Friday 13 November 2026

Burnham says a “win-win” deal can be struck between the UK and the EU, and that it could look “more like the Brexit people thought they were voting for” in 2016. That is a notable framing from a prime minister selling closer ties to a sceptical audience. There is no detail in what I’ve seen on scope, so treat it as positioning rather than a negotiating mandate.

Poundland is the other UK story to watch. Polly Toynbee writes that its US owner, Gordon Brothers, which bought it for £1 last year, has withheld £50m needed for stock and wages. Some 600 stores and 12,000 jobs are at risk, plus around 30,000 in the supply chain. £10m was released on Tuesday, enough to stave off immediate collapse but not to fix the problem, and the deadline before administration was pushed back by ten working days.

The big story overnight is Nvidia. Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive on Thursday after reports of an affair with a woman alleged to be a Chinese spy and of relationships with two employees. The Guardian says CFO Colette Kress is interim chief executive until a permanent successor is named, while the FT’s piece on the new leadership simply calls her CEO, so the status of the role is not entirely clear. Harvey Jones is the new chair. Investors have so far shrugged: shares had largely recovered by Thursday’s close as holders bought the dip.

The political fallout is the part that could linger. Huang has been summoned to testify before Congress. Democrats have opened an investigation into Nvidia’s China sales and its dealings with Trump, the second congressional probe since the news broke. Lawmakers are also pressing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to explain why chip sales to a company linked to the alleged spy were allowed. Expect export-control scrutiny to tighten.

Elsewhere in AI infrastructure, Nebius plans $40bn of spending funded by customer prepayments and loans. Delays at a Microsoft data centre have raised questions about that financing model. Separately, a global Microsoft outage hit Outlook and Teams. Microsoft’s first attempts at a fix failed, though some servers are now returning to service and a recovery process is under way. The impact appears to be mostly email.

On Ukraine, Zelensky has welcomed the US bringing Europe into the peace talks, saying it makes sense given Ukraine hopes to join the EU eventually. A Ukrainian drone has hit a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland, thought to be the first such attack on a Russian vessel in open Baltic waters. Separately, statistical data points to Russia having lost almost half a million lives in the war, for gains on only a few small fronts.

Sources

• Microsoft outage live: Microsoft scrambling for new ways to fix global outage after initial attempts fail to restore Outlook services — Guardian
• Russia loses almost half a million lives in Ukraine war — FT
• Ex-Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang summoned to testify before Congress about affair with alleged Chinese spy — BBC News
• Zelensky welcomes US bringing Europe into Russia-Ukraine peace talks — BBC News
• The Silicon Valley veterans now steering Nvidia — FT
• Burnham says ‘win-win’ deal can be agreed between UK and EU — BBC News
• US lawmakers pile pressure on Howard Lutnick as Nvidia scandal widens — FT
• AI boom will lift Nvidia even after Huang’s exit, investors say — FT
• Democrats launch Nvidia investigation, write scathing letter on Huang’s ‘scheme’ with Trump — TechCrunch
• Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO after alleged affairs — Guardian
• Nebius tests the neocloud playbook with $40 billion in planned spending — TechCrunch
• Russian warship hit by Ukrainian drone in Gulf of Finland — BBC News
• Look at the Poundland scandal and see a crisis that goes beyond Britain’s high streets | Polly Toynbee — Guardian

Guardian, FT, BBC News, TechCrunch — 2026-11-13