Morning Brief, Monday 9 November

Poland's national prosecutor is treating the Krakow shooting as a possible terrorist act after a masked man drove into Main Square and opened fire on passers-by, tourists and taxi drivers. Police chased his black Subaru until it crashed, then exchanged fire with him after he got out wearing military-style gear and carrying a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. Six people died: a 51-year-old Austrian woman, a 32-year-old British man, three Polish women aged 47, 53 and 61, and a Polish man of about 50. Reports put the number of wounded at 15 or 16, including two police officers who helped stop the attacker.

Investigators also found the bodies of the suspect's father, mother and sister in a flat in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, about two hours from Krakow. Police said all three had gunshot wounds, and prosecutors believe the suspect killed them before travelling to Krakow. Officers seized computer equipment, collected surveillance footage and questioned first witnesses. Justice minister and prosecutor general Waldemar Zurek said the nine killings carry life imprisonment as the maximum penalty under the Polish Criminal Code.

The suspect remains in critical condition after several operations and cannot yet be questioned. Interior minister Marcin Kierwinski said everything so far points to a fascination with far-right ideology, while investigators think he acted alone. Poland began two days of national mourning on 8 November, and St. Mary's Trumpet Call in Krakow was paused overnight, an interruption AP said was the first since the second world war. Candles filled the square, which stayed partly closed on Sunday.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog gave Gadi Eisenkot the mandate to form a government after the 27 October election left Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc without a majority. Eisenkot, a former military chief and leader of the Yashar party, now has 28 days under the Basic Law to assemble an executive, with a possible 14-day extension. He cast the assignment as an emergency job, not a normal coalition drill.

Herzog's consultations produced 67 recommendations for Eisenkot and 46 for Netanyahu, but Eisenkot's allied parties hold only 48 seats, short of the 61 needed for a majority. That leaves Arab-led parties in the middle of the arithmetic. Ra'am, with eight seats, reportedly would back Eisenkot as prime minister even before a coalition agreement, while the Joint List, with 11 seats, favours an Eisenkot government but officially abstains rather than voting for one.

Avigdor Lieberman now stands between Eisenkot and a clean majority. He rejects any minority government or any executive dependent on Arab-led parties, but he has signalled a willingness to talk to ultra-Orthodox parties and hinted that some Likud lawmakers could leave Netanyahu's bloc. Netanyahu, whose Likud remains the largest party, called for a national unity government and warned against swearing in a government with what he calls terrorist supporters, his phrase for Arab-led parties.

Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation into whether chief executive Jensen Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. A committee of independent directors is overseeing the review with outside lawyers, while Nvidia says it has no reason to believe national security or trade secrets were compromised. Huang remains chief executive while the inquiry runs.

The probe follows US media reports that intelligence officials regarded Huang as a target of Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore data-centre operator Megaspeed. Jensen Huang acknowledged an extramarital relationship in a message to staff on 8 November, apologising to his family and colleagues. Reports cited by German outlets say he had disclosed the relationship to the board beforehand and says he knew nothing of the woman's alleged links to Chinese intelligence.

Alice Huang is a Chinese citizen based in Singapore, where Megaspeed bought advanced Nvidia chips. The Financial Times and the New York Times reported that US intelligence services had her under surveillance because they believed she had been recruited by China. Stern put Megaspeed's Nvidia chip purchases since June 2024 at more than €4.30bn, while Handelsblatt cited at least $4.8bn. No charges have been reported, and China rejects the reporting as baseless speculation.

The market reaction was immediate. Bloomberg reported Nvidia shares down about 3.7% on Robinhood after the probe was announced, and investors started asking whether Washington could tighten controls on chips shipped through Asian hubs. Donald Trump said he had not spoken to Jensen Huang about the matter, called him a good person and said he had not heard of him doing anything wrong.

Russian attacks from Saturday into Sunday damaged energy facilities in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions and cut power to hundreds of thousands of users. DTEK said more than 600,000 residents of Dnipropetrovsk region lost electricity, with repairs slowed by repeated attacks. In Kharkiv region, the mayor of Zlatopil said a Russian drone hit a critical installation and left close to 250,000 users without power. Volodymyr Zelenskyy also reported heating outages in 140 apartment buildings in Zhytomyr region as temperatures neared freezing.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said strikes damaged an important road bridge and energy infrastructure in the capital and its region, disrupting heat and water systems. Ukraine's Air Force said it shot down or neutralised 137 of 164 attack drones launched overnight and recorded hits at 23 locations. Zelenskyy gave a higher count of 172 drones and 36 ballistic missiles, including KN-23 missiles he said were made and supplied by North Korea. The figures differ, and each comes from Ukrainian authorities.

The bombardment lands before Ukraine, Russia and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi on 10 and 11 November, the first such talks in months. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said before flying to the G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Paris that there had been progress on postwar security arrangements for Ukraine and Europe. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to represent Washington in Abu Dhabi, and France says it will also attend.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said up to three more oil tankers caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz on 8 November, after the vessels switched off tracking systems and tried to transit without Iranian permission. Iranian statements now account for six tankers affected in two days, though reports differ on whether two or three were hit on 7 November. The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency reported a tanker on fire on Saturday off Khasab, on Oman's coast.

Washington widened pressure beyond the waterway. US Central Command announced a 20-member working group based in Florida to monitor land routes into Iran and stop the transit of advanced weapons, dual-use technology and sanctioned materials. The effort would cover Iran's land borders and the Caspian Sea, touching routes from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Iraq. Centcom also said the naval blockade had kept Iran from exporting more than $25bn in crude oil.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi answered with a two-day offer tied to an end to war on all fronts. Donald Trump, in a CNN interview, said renewed strikes were highly unlikely if talks progressed over Iran's nuclear programme and the reopening of Hormuz, but he added that three US aircraft carriers in the region were ready. He also claimed the United States could knock down 38 bridges in Iran within an hour, a figure the reporting does not verify.