In your briefing today:

📣 As many as a thousand schools across Scotland were sent a chilling message warning “we’ve come to destroy you” and “we’re going to carry out genocide against your people” in a hoax that also closed schools in Northern Ireland and Italy.

Thousands of pupils around Scotland were sent home after the threatening emails were sent. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said there was no “concrete danger” to students, but the government held a meeting about the situation.

The threats follow a series of bomb threats sent to European airlines last week, which saw a number of flights diverted and grounded: the inevitable speculation is that the hoaxes are linked, and could be connected to a foreign state - with the finger of suspicion pointing at Russia and Iran. (Daily Record) (Mail)

📣 The board of chip giant Nvidia is preparing to sack its CEO, Jensen Huang, after details of a second affair - this one with a subordinate - emerged overnight.

The company’s shares tumbled in after-hours trading in New York after it was reported Huang, already in the spotlight for an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, had also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice-president of healthcare, and a direct report. (Semafor)

📣 Two days of talks between Russia and Ukraine have concluded without an agreement, with Donald Trump’s envoy (and son-in-law) Jared Kushner saying “the reality is there’s no trust right now between the sides.”

But there has been a shift, reports Politico, in America’s attitude. It now realises this was never just a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine: there are wider issues involved, and Kushner says Europe needs to be at the table next time. European officials are wary of a Russian trap. (Politico)

Breasts are among the most talked about and medically researched parts of the human body, yet many of us are embarrassed to discuss our breast health openly. 

Allure Perspectives, a new podcast hosted by Allure editor-in-chief Jessica Cruel, spends its first season exploring how breasts intersect with beauty, health, identity, sexuality, and culture. Episodes feature Olivia Munn on the test she says to take even if your mammogram is clear, sex educator Ericka Hart on reclaiming her body after breast cancer, and a Beverly Hills surgeon on why GLP-1s are driving a surge in breast lifts. All episodes available now.

Listen wherever you get podcasts.

📣 A 32-year-old DJ from Scotland has been named as one of the victims of the mass shooting in Poland last weekend that left six people dead. (BBC)

📣 Academics at the University of Edinburgh have rebuked management's controversial plans to end as many as 90 programmes at the university, and are calling for changes to how courses and degree programmes are overseen. (Scotsman)

📣 Sir Jim Milne, one of Aberdeen’s titans of industry, has died aged 85. The farmer’s son became one of the city’s best-known entrepreneurs. But it was his acts of philanthropy - he founded the cancer charity Friends of Anchor - with which he was most closely associated later in life. (Times) (Press & Journal)

📣 The UK economy grew by 0.7% in the third quarter, the fastest rate for two years, according to figures released this morning. (BBC live coverage)

📣 The TV industry has been told to clean up its act in the wake of the Russell Brand and David Walliams scandals, with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy calling broadcasters in for a meeting next week. (Mail)

📣 The global climate crisis is a threat to national security, Ed Miliband will tell the Cop31 conference in Turkey, warning that climate change will bring food shortages, economic disruption, migration and conflict. (Independent)

📣 One last, stunning, midterm result: Democrat Scott Colum has won in Mississippi - the first time Democrats have won a Senate seat there since 1982. (AP)

⚽️ Scotland boss Sebastien Pocognoli says there are no excuses tomorrow night, when Scotland meet North Macedonia at Hampden: his team needs to deliver the first win of his reign. (BBC)

⚽️ Aberdeen are certainly taking a good look as they consider their next managerial appointment: they’ve spoken to no fewer than seven candidates in the last few days. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Scotland return to action against Australia on Sunday at Murrayfield: scrum half Ali Price has joined up with the squad this week and could force his way back into the national team, says assistant coach John Dalziel. (Scotsman)

🗣️ While the UK has been gripped by the conviction of sordid Russell Brand, and the serious allegations against the now-unmasked David Walliams (which he denies), the United States has been gripped by its own celebrity downfall: that of Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, the AI tech giant and one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Huang is now accused of having two affairs: one with alleged spy Alice Huang, and another with Kimberley Powell, a Nvidia executive who reports to him.

Huang’s crimes may be more moral than legal, at least so far. But the Alice Huang affair raises great concerns about national security and his judgment, while the Powell affair… well, that just raises questions about his judgment.

Affairs like these kill careers. It’s not just the memes, although there are many, and some might even be quite funny. It’s the destruction of authority, the wider loss of trust and - in this case - the inevitable political fallout.

As entrepreneur and commentator Scott Galloway pointed out yesterday - before the second affair had come to light - the fact there’s been one betrayal tends to lead people to ask if there have been others.

Huang, leading a vital company in a US AI sector that is engaged in a race against the Chinese state, will face very uncomfortable questioning in front of lawmakers in the near future.

“When he gets in front of the Senate Banking Committee that oversees chip shipments or import and export controls, someone is going to sit him down and say: ‘This is what you’re going to face in this hearing. It’s going to be chaired by Senator Elizabeth Warren. Imagine every text and email you have sent Ms. Huang is in 200 font [on a card held by] a staffer of Senator Warren, and the questions you are going to have to answer under oath.’

“It’s just going to get so ugly, so fast.”

It may, of course, get uglier, faster now we know there’s been a second affair. At send time, Nvidia’s board was said to be meeting to decide their CEO’s fate. The difficulty of their decision becomes clearer when you look at how the company he founded is organised.

As Nils Pratley explains, Nvidia might be a multi-billion-dollar behemoth, but it is still very much organised around the cult of the superstar founder, just as - say - Apple or Microsoft once were. Huang has dozens of direct reports, rather than the more pared-down arrangement normal at other companies. There isn’t even a chair of the board - just a “lead director” designated each year by the independent members of the board.

The task this chairless board faces isn’t easy. Despite the company’s size, there is no obvious successor to Huang. Even if the perfect person could start tomorrow, the company would need a reorganisation to operate without its founder.

In reality, all this will drag out over months, as the company continues to battle in a high-stakes, high-speed AI technology arms race.

That’s why Nvidia’s $NVDA ( ▲ 2.87% ) share price fell around 20% as the scandal developed, losing around $1 trillion in investor value. It’s a fall that matters for us all - if you have a pension, or a stocks and shares ISA, it’s possible you’re invested in Nvidia.

It’s also likely to mean lawsuits: Reuters reports there’s the possibility of class actions, regulatory investigations, and shareholder upset at a board that hasn’t kept a close enough eye on its CEO and his relationship with a Chinese tech executive.

It will even bleed into diplomacy, as Bloomberg notes. China and the US have agreed to a trade war truce over the last year, with part of that thawing in relations being the US agreeing to relax export restrictions on powerful computer chips to China. That was a relaxation Jensen Huang had loudly advocated for.

Revelations of his affair, and his likely removal from the top job at Nvidia, gives lawmakers in Washington every reason to agitate for tighter controls. Donald Trump is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Shenzhen in days.

Silicon Valley has warned all year about the dangers of AI going rogue. Nvidia’s and Trump’s problem turned out, this time at least, to be a human in the loop.

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