📊 Venezuela, Noncitizen Voting, and Nvidia

Reserve control, midterm concerns, and blowout quarter.

Aug 29, 2026

Greetings! Happy According to Hoyle Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

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🌎 GLOBAL NEWS

🇻🇪 Trump announces sweeping Venezuela oil agreement. President Trump says Washington has reached an agreement with Venezuela that could give American interests access to 65B barrels of oil reserves. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth negotiated with Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez. Caracas says the agreement covers 17 oil fields with proven potential of 65B barrels. Venezuela estimates the projects could attract $100B in investment and generate more than $209B in taxes. An American official says a new private company would hold development rights for 100 years. Washington would receive a 55% effective share of output. That includes an ownership stake and rights to buy oil at cost. The operator has not been publicly identified. Venezuela holds roughly 303B barrels of crude reserves, about 17% of the world total. Yet it produces only about 1% of global oil. Years of underinvestment and damaged infrastructure make rapid expansion difficult. The announcement comes nearly nine months after American forces captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro remains jailed in America and has pleaded not guilty to federal charges. Average American gasoline prices are about $4.09 a gallon, compared with $3.21 a year earlier. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell below 300M barrels in early August after declining more than 100M barrels this year. Rubio says the agreement could lower fuel prices, but rebuilding Venezuelan production capacity is expected to take years.

🇨🇴 Colombia captures suspected Tren de Aragua leader. Colombian security forces have captured Luis Saúl Pérez Nieto, a suspected senior leader of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Colombian authorities say Pérez Nieto coordinated weapons and drug-trafficking networks across the region. He is known by the aliases “Páez” and “Nairobi.” The operation involved Colombian police and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Police accuse him of directing Tren de Aragua’s expansion in Peru. They also say he coordinated arms and narcotics trafficking across South America. Pérez Nieto escaped Venezuela’s Tocorón prison in 2023 alongside gang leader Héctor “Niño Guerrero” Guerrero Flores. Guerrero Flores was killed in an American military strike earlier this year. President Trump’s administration designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization last year. Colombia and Peru say Washington requested Pérez Nieto’s arrest and extradition on terrorism, money-laundering, drug-trafficking and conspiracy charges. American officials have not publicly detailed the federal case against him. The arrest comes weeks after conservative Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella took office promising a harder campaign against organized crime. His government has welcomed joint operations with American forces on Colombian territory. Medellín has been designated a hub for Trump’s regional anti-cartel alliance. Southern Command chief General Francis Donovan also met Colombian and Ecuadorian officials over security along their trafficking-heavy border. Colombia, Ecuador and Washington are expanding joint operations against cross-border criminal groups.

🇺🇸 LOCAL NEWS

🪪 Noncitizen voting claims intensify before midterms. President Trump and his allies are escalating claims about noncitizen voting as November’s midterm elections approach. Trump wants the Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters verified as American citizens. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has claimed, without providing supporting evidence, that nearly 250K noncitizens may be registered in four states. Those states are California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. State election officials have questioned the data and asked DHS for more information. A Census Bureau report separately said a beginning analysis found 24K noncitizens voted illegally in 2020. Election specialists say its methodology could generate false positives. Outdated citizenship records, mismatched names and incorrect addresses can all distort such matches. The report also omitted information normally used to evaluate error rates. Voting by noncitizens in federal elections is illegal and punishable as a felony that can carry deportation. Documented cases remain extremely rare. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis says evidence of illegal voting continues to accumulate. Critics argue the claims could be used to challenge or undermine confidence in election results. A Republican candidate for Maine governor has also discussed bringing federal immigration agents or marshals to polling places. Election administrators warn that such deployments could create confusion or intimidate lawful voters. Control of Congress is at stake, putting election rules and confidence in the vote under mounting scrutiny.

⚖️ Judge rejects Trump bid to erase hush money conviction. A federal judge has again rejected President Trump’s attempt to move his New York hush money case into federal court and dismiss his conviction. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ruled that Trump’s renewed arguments were neither new nor legally sufficient. Trump argued that testimony from former aides, a lawyer and his social-media posts implicated presidential immunity. Hellerstein rejected that theory. He wrote that paying hush money or covering up an embarrassment does not fall within presidential immunity. It is the third time Hellerstein has blocked an attempt to transfer the case from New York state court. Trump’s lawyers immediately notified the court that they would appeal. The president was convicted in May 2024 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said the records concealed a $130K payment to adult-film actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Daniels has said she had a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump denies that claim and maintains he did nothing wrong. He received an unconditional discharge, leaving the conviction intact without jail, probation or a fine. Trump is separately challenging the verdict through New York’s state appellate courts. A federal appeals panel previously ordered Hellerstein to reconsider an earlier denial without directing a particular outcome. Hellerstein concluded that the conduct at issue could not reasonably be treated as an official presidential act.

🗂️ MISC

🧠 Nvidia crushes expectations as AI chip demand surges. Nvidia ($NVDA) delivered another quarter far above Wall Street forecasts as spending on AI computing continued to accelerate. Revenue for the May-through-July quarter more than doubled to $96.22B. Analysts had expected about $92.27B. Net income reached $59.69B, up from $26.42B a year earlier. Adjusted earnings were $2.22 per share against a $2.09 consensus estimate. Nvidia’s data-center business generated $89B, more than twice its year-earlier revenue. CEO Jensen Huang said AI workloads are increasingly producing measurable economic returns for customers. The company expects roughly $108B in revenue this quarter. Wall Street had projected about $104.86B. Reaching Nvidia’s forecast would mean year-over-year quarterly revenue growth of roughly 89%. The outlook assumes no data-center compute revenue from China. Nvidia expects annual revenue to grow about 70% in its fiscal year ending January 2028. CFO Colette Kress said demand could support still faster growth if suppliers could provide enough components. Huang said Nvidia currently has supply for only about 70% of demand. Operating expenses rose 55% to $8.41B as the company expanded alongside its customers. Shares climbed 4.1% in after-hours trading following the earnings call.

🎰 Ex-White House operator penalized for insider trading. Former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez has been ordered to surrender more than $100K in prediction-market profits and pay a $65K civil penalty. Federal regulators accused Perez of using advance access to presidential speeches to place bets on Kalshi. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the settlement. Perez also received a three-year trading ban. Regulators found that he earned $107.5K by wagering on words and phrases President Trump would use in speeches. The bets were placed between December 2025 and February 2026. Perez had access to presidential remarks before they were delivered publicly. The CFTC said he misappropriated that information in breach of his duty of trust and confidence. He must repay the full $107.5K in profits. Regulators said the $65K penalty was reduced because Perez cooperated extensively with the investigation. The White House placed him on unpaid leave after reports about the trades emerged. An official later said Perez no longer held the job. The official did not say whether he resigned or was fired. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously called the conduct unfortunate and a disgrace. Prediction markets let users trade contracts tied to the outcome of real-world events. The case applies familiar insider-trading principles to a newer market built around political and news events.