry faltered, Maduro escalated his attacks, sending naval ships into Guyanese waters and vowing Venezuela would take all necessary actions to stop its development rhetoric remarkably similar to what Trump used to justify his own actions against Maduro this week. But though Trump claims he spoke with oil companies before and after the invasion, taking over the Venezuelan government may have been more than the industry bargained for. There arent oil companies just running to get rid of tens of billions of dollars right now to rebuild the Venezuelan industry, David Mares, the former Institute of the Americas Endowed Chair for Inter-American Affairs at the University of California, San Diego, told Grist. Its not even clear theres a legitimate government in place to make the contracts they sign for legal. Then theres the question of Venezuelas tangled debt. Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the state oil company, has racked up more than $150 billion in liabilities over decades of defaults and expropriations. Creditors from energy companies like ConocoPhillips to so-called vulture funds that bought defaulted contracts at deep discounts have pursued arbitration against the country, and won court rulings for damages that remain unpaid. China has been the countrys largest foreign lender, loaning it more than $60 billion over the years. Only some of that has been repaid, mostly in the form of oil exports. As Mares notes, As soon as Venezuelan oil starts to flow, some of those claimants can attach the proceeds, and theyre going to demand their money back. Experts warn that returning to even modest levels of production would require upgrading Venezuelas aging infrastructure, a process that would require massive investment and political stability conditions that have eluded Caracas for years and seem unlikely to materialize anytime soon. There is no realistic prospect of immediately increasing Venezuelas crude output, Gus Vasquez, the head of oil pricing in the Americas for commodity markets analyst Argus Media, wrote in an emailed statement. Venezuelan oil infrastructure would take years and possibly hundreds of billions to bring up to something cloe to its former capacity. Repairing refineries would be even harder. Chevrons existing assets give the company a very different calculus than newcomers would face. But the timing could not be worse: Global crude oil prices have steadily declined over the last several years, recently dropping below $60 a barrel approaching the break-even point for many American operators. Thats been driven by global supply surpluses and by weakening demand, as renewable energy prices drop. I think what were seeing is that the days of the oil and gas industry being the growth engine of economies is well behind us, said Trey Cowan, an oil and gas energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Despite these structural shifts, Gross notes, Trump has a very old-school way of thinking about resource economics, as a blunt lever of power. As companies like Chevron have found, aligning with his priorities can bring financial and regulatory advantages, even if they are not supported by broader market conditions. This week, the companys stock jumped 6 percent. On TruthSocial on Tuesday, Trump announced that Caracas would be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil that will then be sold. [T]hat money will be controlled by me, he wrote. Trump hopes to lower oil prices to $50 a barrel, which would squeeze shale producers and destabilize the U.S. oil industry. On Wednesday, the Department of Energy issued a brief announcement elaborating, as Chevron entered talks with the administration to increase its operations and resell oil to other refiners. The statement declares the U.S. will sell the sovereign nations crude on the global marketplace and describes the proceeds as going to U.S.-controlled accounts at globally recognized banks, an unusual setup that bypasses the U.S. Treasury. The money is vaguely promised to serve both Americans and Venezuelans, and the arrangement will be indefinite. Youre going to see, probably, a growth in Chevron activities there quickly, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said on Thursday. Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into the Trump administrations communications with oil companies, which they claim occurred 10 days before the invasion, while Congress was not briefed. The suggestion that taxpayers could pay the cost of rebuilding Venezuelas oil infrastructure raise serious concerns about how the Trump administration engaged with the oil companies prior to his decision to use military force, they wrote. Gross says to the extent Trump can be described as a populist, it is largely a performance one he might play on TV but she added that typically, When you see populist governments take over oil industries, it doesnt usually turn out well. In all the turmoil, what no one appears to be asking is what is good for Venezuela. The saddest part of this is that unwinding the Maduro regime does not seem to be a part of what Trump policy is aiming for, said Cynthia Arson, former director of the Woodrow Wilson International Centers Latin American Program. In its statements after the strike, the White House has largely overlooked questions about a democratic transition, sidelining concerns about human rights abuses and the treatment of political prisoners. Even when oil starts flowing, a new Venezuelan government will likely struggle to meet public expectations while attracting foreign investment. Before Chávez, the countrys oil contracts typically gave the government around 50 percent of revenue, helping fund social programs and the middle class. U.S. oil majors, by contrast, often offer royalties around 12 percent. The contrast highlights just how fragile and uncertain the path ahead is: Years of economic collapse, which have driven millions abroad, have left those remaining struggling with profound political and social upheaval that cant be solved by oil alone. If good things happen, theyre going to take time, Gross said. Bad things could actually happen pretty quickly. This article originally appeared in Grist. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org
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Thousands of nurses in three hospital systems in New York City went on strike Monday after negotiations through the weekend failed to yield breakthroughs in their contract disputes. Nurses on strike! … Fair contract now! they shouted on a picket line outside NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s campus in Upper Manhattan. Others picketed at multiple hospitals in the Mount Sinai and Montefiore systems. About 15,000 nurses are involved in the strike, according to their union, the New York State Nurses Association. The hospitals remained open, hiring droves of temporary nurses to try to fill the labor gap. The strike involves private, nonprofit hospitals, not city-run ones. But the strike, which the union casts as lifesaving essential workers fighting hospital executives who make millions of dollars a year, could be a significant early test of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new administration. The democratic socialist campaigned on a pro-worker platform and struck a similar note while visiting nurses on the NewYork-Presbyterian picket line Monday. These executives are not having difficulty making ends meet,” said Mamdani, who extolled nurses’ work and said they were seeking dignity, respect and the fair pay and treatment that they deserve. They should settle for nothing less. Some other Democratic city and state politicians also visited striking nurses, while Gov. Kathy Hochul sent state health officials to the hospitals to keep watch over patient care. She called in a statement for the sides to negotiate a deal that recognizes the essential work nurses do.” The strike, which comes during a severe flu season, could potentially force the hospitals to transfer patients, cancel procedures, or divert ambulances. It could also put a strain on city hospitals not involved in the contract dispute, as patients avoid the medical centers hit by the strike. The nurses demands vary by hospital, but the major issues include staffing levels and workplace safety. The union says hospitals have given nurses unmanageable workloads. Nurses also want better security measures in the workplace, citing incidents such as an episode last week when a man with a sharp object barricaded himself in a Brooklyn hospital room and was then killed by police. The union also wants limitations on hospitals use of artificial intelligence. The hospitals say that theyve been working to improve staffing levels but say that the unions demands overall are too costly. After the nurses gave notice Jan. 2 of the looming strike, the hospitals hired temporary nurses and vowed to do whatever is necessary to minimize disruptions. Montefiore posted a message assuring patients that appointments would be kept. NYSNAs leaders continue to double down on their $3.6 billion in reckless demands,” Montefiore spokesperson Joe Solmonese said Monday, adding that those demands included exorbitant raises and job protections even if a nurse was intoxicated on the job. “We remain resolute in our commitment to providing safe and seamless care, regardless of how long the strike may last, Solmonese said. New York-Presbyterian accused the union of staging a strike to create disruption, but said it has taken steps to ensure patients receive the care they need. “Were ready to keep negotiating a fair and reasonable contract that reflects our respect for our nurses and the critical role they play, and also recognizes the challenging realities of todays healthcare environment, the hospital said. Each medical center is negotiating with the union independently. Several other hospitals across the city and in its suburbs reached deals in recent days to avert a possible strike. Both Hochul and Mamdani had expressed concern about the possibility of the strike. The last major nursing strike in the city was only three years ago, in 2023. That work stoppage, at Mount Sinai and Montefiore, was short, lasting three days. It resulted in a deal raising pay 19% over three years at those hospitals. It also led to promised staffing improvements, though the union and hospitals now disagree about how much progress has been made, or whether the hospitals are retreating from staffing guarantees. By Ted Shaffrey, Jennifer Peltz, and David R. Martin, Associated Press
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Technological advancements in various fields of science are shattering what some scientists once deemed impossible. In recent years, researchers have mitigated the existential threat of asteroids, unlocked the power of immunotherapy to treat cancer tumors, and achieved unprecedented control over the human vestibular system. These scientific innovations have been fostered by new types of cross-disciplinary collaboration and the use of artificial intelligence tools. And though theyre approaching it from vastly different perspectives, planetary science, pathology, and neuroscience researchers shared at the World Changing Ideas Summit in November how theyre really working toward a common goal: to improve the human experience in some way. The DART mission of 2022 saw a team led by NASA intentionally crash a spacecraft into an asteroid and successfully change the asteroids path through space, marking a waterline for humanity, said Terik Daly, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, at the summit cohosted by Fast Company and Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. Researchers are better prepared, he added, for the real threat of asteroidswhich is a medium-size asteroid, roughly the size of an Olympic swimming pool or half a football field, that could easily destroy an area like the D.C. metro area or even larger. Currently, we cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot stop volcanoes, we cannot stop hurricanes, Daly said. But with appropriate investments, we can be ready to stop an asteroid if we find one coming our way. New mapping tools for cancer research And finding new ways to treat cancer is getting an assist from a perhaps unlikely discipline: astronomy. Thats the idea behind AstroPath, which uses decades-old learnings about organizing spatial data to help researchers figure out how the immune system interfaces with cancer, said Janis Taube, a pathologist and a professor of dermatology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Cancer researchers are making advancements about how to treat tumors, including identifying which patients are a good candidate for immunotherapy, none of which would be possible were it not for learning how to map the breadth of tumors using tools from astronomy, Taube said. We never would’ve been able to separate the signal from noise. New uses for neurotechnology Finally, the founders of the neurotechnology startup Orbit set out to find a solution to a supposedly anatomically unsolvable problemgenerating a motion hallucination. They not only did that, but they are now looking for ways to use the technology to optimize and heal humans, said Steven Pang, cofounder and CEO. If you get really fine, great control over the vestibular system, you can use it to build a generation of general bodily or mental regulators that no one’s ever been able to build before,” Pang said. Orbit is now in clinical trials for its first few devices focused on enhancing human cognition and optimizing both the onset of and effectiveness of sleep, Pang said. There are projections of some incredibly powerful neurotechnology coming in the next 30 to 40 years that could help people be smarter, faster, sleep a lot better, and solve various health conditions that have eluded pharmaceutical interventions for decades, but Pang is optimistic that such innovations could happen even sooner. Our take is just, if you’re clever about it, you start solving some of these problems with some distinct ways of thinking, that it might just be two or three years away, he said. So hopefully we’ll prove that out.
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