For more than a decade, Chevron has been pursuing oil and gas resources in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta Formation—and it’s not about to stop.
Chevron expects the region to have a larger role in its portfolio in coming years.
“We remain focused on Argentina and Vaca Muerta, where today we have an enviable unconventional resource position that can be scaled into a core asset within a relatively short time frame,” said Javier La Rosa, Chevron’s president of Base Assets and Emerging Countries.
Israel’s prime minister accused his Australian counterpart of having “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” Australia’s Jewish community, after days of increasingly strained relations between the two countries.
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that history would remember Anthony Albanese “for what he is: a weak politician”.
It came after Australia barred a far-right member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition from entering the country on Monday, with his visa cancelled ahead of a planned visit.
Israel in turn revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority, also blaming Canberra’s announcement last week that it would recognise a Palestinian state in September.
There was no immediate response from Prime Minister Albanese.
Israel’s opposition leader criticised Netanyahu’s remarks, branding them a “gift” to the Australian leader.
Yair Lapid wrote on X: “The thing that most strengthens a leader in the democratic world today is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world.
“It is unclear why Bibi is rushing to give the Prime Minister of Australia this gift.”
Diplomatic tensions flared on Monday after far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman’s Australian visa was cancelled ahead of a visit to the country, where he had been due to speak at events organised by the Australian Jewish Association.
Australia’s home affairs minister told Sky News at the time the government took “a hard line on people who seek to come to our country and spread division”.
Tony Burke added: “If you are coming to Australia to spread a message of hate and division, we don’t want you here.”
A few hours later, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said he had “instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel”.
He added in a post on X: “While antisemitism is raging in Australia, including manifestations of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions, the Australian government is choosing to fuel it”.
There have been a string of antisemitic attacks in Australia in recent months, amid tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.
Australia announced in early August that it would recognise a Palestinian state, with Prime Minister Albanese saying at the time that Netanyahu was “in denial” about the consequences of the war on innocent people.
“The stopping of aid that we’ve seen and then the loss of life that we’re seeing around those aid distribution points, where people queuing for food and water are losing their lives, is just completely unacceptable,” he said.
The announcement followed similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.
In response, Netanyahu launched a scathing attack on the leaders of the three countries, accusing Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
The state of Palestine is currently recognised by 147 of the UN’s 193 member states.
MIT researchers used generative artificial intelligence (AI) to create molecules that didn’t exist before to develop promising antibiotics candidates for MRSA, a superbug that has killed millions.
Qualcomm’s newest 7-series chipset is here and it brings some minor updates compared to its predecessor. The Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 (SM7750-AB) is a direct successor to last year’s SD 7s Gen 3 and offers a virtually unchanged Kryo CPU with the same 1+3+4 core architecture.
The 1x Prime Cortex-A720 core is now clocked at 2.7 GHz compared to 2.5GHz on the 7s Gen 3. The clock speeds on the 3x Cortex-A720 (2.4GHz) units and 4x Cortex-A520 (1.8GHz) modules remain unchanged. Qualcomm says you can expect a 7% performance gain in CPU tasks.
The new chip does get an updated Adreno GPU, which Qualcomm claims offers a 7% boost compared to its predecessor. It also brings Snapdragon Elite Gaming features like Adaptive Performance Engine 3.0 and Snapdragon Game Super Resolution.
The new bit is the added support for ultra-wide displays (up to 1,300 x 2,900px) at 144Hz refresh rate. Qualcomm is also bringing an updated Spectra ISP, which can take 200MP sensors and 4K video @ 30 fps, including Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG), HDR10, and HDR10+ formats.
The updated Hexagon NPU offers better AI performance with support for Llama 1B and Qwen 1B and real-time translation. The chip features LPDDR5 RAM at 3,200 MHz and UFS 3.1 storage as well as Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4+ charging tech.
On the connectivity side, the new 7s Gen 4 chip supports sub-6 GHz 5G, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.4. It also brings support for the aptX Lossless and aptX Adaptive audio codecs.
Qualcomm has yet to reveal which phone will debut the brand-new chip.
Source
Austin Butler is known for taking his Method acting to extremes. This, in turn, had an adverse impact on his health.
He is reported to experience temporary losses of vision, had migraines, and a sharp pain in his foot because of Dune: Part Two’s long press tour.
However, the Academy-nominated actor said in his journey toward balancing his life and work, he found a guide: Laura Dern. Both met at an event which the star recalled in an interview with Men’s Health.
The actress, whom the actor said resembled his late mother, recalled the meeting, “It was like the whole room just quieted, and we connected on a soul level. We felt like kindred spirits.”
This connection, Austin said, helped him to see a different perspective about his previous belief that acting is something that “had to be a tortured process and I would come out the other side broken.”
“She’s helping me more and more to see that you can come out the other side, and maybe bits of you have healed, and synthesized, and metabolized,” the Elvis actor noted. “It can be therapeutic, in a way.”
Austin’s forthcoming film Caught Stealing will be out on Aug. 29.
A team of astronomers has captured one of the sharpest images ever of a plasma jet shooting from the heart of a distant galaxy. The galaxy, OJ 287, lies roughly 5 billion light-years from Earth.
It has long been known for its erratic light bursts, but until now, no one had seen its inner workings in such vivid detail.
This new image, made possible by the RadioAstron mission, shows a long, twisted stream of high-energy particles – like a glowing ribbon – bending and curling as it moves through space.
The image gives scientists a rare look inside the chaotic core of the galaxy, where black holes are likely locked in a cosmic dance.
Scientists from Heidelberg University and Delft University of Technology were among the international team behind the discovery.
The work involved researchers from Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Italy, the United States, and Russia. Some have been working on the RadioAstron project for decades.
“I joined the project in 1979, before many of my co-authors were born,” said Professor Leonid Gurvits of Delft University of Technology, whose decades of expertise in space VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) and active galactic nuclei helped shape the study.
OJ 287 is thought to contain not one but two supermassive black holes orbiting each other. Together, they have a combined mass exceeding a billion times that of our Sun.
The intense gravity near these black holes pulls in surrounding gas and dust, heating it and releasing radiation. That is how astronomers detect what is happening inside.
To capture this image, the team used RadioAstron’s space telescope in combination with 27 radio observatories around the world.
Together, they formed a virtual telescope five times the diameter of Earth. The resolution was so sharp that it would be like reading a newspaper in New York from a park bench in Delft.
This powerful setup revealed more than just the jet’s unique ribbon shape. It also uncovered regions inside the jet with temperatures over 10 trillion Kelvin – evidence of extreme energy near the black holes.
The team also recorded something remarkable: the birth of a shock wave in the jet. Polarization readings showed that the jet’s magnetic field runs along its length.
That alignment helps scientists understand how these jets get their shape – and how they move.
“We captured the birth of a jet component and watched it travel down this beautiful ribbon until it hit a shock wave and produced the most energetic gamma rays ever detected from this source,” said first author Dr. Thalia Traianou of Heidelberg University.
That collision coincided with the historic detection of trillion-electron-volt gamma rays from OJ 287 in early 2017.
OJ 287 has baffled astronomers for over a century. Its brightness varies in a strange 60-year cycle. That odd timing has led many to suspect a binary black hole system at its center.
The newly imaged jet supports this idea. If two black holes are indeed orbiting each other, their movement could twist the jet, bending it over time.
The image captured this twist. It also matches earlier signs of the jet’s wobble, likely caused by precession from the black holes’ orbital motion.
This makes OJ 287 a strong candidate for studying how pairs of supermassive black holes evolve and eventually collide. Those collisions would release gravitational waves – tiny ripples in the fabric of spacetime.
Future missions may be able to detect those ripples directly. One of the most promising is the joint ESA- NASA mission known as LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), planned for launch in 2035.
While this study focused only on radio signals, it sets the stage for multi-messenger astronomy.
That’s a new way of observing the universe using different types of signals – light, gravitational waves, and even particles like neutrinos.
Together, they can reveal much more than any single type of observation could alone.
“One of the beautiful things about fundamental science is the unpredictability of its impact,” said Gurvits. “When electricity was discovered two hundred years ago, no one could have imagined how deeply it would shape modern society.”
“It’s the same with our research: we don’t know when and what its effects will be. But that uncertainty is part of what makes fundamental science so exciting. That said, it is certain that this RadioAstron study is a prelude to the upcoming transformational discoveries in the new era of multi-messenger astronomy.”
The full study was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Image credit: Juan Carlos Algaba – University of Malaya
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Wales rugby star Louis Rees-Zammit has said he felt his talent was being wasted while trying to crack the NFL.
Earlier this month, Rees-Zammit announced his return to rugby after stints with the Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars after joining the NFL International Player Pathway Program last year.
However, he will return to Premiership Rugby with the Bristol Bears this season having returned to the UK.
“I just felt like I was kind of wasting my talent out there, to be honest with you,” Rees-Zammit said.
“I gave it my best shot but it’s very difficult to get into the NFL if you haven’t gone through the college system, you just don’t get the same opportunities as those boys.
“It makes sense from a coach’s point of view, because those boys have been playing that sport for so long and it’s hard to coach someone up on the sport they’ve never played before.”
– Wales coach Tandy admits shock at Louis Rees-Zammit return
– Louis Rees-Zammit signals end of NFL journey
The 24-year-old said he is confident his rugby skills won’t have faded and will be focusing on his fitness before the season starts next month.
“The skill isn’t really the issue, it’s just about being match fit,” Rees-Zammit said.
“There’s a lot more conditioning in rugby. In NFL it’s more anaerobic fitness, being able to do repeated sprints, not so much long-distance stuff because the [time of the] ball in play here is very high.”
Gabriel Basso, who stars in Netflix hit series The Night Agent, has joined the cast of Amazon MGM’s romantic drama Love of Your Life.
Margaret Qualley, Aaron Pierre and Patrick Schwarzenegger are already on the call sheet for the weeper, which tells of a young woman (Qualley), who loses her husband and goes on a journey to find a way forward in her life.
The script is written by Julia Cox. Character details, including those of Basso’s role, are being kept under wraps.
Black Panther cinematographer-turned-helmer Rachel Morrison is directing the feature that is being produced by Ryan Gosling and partner Jessie Henderson. The duo is producing via Open Invite Entertainment, formerly known as General Admission.
Production is currently underway.
Basso successfully transitioned from child actor to adult thespian, first appearing in coming-of-age movies such as Super 8 and The Kings of Summer before going on to portray J.D. Vance in Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy and one of the villains in horror movie The Strangers.
This fall, he reprises the horror villain role for The Strangers: Chapter 2, which will hit theaters Sept. 26. And he is part of the ensemble line-up of A House of Dynamite, the highly-anticipated political thriller from Kathryn Bigelow which is set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival before its theatrical release and Netflix debut on Oct. 24.
Night Agent, created by Shawn Ryan, is a thriller series that debuted as the platform’s third most-watched series premiere and currently stands as the sixth most-watched series of all time on the platform. The second season was released in January, while a third season is in the works.
Basso is repped by WME, Range Media Partners, Untitled Entertainment, and Yorn Levine.
