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Analysts expect AI chip demand to remain strong.

Nvidia has forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates and is betting on booming demand for its AI chips from cloud providers even as widespread concerns of an artificial intelligence bubble grow stronger.

The world’s most valuable company expects fourth-quarter sales of $65bn, plus or minus 2 percent, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $61.66bn, according to data compiled by LSEG.

The results from the AI chip leader mark a defining moment for Wall Street as global markets look to the chip designer to determine whether investing billions of dollars in AI infrastructure expansion has resulted in towering valuations that potentially outpace fundamentals.

“The AI ecosystem is scaling fast with more new foundation model makers, more AI start-ups across more industries and in more countries. AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement.

Before the results, doubts had pushed Nvidia shares down nearly 8 percent in November after a 1,200 percent surge in the past three years.

Sales in the data-centre segment, which accounts for a majority of Nvidia’s revenue, grew to $51.2bn in the quarter that ended on October 26. Analysts had expected sales of $48.62bn, according to LSEG data.

Warning signs

But some analysts noted that factors beyond Nvidia’s control could impede its growth.

“While GPU [graphics processing unit] demand continues to be massive, investors are increasingly focused on whether hyperscalers can actually put this capacity to use fast enough,” said Jacob Bourne, an analyst with eMarketer. “The question is whether physical bottlenecks in power, land and grid access will cap how quickly this demand translates into revenue growth through 2026 and beyond.”

Nvidia’s business also became increasingly concentrated in its fiscal third quarter with four customers accounting for 61 percent of sales. At the same time, it sharply ramped up how much money it spends renting back its own chips from its cloud customers, who otherwise cannot rent them out, with those contracts totalling $26bn – more than double their $12.6bn in the previous quarter.

Still, analysts and investors widely expected the underlying demand for AI chips, which has powered Nvidia results since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, to remain strong.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last month that the company has $500bn in bookings for its advanced chips through 2026.

Big Tech, among Nvidia’s largest customers, has doubled down on spending to expand AI data centres and snatch the most advanced, pricey chips as it commits to multibillion-dollar, multigigawatt build-outs.

Microsoft last month reported a record capital expenditure of nearly $35bn for its fiscal first quarter  with roughly half of it spent primarily on chips.

Nvidia expects an adjusted gross margin of 75 percent, plus or minus 50 basis points in the fourth quarter, compared with market expectation of 74.5 percent.

Israel has kept troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights since December’s ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

Syria has denounced a trip by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials to the country’s south, where they visited troops deployed to Syrian territory they’ve occupied for months.

Israel expanded its occupation of southern Syrian territory as the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad was overrun by rebel forces in December.

“My government strongly condemns this provocative tour, which epitomises Israel’s ongoing aggression against Syria and its people,” Ibrahim Olabi, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

“We renew our call on the UN and this council to take firm and immediate action to halt these violations, ensure their non-reoccurrence, end the occupation and enforce relevant resolutions, particularly the 1974 disengagement agreement” that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Since the overthrow of al-Assad, Israel has kept troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights separating Israeli and Syrian forces.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric described Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials’ “very public visit” as “concerning, to say the least”.

Dujarric noted that UN Resolution 2799, recently passed by the Security Council, “called for the full sovereignty, unity, independence, and territorial integrity of Syria”.

Israel has previously said the 1974 agreement has been void since al-Assad fled, and it has breached Syrian sovereignty with air strikes, ground infiltration operations, reconnaissance overflights, the establishment of checkpoints, and the arrest and disappearance of Syrian citizens.

Syria has not reciprocated the attacks.

‘Zero signs of aggression’

During the Security Council meeting, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, did not directly address Netanyahu’s visit but instead lectured Syria’s ambassador.

“Show us that Syria is moving away from extremism and radicalism, that the protection of Christians and Jews is not an afterthought but a priority. Show us that the militias are restrained and justice is real and the cycle of indiscriminate killings has ended,” Danon said.

Olabi responded: “The proving, Mr Ambassador, tends to be on your shoulders. You have struck Syria more than 1,000 times, and we have responded with requests for diplomacy … and responded with zero signs of aggression towards Israel. … We have engaged constructively. and we still await for you to do the same.”

Netanyahu was accompanied to Syrian territory by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, Defence Minister Israel Katz, army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and the head of the Shin Bet security service, David Zini

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned “in the strongest terms the illegal visit, … considering it a serious violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

This month, Israel’s army renewed its incursions into Syria, setting up a military checkpoint in the southern province of Quneitra.

In September, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said Israel had conducted more than 1,000 air strikes and more than 400 ground incursions in Syria since al-Assad was overthrown, describing the actions as “very dangerous”.

Reporting from the UN in New York, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo noted Syria and Israel continue to negotiate a security pact that analysts said could be finalised before the end of the year.

“The testy exchange between the two ambassadors likely won’t derail that. But it does show how little trust there is between both countries – and how Netanyahu and his government continue to try to provoke Damascus,” Elizondo said.

Nov. 19 (UPI) — The U.S. State Department has approved the possible sale of Patriot air defense launchers to Ukraine worth up to $105 million.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is within the Department of Defense, delivered the certification to the U.S. Congress, the agency said in a news release Tuesday.

DSCA’s primary mission is to support U.S. foreign policy to train, educate, advise and equip foreign partners to respond to shared challenges, including in Europe.

The Patriot system will not will not alter the basic military balance in the region, or the impact on U.S. defense readiness, the agency said.

The Patriot contractors are RTX Corp. of Arlington, Va., and Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md.

The United States first shipped Patriot systems to Ukraine in April 2023, more than a year after Russia invaded its neighbor under the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We’ve been talking about closing the sky since day one of this war,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Nov. 10. “We understand that it’s our vulnerability. And we realize that Putin had a huge number of missiles, while we had very few air‑defense systems and only a small remaining stock of Soviet‑era missiles.

“These systems were no shield at all. Nevertheless, we built the air‑defense we could, and we continue to develop it.”

The Patriots are a deterrent to missiles and drones against military targets and civilian locations.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal applauded the decision, posting on X: “We are grateful to our American partners for such an important decision. Peace can only be achieved through strength!”

Zelensky has been pushing for more Patriot system.

“We want to order 25 Patriot systems from the United States,” Zelenskyy wrote in July. “For us, that’s a clear budget, and we understand the financial scope; however, certain elements are missing from the agreement.

“European colleagues can help us here — they can lend us their systems now and then take back ours once they arrive from the manufacturers. These systems are produced over several years, and we would not want to wait.”

Ukraine had requested an upgrade of M901 launchers to M903 configuration; classified and unclassified prescribed load lists and authorized stockage lists for ground support equipment; necessary ancillaries, spare parts, support, training and accessories; and other related elements of logistics and program support.

M903 launchers can carry up to PAC-3 missiles and other types of Patriot missiles, according to Lockheed Martin. The PAC-3 MSE has improved capabilities, such as updated software and systems that allow it to home in on and destroy an enemy target.

Implementation of this proposed sale will require five additional U.S. government and 15 U.S. contractor representatives to the European Combatant Command for up to one month to support training and periodic meetings.

The actual dollar value depends on final requirements, budget authority and signed sales agreement.

“The Patriots won’t solve all, or perhaps even many of the problems associated with Russia’s strikes against Ukraine, however they will provide an additional layer of coverage and redundancy that can help protect Ukraine’s civilian population, civilian infrastructure, and military forces,” Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Amos Fox, now a fellow at Arizona State University’s Future Security Initiative, told the Kyiev Post.

Retired US Army Colonel Richard Williams, a former deputy director in NATO’s Defense Investment Division, also told the Kyiev Potg that European nations are “perhaps more suited to assist Ukraine with this threat.”

In July, the United States told Switzerland it would send Patriot systems intended for sale to the Swiss to Ukraine instead.

President Donald Trump made the announcement to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after attending the Club World Cup final at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.

“They’re going to have some because they do need protection, but the European Union is paying for,” he said. “We’re not paying anything for it, but we will send it.”

Other nations have sent Patriots to Ukraine.

During a conference in Germany in July, NATO’s top commander said that he will send more Patriot systems to Ukraine.

Patriot production has been limited, with nations not wanting to send their systems and to maintain stockpiles.

The United States and other partner nations also need Patriot batteries elsewhere, including in the Middle East and Taiwan, which would use them against a possible Chinese invasion.

To Russia, the Yantar is a oceanic research vessel – to others, including the UK, it’s a spy ship, and a worry for Britain’s defence chiefs.

The vessel has long been suspected of secretly mapping out Britain’s undersea cables, where more than 90% of our data, including billions of dollars of financial transactions, are transferred.

But now, a new escalation, with revelations the Yantar’s sailors targeted Royal Air Force pilots in patrol planes with lasers.

Shining lasers into a pilot’s eyes is provocative, and to use the Defence Secretary John Healey’s words, “deeply dangerous”. It’s illegal in the UK and can lead to a prison sentence.

Healey’s direct message to Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin was stark: “We see you. We know what you’re doing. And if the Yantar travels south this week, we are ready.”

By that, he is implying should the Yantar cross inside Britain’s 12-mile maritime boundary there would be a military response.

This isn’t the first time the Yantar has popped up near Britain’s shores – at the start of the year a Royal Navy submarine made the highly unusual move to surface right in front of the ship as a sort of deterrent measure.

The concern is that this is part of an ongoing operation by the Kremlin to locate and map all the vital undersea cables and pipelines that connect the UK to the rest of the world.

It is also part of a wider pattern of Russian activity, as it tests Nato’s reactions, resolve and defences. We’ve seen similar moves with the recent drone incursions across Europe, and Russian warplanes flying into Nato airspace.

When three Russian fighter jets entered Estonian skies without permission in September, Italy, Finland and Sweden scrambled jets under Nato’s mission to bolster its eastern flank.

This is all interesting intel for Russia.

As an island nation, Britain is heavily reliant on its network of undersea cables that carry data. There are also vital oil and gas pipelines connecting Britain to North Sea neighbours such as Norway.

These cables and pipes are largely undefended and apparently of great interest to Russia’s research vessels.

Nato has identified deep-sea cables as part of the world’s critical infrastructure. But they are also strategic pressure points, it says, warning that adversaries could exploit them through sabotage or hybrid warfare, threatening both civilian and military communications.

Retired Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharpe made clear what the spy ship could be doing: “The most obvious one is they sit above our cables and our critical undersea infrastructure and they nose around in the cables that transfer up to $7tn worth of financial transactions every day between us and America alone”.

The Yantar may be described by Moscow as a research vessel, but it is part of Russia’s secretive Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research, or GUGI, which reports directly to the defence ministry.

And while the ship bristles with hi-tech communications equipment, it’s what we can’t see that is of most concern.

It can operate remotely-piloted miniature submarines that can dive down to sea beds many thousands of metres below the surface. These are capable of mapping the locations of cables, cutting them or planting sabotage devices that could, potentially, be activated in a time of war.

The Royal Navy is experimenting with various means of combating the threat, such as a new vessel called Proteus, but critics fear much of the damage to Britain’s coastal security may already have been done.

Any foreign vessel operating in British waters must comply with UK national laws and international maritime conventions.

The cornerstone of these complex rules is the UN Convention on the Law of The Sea (UNCLOS). This allows foreign ships to navigate through coastal waters provided that their passage is “innocent” – meaning it doesn’t threaten the peace or security of a coastal nation like Britain.

President Putin was at an AI conference in Moscow on Wednesday, and gave no immediate reaction on the situation unfolding north of Scotland.

Russia’s Embassy in London says it’s not undermining UK security and it has condemned UK Defence Secretary Healey’s statement as provocative.

But all this is happening while war rages in Ukraine, a conflict Putin blames on the West and which seemingly he has no intention of stopping soon.

The World Food Programme is warning that 318 million people will face critical levels of hunger next year. The United Nations agency says that is double the number from 2019.

What is behind this worsening crisis that is putting so many people in danger?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Jean-Martin Bauer – director of food security and nutrition analysis at the World Food Programme

Shahin Ashraf – head of global advocacy at Islamic Relief Worldwide

Manenji Mangundu – Oxfam’s country director in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

A controversial Russian general is now in Venezuela leading a rotational advisory mission, the head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR) told The War Zone exclusively. Colonel General Oleg Leontievich Makarevich commands the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Equator Task Force (ETF), Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said. Makarevich is in charge of more than 120 troops who are training Venezuelan forces on a wide range of military functions, according to Budanov. Those activities are not in reaction to the current U.S. military buildup in the region.

The War Zone cannot independently verify Budanov’s claim and we have reached out to the White House, Pentagon and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) for confirmation. We will update this story with any pertinent details provided. Questions to Budanov were prompted in part by a story in Intelligence Online claiming that an elite Russian drone unit has arrived in Venezuela to teach troops there how to use first-person view (FPV) drones.

The Ukrainian intelligence chief’s comments come as the Trump administration has established a significant presence of U.S. forces in the Caribbean. While Task Force Southern Spear is ostensibly aimed at countering narcotics trafficking in the region, the effort is also focused on pressuring Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. You can catch up with our recent coverage of the ongoing Caribbean operation here.

Makarevich and his troops are likely to remain in Venezuela during any U.S. attack, Budanov suggested.

“I think they will be behind the scenes and officially Russia will try to speak to the U.S. because their units are in Venezuela,” Budanov said. “It’s just a game.”

The Russians are serving as “military advisors and also teachers,” Budanov explained. “In general, it’s infantry, UAV and special forces training.”

Among other things, ETF is also providing Venezuela with signals intelligence, Budanov added.

The deployment of Russian troops to Venezuela is a long-standing rotation that has existed for years, Budanov noted. He also said that GUR has not identified any change in Russian troop levels in Venezuela since Trump’s Caribbean push began. However, it appears that Makarevich, who has been in the South American country since the beginning of the year, has had his deployment there extended, Budanov said. Typical rotations for Russian commanders last about six months, he pointed out.

Makarevich and about 90 Russian officers and other troops are located in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, according to a document Budanov shared with us. The rest are stationed at Maracaibo, La Guaira and Aves Island.

The U.S. likewise has advisors throughout South America who also train troops, offer operational advice and sometimes serve as observers.

As for a high-ranking Russian politician’s claim that Moscow recently provided Pantsir-S1 and Buk-M2E air defense systems, Budanov was uncertain.

“The Buk-M2 we see,” he told us. “The Pantsir we don’t know about.”

That politician, Alexei Zhuravlev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, also threatened that Russia could increase the supply of advanced weapons to Venezuela, including long-range standoff weapons, like cruise missiles. Another concern for the U.S. could be Russia providing Shahed-family drones capable of striking targets at great distances and at low cost. In the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened that he could provide standoff weapons to America’s enemies, Venezuela among them, as we have previously noted.

A separate document Budanov shared with us provides greater insight into the ETF mission in Venezuela. It explains how Russian troops are providing training in several key areas and assessing the combat capabilities of the Venezuelan Armed Forces. That includes armor, aircraft, artillery, drones and even dogs. In addition, Russia is helping Venezuela monitor domestic groups and foreign governments, according to the document.

We cannot independently confirm the provenance of the document or the accuracy of the information stated within it.

It is interesting to note that Makarevich, 62, was put in charge of this task force. Putin fired him as commander of the Dnipro Group of troops in October 2023 after Ukraine’s successful Kherson counteroffensive. During that operation, Ukrainian forces recaptured Kherson City in November 2022. You can see Russian officials talking about that event, a huge defeat for Russia at the time, in the following video.

Makarevich is also accused by Ukraine of ordering the June 2023 destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam. The incident caused massive flooding and severe economic and environmental damage. At the time, then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu blamed Ukraine, saying that Kyiv blew up the dam to prevent Russian offensive actions in the region.

Meanwhile, the world continues to wait on Trump’s decision about what to do with the huge U.S. military presence in the region. It includes the aircraft carrier USS Ford, three of its escort ships, seven other Navy surface warships, a special operations mothership, a wide array of aerial assets and about 15,000 troops.

In another apparent step closer to taking some kind of kinetic action, Trump has “signed off on C.I.A. plans for covert measures inside Venezuela, operations that could be meant to prepare a battlefield for further action,” The New York Times reported.

Asked if Ukraine’s GUR has assets in Venezuela, Budanov offered a coy response.

“We collect all the information about them,” he said.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Nov. 19 (UPI) — The federal government said Wednesday that October’s full jobs report will not be released following the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said instead it will unveil its October payroll data in addition to a full report for November.

October’s unemployment rate will not be included because, according to BLS officials, those figures “could not be collected” due to the shutdown.

Last week, the Trump administration warned the shutdown by the Republican-controlled congress may likely impact the Consumer Price Index and federal jobs reports slated to be released as expected.

The White House claimed the showdown “permanently damaged the federal statistical system, with October CPI and jobs reports likely never being released.”

But the bureau indicated it will bump its November jobs data release nearly two weeks to Dec. 16.

Some 42,000 jobs were added in October in companies with at least 250 workers following September’s drop of around 29,000, according to Automatic Data Processing Inc.

“Private employers added jobs in October for the first time since July, but hiring was modest relative to what we reported earlier this year,” Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, said earlier this month.

Meanwhile, the lack of data fuels further speculation on Wall Street.

“We’ve already started working on that.” US President Donald Trump said his administration is searching for a possible resolution to the war in Sudan. He added that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had raised the conflict in a conversation with him.

The United States Department of Justice has acknowledged that the grand jury reviewing the case against James Comey, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), did not receive a copy of the final indictment against him.

That revelation on Wednesday came as lawyers for Comey sought to have the indictment thrown out of court.

At a 90-minute hearing in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, Comey’s lawyers argued that the case should be dismissed outright, not only for the prosecutorial missteps but also due to the interventions of President Donald Trump.

Comey is one of three prominent Trump critics to be indicted between late September and mid-October.

The hearing took place before US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, and Comey’s defence team alleged that Trump was using the legal system as a tool for political retribution.

“This is an extraordinary case and it merits an extraordinary remedy,” defence lawyer Michael Dreeben said, calling the indictment “a blatant use of criminal justice to achieve political ends”.

The Justice Department, represented by prosecutor Tyler Lemons, maintained that the indictment met the legal threshold to be heard at trial.

But Lemons did admit, under questioning, that the grand jury that approved the indictment had not seen its final draft.

When Judge Nachmanoff asked Lemons if the grand jury had never seen the final version, the prosecutor conceded, “That is my understanding.”

It was the latest stumble in the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute Comey for allegedly obstructing a congressional investigation and lying to senators while under oath.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to the two charges, and his defence team has led a multipronged effort to see the case nixed over its multiple irregularities.

Scrutiny over grand jury proceedings

Questions over the indictment — and what the grand jury had or had not seen — had been brewing since last week.

On November 13, US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie raised questions about a span of time when it appeared that there appeared to be “no court reporter present” during the grand jury proceedings.

Then, on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick took the extraordinary step of calling for the grand jury materials to be released to the Comey defence team, citing “a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps”.

They included misleading statements from prosecutors, the use of search warrants pertaining to a separate case, and the fact that the grand jury likely did not review the final indictment in full.

Separately, in Wednesday’s hearing, Judge Nachmanoff pressed acting US Attorney Lindsey Halligan about who saw the final indictment.

After repeated questions, she, too, admitted that only the foreperson of the grand jury and a second grand juror were present for the returning of the indictment.

Halligan oversaw the three indictments against the Trump critics: Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

All three have denied wrongdoing, and all three have argued that their prosecution is part of a campaign of political vengeance.

Spotlight on Trump-Comey feud

Wednesday’s hearing focused primarily on establishing that argument, with Comey’s lawyers pointing to statements Trump made pushing for the indictments.

Comey’s defence team pointed to the tense relationship between their client and Trump, stretching back to the president’s decision to fire Comey from his job as FBI director in 2017.

Comey had faced bipartisan criticism for FBI investigations into the 2016 election, which Trump ultimately won.

Trump, for example, accused the ex-FBI leader of going easy on his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, calling him a “slime ball”, a “phony” and “a real nut job”.

“FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds,” Trump wrote on social media in May 2017.

Comey, meanwhile, quickly established himself as a prominent critic of the Trump administration.

“I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president,” Comey told ABC News in 2018.

He added that a president must “embody respect” and adhere to basic values like truth-telling. “This president is not able to do that,” Comey said.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Comey’s defence also pointed to the series of events leading up to the former FBI director’s indictment.

Last September, Trump posted on social media a message to Attorney General Pam Bondi, calling Comey and James “guilty as hell” and encouraging her not to “delay any longer” in seeking their indictments.

That message was “effectively an admission that this is a political prosecution”, according to Dreeben, Comey’s lawyer.

Shortly after the message was posted online, Halligan was appointed as acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia

She replaced a prosecutor, Erik Siebert, who had reportedly declined to indict Comey and others for lack of evidence. Trump had denounced him as a “woke RINO”, an acronym that stands for “Republican in name only”.

Dreeben argued that switcheroo also signalled Trump’s vindictive intent and his spearheading of the Comey indictment.

But Lemons, representing the Justice Department, told Judge Nachmanoff that Comey “was not indicted at the direction of the president of the United States or any other government official”.

Nov. 19 (UPI) — Billionaire activist Tom Steyer announced his run for California governor after the former presidential candidate claimed no plans existed for him to again run for political office.

Steyer, 68, pointed to his business experience in a candidate video vying to replace term-limited Gov, Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and rumored 2028 presidential contender, saying he’s running because “Californians deserve a life they can afford.”

“Sacramento politicians are afraid to change this system. I’m not,” he added in a campaign launch video.

He joined the field with other gubernatorial candidates such as former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., ex-U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

A 2020 presidential candidate, Steyer said that his long business background separates him from other candidates.

“I wanted to build a business here. Now it’s worth billions of dollars. And I walked away from it because I wanted to give back to California,” Steyer said.

In 2010, Steyer signed the Giving Pledge vowing to donate half his massive fortune to charity during his lifetime.

On Wednesday, he said California needs to “get back to basics,” which he says meant “making corporations pay their fair share again.”

“Californians deserve a top 10 education state,” he added. “They deserve to be able to afford to live in a decent house. I will launch the largest drive to build homes that you can afford in the history of California.”

He revealed plans targeting the state’s high utility bills with California’s massive energy infrastructure, noting the west coast state has the second highest electricity rates in the United States.

Steyer, a former hedge fund manager and frequent Democratic donor in San Francisco, frequently crusades against big corporate money in politics. He later suspended his 2020 campaign in March after finishing third place in the South Carolina primary election won by Joe Biden.

“If we break up the monopolistic power of utilities, we’re going to unleash a complete wave of innovation and drop our sky-high energy prices,” Steyer continued in the video.

“This is about disrupting the way people think so we can get a completely different and much better outcome,” he said, adding it was “for the people of California.”

Two days after they were abducted from their beds by armed attackers, 24 Nigerian schoolgirls are still missing as the military intensifies its efforts to rescue them.

Nov. 19 (UPI) — A federal judge in Texas has ordered state schools to take down displayed posters of the Ten Commandments in supposed violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton directed schools across the Lone Star State to display the Ten Commandments less than a week after a federal court ruled in favor of 11 school districts that fought against the religious exhibition in classrooms.

On Tuesday, federal Judge Orlando L. Garcia issued a preliminary injunction that instructed the state’s districts to remove the display in violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause in the First Amendment.

“It is impractical, if not impossible, to prevent plaintiffs from being subjected to unwelcome religious displays without enjoining defendants from enforcing Senate Bill 10 across their districts,” he wrote.

Garcia’s order was effective December 1.

The case was brought on by 15 families of a multi-faith and nonreligious background.

“All Texas public school districts should heed the court’s clear warning: it’s plainly unconstitutional to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

It’s now the second time a court has ruled against the law signed into law in June by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican.

“Families throughout Texas and across the country get to decide how and when their children engage with religion — not politicians or public-school officials,” Laser continued.

Paxton has sued three school districts for refusing.

A legal representative for the American Civil Liberties Union in Texas said Garcia’s ruling was further affirmation of what’s already accepted legal truth: “the First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities — not the government — the right to instill religious beliefs in our children.”

Similar laws were struck down in Arkansas and Louisiana, which became the first state to pass the mandate in summer 2024.

Legal experts suggest the issue will eventually make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2015, a Ten Commandment monument was ordered by the state’s Supreme Court to be removed from the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds, arguing that Oklahoma’s constitution banned the use of public property for “the benefit of any religious purpose.”

“Our schools are for education, not evangelization,” Chloe Kempf, a staff attorney for the Texas ACLU, added in a statement. “This ruling protects thousands of Texas students from ostracization, bullying and state-mandated religious coercion.”

Every school district in Texas, she added, was “now on notice that implementing S.B. 10 violates their students’ constitutional rights.”

Labour MP Clive Lewis has offered to give up his seat to allow Andy Burnham to challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.

There has been ongoing speculation that Greater Manchester Mayor Burnham wants to take on Sir Keir for the top job, but he would need to be an MP to do so.

Lewis told the BBC’s Politics Live that he was willing to step down from his Norwich South seat to allow Burnham to return to the Commons and put “country before party, party before personal ambition”.

Burnham was contacted for comment. Number 10 declined to comment.

Lewis, who has been an MP for 10 years, said he had spoken to Burnham, and when asked if he would give up his seat for him, he said it was “a question I’ve asked myself”.

He added: “Do you know what? If I’m going to sit here and say country before party, party before personal ambition, then yes, I have to say yes, don’t I.”

Last week, he said Sir Keir’s position as prime minister was “untenable” and told Channel 4 News that Burnham should be given the chance to “step up”.

Lewis first won his seat in 2015, and last year he increased his majority to more than 13,000.

But if he were to step down, any would-be successor would first need to win a selection contest before a by-election was held.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting – who last week denied claims he was plotting a leadership bid of his own – told LBC he thought it was a “peculiar” move by the Norwich South MP.

“I’ve got a lot of time for Andy and I think we need our best players on the pitch,” Streeting said.

“And whether he’s doing that as mayor of Greater Manchester or whether he wants to come back into parliament in the next general election, that is an issue for Andy.

“I think it’s a bit of a peculiar thing for Clive to have said to his own constituents, ‘Oh, well, I’m not interested in being your MP, I’m happy to do a deal with someone’.

“I would just say from personal experience, don’t take your voters for granted.”

In September, Burnham said he had “no intention of abandoning Manchester” but did not rule out challenging Sir Keir after a series of interviews in which he said colleagues had been urging him to stand.

Two Manchester Labour MPs, Andrew Gwynne and Graham Stringer, ruled out standing down for him ahead of the party’s conference in September.

Sir Keir has, meanwhile, said he will lead Labour into the next general election. It came after a bruising time last week, when anonymous briefings were given to journalists that some cabinet ministers – including Streeting – were plotting to oust him.

The ministers concerned have insisted this is not the case – but speculation continues about whether the PM will face a challenge in May, when Labour is expected to do badly in Scottish and Welsh elections, and in English local elections.

Anyone mounting a leadership bid would have to secure the backing of 80 Labour MPs.

Last week, 42 migrants were presumed to have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after their dinghy set sail off the Libyan coast.

At least 29 of them were Sudanese refugees who fled the catastrophic civil war in their country between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the regular army known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

Since erupting in April 2023, the Sudan war has caused the largest displacement crisis in the world.

Nearly 13 million people have been uprooted from their homes and more than four million have fled to neighbouring countries, such as Chad, Egypt and Libya.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than 86,000 Sudanese nationals are registered as asylum seekers or refugees in Libya – a 60,000 uptick compared with before the war.

As more Sudanese attempt to reach Europe from Libya, this is everything you need to know about their plight.

How many Sudanese asylum seekers have reached Europe since the war started?

From April 2023 to January 2024, the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) registered nearly 10,000 asylum applications from Sudanese nationals across the European Union – nearly twice as high as the previous year.

While figures for 2025 have not yet been published, the growing number of Sudanese nationals arriving in Libya suggests that more people are aiming to reach Europe as their final destination.

“I hope to soon take the journey across the sea to Europe,” Hamid, a Sudanese refugee from Khartoum, told Al Jazeera from Libya, where he arrived earlier this year.

“Hopefully, God will make the journey safe,” he added with resignation.

How are Sudanese asylum seekers treated in Europe?

Only a minority of the 10,000 Sudanese asylum seekers have been granted protection so far, with the rest either rejected or waiting for a ruling.

In general, life has not been easy for many young Sudanese men after reaching Europe.

Some EU states are using anti-smuggling laws to criminalise young men for steering the small and overcrowded boats that smugglers put them in.

In Greece, more than 200 Sudanese minors and young men between the ages of 15 and 21 are facing smuggling charges.

Some have already been convicted and sentenced to decades or life in prison, pushing their lawyers to appeal.

Migration experts have long explained that vulnerable youth often agree to “steer” boats in exchange for a discounted price from smugglers, who often charge thousands of dollars from destitute asylum seekers looking for safety.

Does Europe share responsibility for the crisis in Sudan?

The RSF, which has committed countless atrocities throughout the war, emerged from the nomadic “Arab” government-linked Popular Defence Forces, known as the Janjaweed militias, that spearheaded a brutal campaign in the far western region of Darfur at the turn of the millennium.

Those militias were later accused of carrying out countless war crimes and crimes against humanity against mainly sedentary “non-Arab” communities.

Many legal scholars and human rights groups believe the atrocities may have amounted to genocide.

Yet in 2013, Sudan’s then-President Omar al-Bashir repackaged many of the Popular Defence Forces militias into the RSF.

The RSF, looking to acquire international legitimacy, quickly portrayed itself as a possible partner in the EU’s mission to “manage migration” in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

In 2014, the EU announced that it was launching the “Khartoum Process”, an initiative that strengthened cooperation between the EU and East African nations to counter irregular migration.

About $200m was pumped into Sudan over the next five years for this purpose.

According to research carried out by Sudan expert Suliman Baldo in 2017, a portion of this money went to strengthening the judiciary and law enforcement and may have possibly been diverted towards the RSF.

The EU has long denied that it financed the RSF in any capacity.

When Sudan’s security forces – including the RSF – killed more than 120 pro-democracy protesters in the capital Khartoum on June 3, 2019, the EU suspended all migration cooperation.

At the time, Sudan expert Alex de Waal said the EU’s reaction was “basically an admission of guilt” that the RSF had benefitted politically and financially from the Khartoum Process.

Images show that a large tiltrotor drone called the R6000, being developed by United Aircraft in China, has now entered flight testing. The design notably features swiveling rotors that are extremely similar to the ones found on Bell’s V-280 Valor. United Aircraft says it is working on uncrewed and crewed versions of the R6000, primarily for civilian applications, but that also have clear military potential.

Imagery of what is said to be the first tethered hover test of the R6000 first began circulating on social media yesterday, but when exactly the milestone was reached is unknown. Just over a year ago, a picture emerged showing the first completed prototype at the Wuhu United Aircraft Production Workshop in the Wuhu Aviation Industrial Park in China’s eastern Anhui province. United Aircraft unveiled the design, also referred to as the UR6000 and Zhang Ying (or Steel Shadow), at the 2024 Singapore Airshow.

The images of the hover test show various parts of the aircraft stripped down, as well as it lashed to the ground at four points. Tethered hover testing is a common element of initial flight envelope expansion for vertical takeoff and landing designs, especially larger uncrewed ones. Doing so to start offers an additional margin of safety.

The tilting rotor assemblies are notably exposed, but also blurred out in the newly emerged imagery. As mentioned, the design of the R6000’s swiveling rotors looks to be heavily inspired by, if not copied directly from the V-280. The U.S. Army’s future MV-75A tiltrotor, also known as the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), is a derivative of the V-280. When Bell first showed the V-280 demonstrator, it also blurred out parts of the rotor assemblies.

Bell has also shown renderings of other tiltrotor concepts in recent years with somewhat similarly configured rotors and nacelles, where only a portion actually pivots up and down. This is distinct from most other tiltrotor concepts, including the U.S. V-22 Osprey, with nacelles that rotate as a complete unit, or even have fully articulating wings.

The rotor and nacelle arrangement seen on the V-280 and now the R6000 is said to offer benefits in terms of reduced complexity and increased reliability, as well as a boost in general performance. Tiltrotor designs are famously complicated, and the V-22’s checkered record is a testament to the challenges this can present. At the same time, tiltrotors offer similar point-to-point flexibility to traditional helicopters, but with the range and speed of a fixed-wing turboprop.

United Aircraft’s website does provide dimensions and other specifications for the R6000, putting it at just under 39 feet long and with a total width (including the wings and rotors) of around 57 feet. The expected maximum takeoff weight is near 13,450 pounds, and it is designed to be able to cruise at just under 297 knots. A maximum range of around 2,485 miles and a mission radius (with an unspecified load) of 932 miles are also projected.

However, it is unclear whether the specifications apply to the uncrewed or crewed version of the design, or both. The specifications do describe a design, broadly speaking, in the same category as the crewed AW609 tiltrotor being developed by Leonardo in Italy, and in a class below the V-22.

United Aircraft has been presenting the R6000’s crewed and uncrewed variations as ideal for moving commercial cargo and as VIP transports, among other non-military roles. A design like this could be well-suited for aeromedical evacuation, especially if it features a pressurized main cabin, and aerial firefighting tasks, as well.

As TWZ discussed in earlier reporting on the R6000, the design also has clear military potential. A tiltrotor design, crewed or uncrewed, that can fly at approaching 300 knots and with a combat radius nearing 1,000 miles would offer a new way to support People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces at far-flung locations that have limited access via conventional airstrips. For years now, Chinese aviation companies have been pushing ahead with the development of a growing number of fixed-wing logistics drones, which are dependent on at least some form of runway. The PLA has a particularly significant requirement to move cargo and personnel around a constellation of island outposts in the South China Sea. Militarized versions of the R6000 could also support day-to-day operations in other parts of the Pacific, as well as remote locales within China, especially near disputed border areas.

R6000s could also support a variety of PLA expeditionary operational scenarios, including regional ones like an intervention against Taiwan, or missions further from the country’s shores. The design’s payload capacity would open the door to configurations capable of missions beyond logistics, including surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare, signal relay, or even potentially kinetic strike. Tiltotors like the R6000 would also be especially well-suited to operations from the PLA Navy’s growing fleets of big-deck amphibious assault ships. This includes the Sichuan, so far the only example of the super-sized Type 076 design, which just completed its first three-day sea trial.

The R6000 is also just one of several tiltrotor designs, crewed and uncrewed, not in development in China. Just today, a picture said to show another, smaller uncrewed design from United Aircraft emerged online, details about which are currently scant. Pictures showing flight testing of another crewed tiltrotor design, possibly being developed by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), also appeared on social media earlier this year. There are some broad parallels here to recent tiltrotor developments in the United States, which go beyond Bell’s aforementioned V-280 and the V-22.

If nothing else, the start of R6000 flight testing is another example of the continued push by Chinese companies to enter the tiltrotor market space with designs that could be attractive for various military and non-military roles.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Nov. 19 (UPI) — Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will resign from the OpenAI board of directors following intensified scrutiny over emails between him and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he announced Wednesday.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company, and look forward to following their progress,” Summers told CNBC and CNN in a statement.

Summers, 70, revealed Monday that he will “step back” from all public duties, but it was initially unclear if that was to include his role with the artificial intelligence startup.

This week, Summers said he was “deeply ashamed” after emails released last week revealed years of correspondence with the late billionaire financier and convicted sexual predator Epstein.

The AI company said it respected his decision.

“We appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the board,” the OpenAI board of directors said in a statement.

Summers, former secretary of the United States Treasury under former U.S. President Bill Clinton, was later president of Ivy League Harvard University from 2001 to 2006 and director of the National Economic Council under then-President Barack Obama.

On Tuesday, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill to release the Epstein files.

But it remains to be seen if President Donald Trump will sign the Epstein bill or if the White House will fully comply.

Nov. 19 (UPI) — A British man awaiting trial on charges of attempting to murder 10 people on board a high-speed train was due in court again on Wednesday after being charged with two further attempted murder counts.

Anthony Williams, 32, will appear before Peterborough magistrates to face charges he attempted to murder a man and a 14-year-old boy and attempted to seriously wound a third man in separate incidents in the city on Oct. 31.

West Midlands Chief Crown Prosecutor Siobhan Blake said she had also authorized a theft charge against Williams in relation to knives taken from a supermarket in Hertfordshire, a charge of carrying a knife and a charge of affray following an incident at a Peterborough barber shop on Oct. 31.

Williams would also be charged with assault following an alleged attack on a train en route to Peterborough from Herfordshire on Nov. 1, she said.

Blake said the decision to file the charges followed an extensive investigation by British Transport Police into incidents leading up to a stamping rampage aboard a London and North Eastern Railway train as it sped toward London on the evening of Nov. 1 in which 10 people were injured.

“Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings,” she added.

BTP Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Cundy said the train stabbings incident “had also focused on other offenses previously reported to police, or identified by our investigation.”

“We have worked closely with our colleagues in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Police, alongside the Crown Prosecution Service, to bring these charges,” said Cundy.

Williams was arrested at Huntingdon station Nov. 1 after the train switched off the high-speed line onto a local district line to divert to the town, a move authorities believe prevented the attack from being much worse.

He is being held on remand pending his next court appearance in relation to the LNER train attack at Cambridge Crown Court on Dec. 1, where in addition to the 10 attempted murder counts he also faces an eleventh charge of attempting to murder a man at a Docklands Light Rail station in London and possessing a knife.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it would seek to tie all the cases together on a single docket at the hearing in Cambridge.

Trump thanks Ronaldo as football superstar makes surprise appearance alongside Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was one of the surprise guests at a lavish White House dinner hosted by US President Donald Trump for the visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The famous footballer was among the last guests to be seated before Prince Mohammed, known as MBS, took his place at the table on Tuesday.

Here’s what you need to know about his presence at the White House:

Why did Ronaldo attend the White House dinner?

Ronaldo plays for the Saudi Pro League club Al Nassr after signing with them following the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.

He spent two decades playing for European clubs and signed a two-year extension in June with Al Nassr. The 40-year-old has indicated he is ready to hang up his boots soon, making Saudi Arabia the last stop in his glittering career.

Over four seasons with Al Nassr, Ronaldo has scored 83 goals with 17 assists in 84 starts.

Since his 2023 signing for the Riyadh-based club – majority owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund that the crown prince chairs – Ronaldo has been the face of the Saudi league and has featured in promotional videos for the Saudi Tourism Authority.

In a recent interview, Ronaldo referred to MBS as “our boss [in Saudi Arabia]”.

Ronaldo was seated near the front of the East Room, not far from where the president and crown prince gave remarks to officials from both nations, along with major business leaders such as Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla founder Elon Musk.

He also snapped a selfie at the White House.

Great night! pic.twitter.com/XfdC9bJqP4

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) November 19, 2025

What did Trump say about Ronaldo at the dinner?

Trump, in his speech, made a point of recognising Ronaldo, who he said he introduced to his teenage son.

Trump thanked the athlete for attending. He said that his youngest son, Barron, is a “big fan” of Ronaldo and the 19-year-old was impressed that he got to meet the player.

“I think he respects his father a little bit more now, just the fact that I introduced you,” the president said.

What has Ronaldo said about Trump?

Ronaldo has recently said that Trump is “one of the guys who can help change the world”.

“[Trump is] one of the guys I want to meet. I think he can make things happen, and I like people like that,” the football icon said in an interview with media host Piers Morgan.

However, Ronaldo was quick to boast that he was more famous than Trump.

“People know me more than him. In the world, nobody’s more famous than me.”

No, but FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who has previously featured at events with Trump, was also among the guests.

Infantino was making another appearance at the White House ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which the US is co-hosting with Canada and Mexico, after meeting Trump at his residence two days earlier.

The FIFA chief will also be present when the US hosts the draw for the World Cup on December 5 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, where Trump is likely to oversee the event.

Will Ronaldo play in the FIFA World Cup 2026 in the US?

Ronaldo said earlier this month that the next World Cup will be his last.

He hasn’t played in the US since August of 2014, when he was a substitute for Real Madrid in their exhibition match against Manchester United in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The volcano has spewed ash clouds as tall as 5.6km (3.48 miles) into the sky, authorities say.

Indonesia’s Semeru volcano has erupted, unleashing fast-moving pyroclastic flows as the country’s volcanology agency increased the alert level of Java island’s tallest mountain to the highest.

The volcano spewed ash clouds as tall as 5.6km (3.48 miles) into the sky, the agency said on Wednesday, adding that residents should stay a 2.5km (1.55-mile) distance away due to risks.

The eruption began at about 4pm (09:00 GMT), according to a written report from Mukdas Sofian, an officer at Indonesia’s volcanology monitoring post.

“Pyroclastic flows are still occurring, with the runout distance reaching seven kilometres [4.3 miles] from the summit, and the eruption was ongoing at the time this report was prepared,” Sofian said.

Mount Semeru, located in a densely populated region of Java, is Indonesia’s highest peak at 3,676 metres (12,060 feet) and sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a seismically active arc where volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are common.

Semeru, also known as Mahameru, has erupted numerous times in the past 200 years, including a deadly episode in 2021 that killed 62 people and buried villages in hot ash.

Indonesia is home to nearly 130 active volcanoes – more than any other country, and Semeru’s frequent activity is closely monitored because of the risks it poses to nearby communities, transport routes and aviation.

US President Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Arabia’s crown prince to the White House, declaring the Kingdom a major non-NATO ally and signaling a push to deepen US-Saudi ties. Here’s what we know about what they agreed on.