This Global News Podcast edition covers the resignation of Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang after reports of two affairs, one involving a woman suspected of spying for China, which Beijing denies. It explains Nvidia's share slump and Colette Kress's appointment as interim chief executive.
It also covers US envoys' push to bring Europeans into Russia-Ukraine peace talks, winter power cuts in Ukraine, a deadly New York building collapse, an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital that Israel says targeted a Hamas commander, Manchester United's sacking of Michael Carrick, and a wristwatch device that some people with Tourette syndrome say has helped their tics.
In this episode Oliver Conway, Andy Swiss, Ben Thompson, Jared Hill, Samira Hussain, Sanjay Sashdev, Stephan Verborg, Vitaly Shevchenko, Yolande Nell
This Global News Podcast episode on Nvidia's leadership change and other world news was transcribed with HappyScribe technology, the same technology behind Google Meet AI notes.
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 15 hours GMT on Thursday, the 12th of November. Jensen Huang resigns as boss of the world's second-biggest company, Nvidia, after reports of two affairs. U.S. envoys meet President Putin in Moscow. Will he allow Europeans to join the Russia-Ukraine peace talks? And eight people have died after a building collapse in New York. Also in this podcast: Israel strikes the main hospital in southern Gaza.
We hear from a doctor caught up in the attack.
The missile had penetrated through the roof, through the recovery ward into the surgical office where the doctors were getting ready for the midnight emergency stuff.
One of the most powerful men in the AI industry has been forced to resign over a sex and spying scandal. Nvidia's Jensen Huang stepped down after admitting to an extramarital affair. The woman involved was suspected of being a Chinese spy. Then The New York Times reported he'd also had an affair with an Nvidia executive, Kimberly Powell. Just before the New York Stock Exchange opened, the board announced that Huang, its co-founder, was going. Samira Hussain is our business correspondent in New York.
There weren't very many avenues left for Mr. Huang. That said, it is, to me, a little bit surprising that this decision comes right now. We're about 30 minutes before the opening bell in New York. Asia has already been trading, and so there were some thoughts that perhaps this was going to come last night to allow for Asian markets and European markets to digest the news before opening here in New York. But we can see now that the stock price for Nvidia is already under so much pressure.
In the last 25 days, we have seen that the company has lost a third of its value. Now, remember that we had all of these tech wobbles that we were seeing earlier in the last few weeks in the lead-up to the election and then immediately after the election. And then, of course, you have this blockbuster news that has absolutely had a huge impact on the share price. Now, there's no way to underscore just how important Nvidia is and why it matters to everyday people.
If you have any kind of investments, mutual funds, or 401(k) investment, as that's the retirement fund here in the United States, you are invested in Nvidia. And so this has a huge impact on everybody because everyone, in some ways, if you are involved in the market at all, you are kind of an Nvidia shareholder as well. But also remember that Jensen Huang has some kind of a rock star status in Silicon Valley. In fact, people would wear T-shirts and sweatshirts that say "GenSanity" because so much of Nvidia and its success is tied to the man himself.
And perhaps one of the reasons why there was so much back and forth about when he would resign was trying to figure out, well, who's actually going to be able to take his place given his position in the company.
Samira Hussain in New York. Well, the board of Nvidia says Colette Kress has agreed to serve as interim CEO. She'd already been the company's current executive vice president and chief financial officer. Here's our business presenter, Ben Thompson.
I mean, I suppose there were big questions about whether she will now do this on a permanent basis. She'd been tipped as someone who could maybe steady the ship, and steadying the ship is the most important thing here. And she's been in the industry about 30 years. She was previously pretty senior at firms like Cisco and Microsoft. She's the executive vice president already at the business at Nvidia. So she's been there for that big transformation. You may remember Nvidia began as a firm that was making chips for video games as early as the 1990s. She has been there through this meteoric rise to become an AI semiconductor powerhouse.
So she's on all of the calls. Investors, the board, are very familiar with her. I'm just looking at a quote that's come in here saying she's a familiar and trusted voice for the market at a time when it badly needs one. So that is the current interim replacement. Big questions are about whether they will look further afield. They may want someone with similar star power, someone who will keep Nvidia in the headlines as Jensen Huang has. They've talked about another co-founder of Nvidia, whether he would step in, whether they will look externally to somewhere like Apple, maybe Arm, that's another chip maker, whether they will poach from a rival.
So many questions right now. As Samira was touching on, maybe no great surprise that he has stepped down. The big question is whether that is enough to sort of steady the ship and sort of bring a bit of stability to what's been a really difficult few days for the firm.
Ben Thompson. And Nvidia's shares opened down more than 13 percent, wiping more than half a trillion dollars off the firm's market value following the news of Huang's resignation. Is the war in Ukraine any closer to an end? After a nine-month gap, negotiations have intensified in the past few days. President Trump's envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, have traveled to Moscow to brief Vladimir Putin about their talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials in Abu Dhabi. They're now hoping to persuade the Russian president to allow the Europeans to join negotiations.
They'll then fly to Dublin to see the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr. Putin said he would like peace in Ukraine to last forever. But are we seeing any concrete signs of progress? I asked Vitaly Shevchenko, chief analyst at BBC Monitoring.
Nothing that I've heard suggests that all these conversations, all these meetings, all these statements have brought the prospect of peace any closer or have tamed Russia's appetites. What Vladimir Putin is saying falls roughly within what he's been saying all these years. He just said that Russia rejects the presence of foreign troops in Ukraine. And when he says that Russia wants eternal peace in Ukraine, my reading of it is that this is going to be peace on his terms.
Everything else, the territorial claims, the insistence that Ukraine stays out of security alliances such as NATO, it's just the same.
And what about this proposal for a new localized ceasefire?
It is good news for all the people involved. It's a sign that Ukraine and Russia can work together. They have been able to arrange that a few weeks ago in Oleshky for the south in the Kherson region. But the key question is, does that mean that Russia and Ukraine can work on other issues such as lasting peace? And the answer to that is a resounding no, I think, to listen to what the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergey Rubakov, has been saying.
It clearly suggests that Russia still wants to crush Ukraine. He said that during the talks in Abu Dhabi, Russia floated once again the proposals for European security that it first made back in 2021. And let's have a look at those proposals. Back then, Russia demanded that NATO withdraw from the whole of Eastern Europe. That is clearly not going to work. That is such an unfulfillable demand at this stage.
And to me, it suggests that Russia is not going to compromise on any of those issues.
Now, Jared Kushner has said that the U.S. has begun talking with the Europeans about a new European security architecture. Is this the same thing?
I would say so. My question would be, why the need for a new or broader, as Jared Kushner puts it, security architecture in Europe? Because over decades, Europe and Russia and the Soviet Union before that, they worked together to work out precisely these arrangements, which clearly imply that Russia shouldn't invade other countries. And the European foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, she said a couple of days ago that we have security arrangements in place, and any suggestions that they need to be reviewed, I would say it would benefit Russia, especially if it's still saying, look, we want NATO to withdraw from Eastern Europe.
That's such a maximalist demand. And if you were to take a step back and have a look at what these talks spearheaded by the United States over almost two years now, what they've achieved, I don't think they've achieved much apart from emboldening Vladimir Putin. Clearly, he's not said or done anything that would suggest he is prepared to hold back in Ukraine.
Vitaly Shevchenko there. Well, on the ground in Ukraine, families are bracing for what could be the toughest winter of the war. Temperatures are forecast to drop sharply, and Russian attacks have left many without electricity, heating, or water. Ukrainian officials are concerned life could quickly become unsustainable. More from our Ukraine correspondent, Dan Johnson.
I'm standing in the ruins of one of Ukraine's power stations that was attacked recently by Russian ballistic missiles, and it is totally devastated. There are broken pipes and smashed-up machinery here. It's been totally destroyed, taken completely offline, unable to generate any electricity now. They've tried to protect some of the equipment by building walls with enormous concrete blocks around it, but the missiles were obviously so powerful that they've just blown those walls away.
On the edge of the plant, this is where the electricity cables actually leave. These have also been damaged, so there are teams trying to repair them, but the challenge they have is simply keeping up with the volume of repair work that is needed when the attacks keep coming. We've been told we're going to run to the shelter. This is happening every half an hour or so.
They carry quite sophisticated tracking equipment that's able to detect incoming missiles and drones, and every time they spot one heading for this area, we all have to run for the shelter, the nearest one. We've actually come down to the basement of one of the chimneys here. They're tracking a Banderoll jet-powered drone, which, by the last report, was five kilometers away.
It sounds like that's all clear, so we can go above ground once again. But the reality is they're spending so much time down here sheltering like this, they just aren't capable of doing the repair work needed to get this plant back online.
Vadim's 39. He's worked here half his life. He's leading the clear-up.
First of all, it's emotionally difficult because we've already repaired all this, got it running again, and now it's happened all over again. It hurts, but we keep working and getting things done.
This tower block is without power, largely in darkness. So the lift is not an option, and that means taking the stairs to get to the seventh floor where Darina lives with her children, Kirill and Olena.
They're under one of Kyiv's scheduled power outages, which are now lasting up to 20 hours a day.
Do you know when it will come back?
Probably tomorrow because it's already evening.
What do you tend to do when this happens?
Actually, now it's 7:30, so we can play with kids some games and go to sleep early because with no light, not too much to do.
A game of UNO helps to pass an evening. Ukraine has targeted Russian oil refineries, but it is Kyiv's streets humming with generators. They can't even keep the streetlights on here. Many families are opting to leave the city, but Darina is defiant despite the darkness.
Yes, we're scared. We're scared a lot. But better for us to be without power, but without Russians.
Darina ending that report by our Ukraine correspondent, Dan Johnson. We now know that eight people were killed in New York when a three-story residential building collapsed on Wednesday. Search efforts have been continuing in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, with hundreds of firefighters and rescue workers at the scene. The collapse shocked locals.
I'm just walking by and I kind of see all this rubble and stuff on the ground, and there's a lot of commotion. People are yelling.
We just started seeing dust, and then we looked over there, and then we started calling our mom because we saw that the building collapsed down.
Oh, my God, this is catastrophic. I was praying for them.
The mayor of New York City, Zoran Mamdani, thanks emergency workers.
This has been an incredibly challenging and fast-moving situation, with precarious wreckage to navigate and dangerous voids beneath the surface. This type of rescue is exactly what the FDNY trains for. 250 firefighters and EMS personnel responded and have worked tirelessly to secure the scene and rescue those who were trapped.
CBS correspondent Jared Hill was in Flatbush and gave us this update.
Since we've been here over the course of this morning, we've already seen authorities pull out at least three, four bodies from the wreckage there, adding to this death toll. There are, again, so many first responders who are still on the scene. We're really focused still on the space in which this building collapsed, which is just beyond, is fire trucks right here behind me. All of this started yesterday afternoon around 4:00 p.m. local time here in New York City.
The cause of this is still under investigation. So there are two sort of concerns here. One, the integrity of any of the other buildings or structures is definitely something that is of concern. But then also, there is the concern about both exertion for the firefighters as they are trying to dig through that rubble and try and find anyone who might still be inside. In fact, earlier this morning overnight, we saw one of the firefighters taken away on a stretcher. We don't know their condition, but this is considerably difficult work for them to do.
The other concern here is that because we're dealing with rubble and so much rubble in such a debris field, when you look at some of these aerials, you can see it, is that as the firefighters and first responders are working, that they might disrupt some of that, making for a dangerous situation not only for them, but also for potentially anyone else who might be inside. When it comes to the number of people that still might be there, we don't quite know just yet. And this is something that authorities were talking about last night, saying that they're not certain how many people were in the building when this collapse occurred, and so they're not quite certain how many more there might be.
CBS correspondent Jared Hill in Flatbush in Brooklyn. And still to come on this podcast.
It's like a light switch getting part of your life back. Could it something you couldn't do, and now you just suddenly can do it?
The electrical device transforming the lives of people with Tourette syndrome. This is the Global News Podcast. Palestinian officials say six people, including a surgeon, have been killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike on the biggest hospital in southern Gaza. The Israeli military say the Nasser Hospital was being used as a Hamas command center, something Hamas denied. Dr.
Stephan Verborg is an orthopedic surgeon volunteering there. He was inside the building when the missile hit.
In the middle of the night, I woke up at midnight, and there was a whoosh, a sound of the missile approaching the hospital, followed by a sharp explosion, and the hospital rocked. That was basically it. A lot of people got up, and the accommodation is in the side wing of the hospital. Lights were still on. We were prevented from actually going towards the area where quite clearly there had been an incident because there was smoke and there was dust, and there was obviously a lot of shouting as well.
We know at least six people have been killed and 20 injured, and we can see some of the damage. But what are you hearing from your colleagues about just how much damage has been done to the hospital and what that's done to the ability of staff there to treat patients?
The hospital itself is a four-story building, and the missile had penetrated through the roof into the uppermost building, all the way down to the second floor. So it went through the recovery ward, which is part of the theater complex, and then through a corridor underneath into the surgical office where the doctors were talking to patients, preparing operations, and getting ready for the midnight emergency stuff surgeons do, and they got killed in that room.
Dr. Verborg, can you give us an idea of what it's like to be working in Nasser every day, the conditions you're working under, what it's like there?
It is a real mixed bag because the people are incredibly friendly and incredibly supportive, but the situation is really stark, so things are constantly missing. I'm a limbery construction surgeon, so I rely on frames and metal bits and drills and things, and they are just not there because they're not allowed to enter. The general surgeons have it a little bit easier because they only need sutures and scissors, and they can do the job a bit more, but they have got not so much anesthetics.
They have got no antibiotics, and they have got no fluids to wash out wounds. So really, everything is very much restricted.
An attack like the one we've just seen, how does it leave people feeling? I wonder if staff are now scared? Are patients and people now going to be more scared to come to the hospital?
Well, from our Western perspective, of course, that would be the case, and some of our colleagues are scared. But for the Palestinian patients and for the Palestinian local medical professionals and nurses, this is a daily occurrence. Their tents get hit on a daily basis. They get ambushed on the way to work. So having a hospital hit is not that common, but having been hit by some sort of strike is quite a common occurrence for most Palestinians, and they are not particularly fazed by it.
Surgeon Dr. Stephan Verborg. I got more details from Yolande Nell in Jerusalem.
Israel says it was targeting a local Hamas commander, the head of the Khan Yunis Brigade. It's named that man as being Mohammad Abu Ismail, and it's not clear at the moment who he was and what happened to him. Israel's also saying that there were other Hamas operatives who were hiding with him at the Nasser Hospital, and it calls this local commander somebody who was responsible for holding hostages previously and says that he had, with these local operatives, turned Nasser Hospital into a headquarters and had carried out or been planning there dozens of plots against Israeli forces.
Now, Israel also says that it gave advance warning for this strike and used precision munitions. And witnesses who we've spoken to are based at the hospital have told the BBC that they did not receive a warning that this strike was about to happen. Hamas itself has accused the Israeli military of a false narrative and saying that this was a blatant attempt to cover up a new war crime.
Our correspondent Yolande Nell in Jerusalem. Football and Manchester United have now sacked their manager, Michael Carrick, after their worst ever start to a Premier League season. The US national coach, Mauricio Pochettino, is now expected to take over. Carrick, a former United midfielder, led the team to an impressive third-place finish last season, but they are now languishing in the relegation zone, a big comedown for a team that once dominated English football. Sanjay Sashdev is a lifelong Man U fan.
If Pochettino does well, the Glazers and Ineos will say, look, we've done something great, we've done something brilliant here, but I think the core of the club, the culture, is kind of rotten. It's all about kind of milking the club for revenues. I mean, the roof is literally and figuratively falling in on the club at the moment.
Our sports correspondent Andy Swiss is in Manchester, and it sounds like fans feel a bit sorry for Michael Carrick.
I don't think a lot of United fans are particularly impressed with the way this process has been conducted, particularly yesterday when you had this strange situation where Michael Carrick was here at United's training ground, which is where I am now, taking training, business as usual. At that same time, we knew that there was a meeting going on in Monaco between United's hierarchy with the co-owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who's based out in Monaco. They were discussing Michael Carrick's future. And at the same time that that was happening, we knew that United had begun talks with Mauricio Pochettino about becoming their next manager, even though Michael Carrick was still in position.
So it's been a pretty chaotic few days. It hasn't been a great look for the club, and for a lot of United fans who are already disillusioned with their team's performances on the pitch, with how the club is being run off the pitch, it has only fueled that sense of despair.
Yeah, there's been much talk about the whole culture has gone wrong. If Mauricio Pochettino comes in, can he turn things around?
Well, he faces a huge task. I mean, Mauricio Pochettino is a very experienced manager. He achieved success in the Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur, who he guided to the Champions League final in 2019. He's managed with Paris Saint-Germain, with Chelsea, so he's managed a lot of big clubs. He's had to handle a lot of big egos. And obviously, at the moment, he's currently the USA national team manager. In fact, he has a couple of matches coming up over the next week. But yeah, I mean, he's going to face the challenge of his career because right now, United are in dire straits.
They are down in 18th place in the Premier League. They're just one point off the bottom. They have only won one single match in the league all season. Now, United have had their lows, it's fair to say, over the last decade or so, but I don't think we've ever seen them in a situation where they're in a relegation battle. There is still a lot of time to go in the season. Things can change quite quickly. A new manager can come in, and there can be a bit of a bounce effect. But yeah, from Mauricio Pochettino, assuming it is him, he's going to face some battle.
Talking of the bottom of the table, Crystal Palace may not be as high-profile as Manchester United, but they have won three trophies in recent years. Now they have sacked their manager too, Pierre Sage.
Yeah, Pierre Sage has gone. He went just a short time, really, after Michael Carrick's departure was announced, and they're the first two managers in the Premier League to be dismissed this season, which actually is strangely not bad going by the middle of November. But obviously, Crystal Palace have enjoyed success over the last few years, both domestically and in Europe, but they've had a terrible start to the season. They are rock bottom of the Premier League, and Pierre Sage's role has come under huge scrutiny, so I don't think fans will be surprised that he has gone.
Our sports correspondent Andy Swiss. People with Tourette syndrome say a new wristwatch-style device is proving to be life-changing in helping reduce their involuntary sounds and movements, or tics. The tech, created using research from the University of Nottingham in England, uses electrical pulses to target the brain networks that cause the tics. This report from Navtej Johal.
Right, I'll turn it on for us.
15-year-old Ollie is getting ready to turn on a special device on his wrist. He's hoping it will calm down his constant involuntary neck movements, which have been making his life really tough.
Let me know when it's on.
His mum is filming on her phone.
It's on.
The neck movements stop instantly. Ollie's tics started nearly two years ago and are caused by functional neurological disorder, which his parents first thought may be Tourette syndrome.
I didn't leave the house for about a month. I didn't hang out with my mates. Reading and writing came really hard. I was out of school for six, seven months.
He heard about a device being developed by the University of Nottingham to help people with tics caused by Tourette's. It looks like a smartwatch, but under its face, it has these electrodes. They send electrical pulses to the median nerve at the wrist, which is connected to the brain through the spinal cord. And trials have found that by stimulating that nerve, it can change the activity in the areas of the brain associated with producing involuntary movements or tics and substantially reduce them.
It's like a light switch getting part of your life back. Could it something you couldn't do, and now you just suddenly can do it?
I was really, really struggling. I just kind of felt like I lost a bit of myself. It was really, really difficult.
Katie, who's also 15, has had Tourette's since she was seven.
Having to repeat words, or I have to move my arms.
Her tics affect her sleep, eating, and education.
I became quite sad. I couldn't get into school. I'd get sent home. I felt like I was being judged quite a bit. I definitely did feel like an outsider for a very long time.
A few years ago, her mum heard about the device going through a clinical trial. They were invited to Nottingham to try it on before it went on sale.
It was absolutely life-changing. I just cried the whole way home because I was like, I want it now. It's like, this is going to make such a big difference. It was genuinely like the best day of my life.
It's associated with changes in the brain circuits.
Professor Stephen Jackson led the research which has created the gadget. It's now on sale for £500 through a University of Nottingham spin-out company as a wellness device.
We are working diligently and as hard as we can to get regulatory approval for the new POTS device as a treatment for Tourette's.
How long do you think it will be until it has that approval and is available on the NHS?
I'm hoping that we'll get regulatory approval within the next year or so.
The NeoPOLS-C wellness device has recently been used in early trials for people with Parkinson's, and there are similar plans for those with OCD and anxiety. But it's already making a difference to many who are struggling with Tourette's.
Navtej Johal reporting. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, email globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk. You can also watch our episodes in full by searching for the Global News Podcast on YouTube. This edition was mixed by Volodymyr Mushechka and produced by Vanessa Heaney. Our editors, Karen Martin, I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.
Nvidia's chief financial officer, Colette Kress, will take over as interim CEO following Jensen Huang's departure. Shares in the company plummeted as US markets opened. It comes days after Huang admitted to an affair with a suspected Chinese spy, although Beijing denies the allegations. It also follows a New York Times report of a second affair with an executive at his own company.