Evening Brief, Sunday 15 November

The Federal Aviation Administration halted all domestic departures on Friday after communications failures hit the network that feeds data to air-traffic controllers. The stop lasted nearly five hours, affected about 1.3 million people and left airlines moving aircraft and crews back into place through the weekend. FlightAware counted 9,201 domestic cancellations on Friday and 6,692 on Saturday, then logged more than 1,500 further cancellations on Sunday morning.

Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, said the trouble began during an upgrade that triggered more than 1,000 connection attempts every few seconds and overwhelmed other routers. Investigators are examining equipment in El Dorado, Arkansas, and Amarillo, Texas, and the contractor L3Harris says it is cooperating. Duffy also wants $50 billion for air-traffic-control modernisation, above the $30 billion already requested, which gives Congress a bill as well as a mess.

Duffy set a public timetable on CBS's Face the Nation.

Donald Trump blamed the Biden administration on Truth Social, and Kathy Hochul, New York's governor, called for Duffy to quit or be removed. Airlines now have to make the timetable work before Monday's rush, after Delta cancelled 26% of its Saturday flights, American Airlines 42% and United Airlines 26%.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they attacked a US radar system at Bahrain's Al-Riffa helicopter base early on Sunday, using six drones. Sirens sounded around the announcement, and an AFP journalist reported explosions at about 06:30 local time. The Guards called the operation the second stage of their response to a US military attack, but they gave no details of damage. Bahrain's interior ministry told residents to stay calm, go to the nearest safe place and follow official channels.

US Central Command gave a sharply different account. It said the Sunday attack caused no damage and that two Iranian drones were intercepted, after an earlier Friday incident in which US forces said they shot down two drones with no injuries or damage. The gap between Tehran's six-drone claim and CENTCOM's two-drone interception report leaves the military result contested, while Bahrain has not publicly named the source of the threat.

The strike claim sits inside a wider US-Iran conflict that began on 28 February, when the United States and Israel launched an offensive against Iran. Bahrain hosts an important US naval base, which makes the island a target in the Gulf exchange. The Guards also said the Strait of Hormuz is closed and warned that further American aggression would draw a harder response. Washington has imposed a blockade on Iranian ports, and the waterway carried about one fifth of the world's hydrocarbons before the war.

Estonia will close all border crossings with Russia from 1 December after authorities said they foiled an attempt to set fire to Threod Systems, a drone maker in Viimsi, north of Tallinn. Security staff stopped attackers in the early hours of Saturday as they tried to break windows and pour flammable liquids inside. Prosecutor General Astrid Asi put the time at 3:06am, and KAPO, Estonia's internal security service, said the plant suffered no serious damage and production did not stop.

Eight people were detained, and reports from Poland and Romania say all are Latvian citizens. Asi said prosecutors asked a court to remand five suspects in custody while investigators work out how the operation was organised and whether others helped. Margo Palloson, KAPO's director general, said counterintelligence had confirmed Russia's role and that the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service, coordinated the attempt.

Margus Tsahkna, Estonia's foreign minister, announced the border closure on X and said he had informed counterparts in Finland, Latvia and Lithuania. Narva, Luhamaa and Koidula currently handle pedestrians and freight, so the closure will hit legal cross-border movement as well as what Tallinn calls hostile activity and sanctions evasion. Prime Minister Kristen Michal framed the case as part of Russia's hybrid war against Europe, aimed at weakening support for Ukraine. The order has no stated end date, and the criminal investigation continues.

A petition demanding Jensen Huang's reinstatement at Nvidia has passed 115,000 signatures after his resignation over extramarital relationships and alleged links between one person involved and Chinese intelligence services. The campaign, called Stand with Jensen, says the board removed him without a fair process and asks for an independent investigation before any final judgment. Supporters include Elon Musk, Amjad Masad, Tim Sweeney and Garry Tan, while self-reported signature data includes 6,800 current Nvidia employees and 74,100 shareholders.

The boardroom fight now overlaps with the Megaspeed export case. The Singapore-based data-centre company is suspected of helping Chinese firms get around US restrictions on Nvidia's most powerful chips, by posing as a Southeast Asian buyer and passing technology on to China. Megaspeed says Alice Huang, a former director suspected of spying for China, left on 30 August 2025, holds no current role and that the company conducts lawful business. Singapore has investigated the firm since February 2025.

Reuters reports that Huang misled Nvidia executives about his relationship with Alice Huang, and the New York Times reports that he also had an affair with a Nvidia employee. Bloomberg says Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs a House select committee, said Huang agreed to testify behind closed doors, though no date has been set. Nvidia was worth $5.766 trillion in early October, and NRC says more than a third of that value has since vanished after a steep share-price fall.

Sergey Lavrov said Russia will base any negotiating line on the goals Vladimir Putin set out in June 2024, which required Ukrainian forces to leave Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and Kyiv to renounce NATO membership. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, linked any settlement in Ukraine to a new European security architecture. Lavrov mocked Europe's attempt to join the talks.

Volodymyr Zelensky said US negotiators floated a different bargain in Abu Dhabi: Ukraine would pull out of Donbas in exchange for NATO membership. He called the talks extremely difficult because of Putin's signals, and said any package of security guarantees confirmed by Western countries could be put to Ukrainian society, possibly through a referendum. He also urged a US military-aid package before January, when a new Democratic-majority Congress takes office.

Europe is trying to get a seat before the next round. Leaders in Dublin agreed that France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom, backed by EU institutions, should represent Europe in the next steps, with NATO possibly joining. The Telegraph also reports a Russian document dated 10 November that demands NATO pull back from Eastern Europe and the Baltics, excludes Finland from the alliance, blocks Western arms to Kyiv and limits British nuclear guarantees. The Kremlin confirmed a Trump-Putin-Xi meeting for 19 November on the margins of APEC.