CHIP MALFUNCTION: Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of the Nvidia computer chip company that is one of the primary engines of the artificial intelligence boom fueling the US economy, resigned yesterday in a scandal over three extramarital affairs, one of them with a suspected Chinese spy, and two with company employees.

  Falling along with Huang was the value of his company’s stock as well as smaller tech companies that have depended on investment by Nvidia. The company’s stock is down 73 points, more than 30 percent since October 6^th, a loss in the billions of value.

  The impact will likely ripple through the US government, and possibly the White House. For at least two years Huang had ready access to President Trump and was pushing for greater freedom to sell the most advanced artificial intelligence chips to China. The Wall Street Journal reports that, “Huang allies in the administration, including White House AI adviser David Sacks and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, helped elevate his profile with the president and counter his critics.”

  Members of Congress are calling for investigation. Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said, “This whole thing is an intergalactic freak show.”

  Several administration officials were aware that Alice Huang … no relation … with whom Jensen Huang had an affair, was a suspected Chinese spy running the Singapore-based company Megaspeed, a big customer of Nvidia. Reports say President Trump was briefed on this suspicion before he personally invited Jensen Huang to fly with him to China last May. Trump now denies that.

  The question now is whether powerful chips that could be used by the military were funneled to China.

  The NY Times reports that Singapore prevented Alice Huang from leaving the country from June of last year until February, asking but not receiving US help investigating her. She was ultimately released and is reported to be living in Beijing.

COLLAPSE: The number of dead in Wednesday’s Brooklyn building collapse has grown to eight, including two children.

  Hundreds of New York firefighters picked through the rubble all night until declaring yesterday there was no one left to be found. The three-story building with four apartments and a commercial space had collapsed into a pit created by construction next door.

  Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was “incredibly troubled” by reports that construction continued even though an inspection showed cracks in the north facade of the collapsed building. He said the city would hold anyone responsible for unsafe conditions “fully accountable.”

DENY AND DEFEND: In characteristic style Donald Trump is coming out of his midterm disaster fighting, not compromising.

  A classic Trump maneuver is to accuse his opposition of what he’s accused of himself. The Trump administration has been described as possibly the most corrupt in history, but the President posted, “If the Democrats want to ‘root out corruption,’ they should start with investigating Blue States, perhaps the most CORRUPT governmental structures and entities anywhere on Earth. Big time money is being stolen each and every hour of the day!”

  He also wrote that, “Our Budget could be quickly BALANCED with the correction of this large scale criminal activity. CORRUPTION is in the Democrat Leadership’s blood!”

  Then he took an immediate turn into, “We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”

IT’S POLITICAL: Progressive Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland says he will challenge Chuck Schumer of New York for the position of majority leader in the next Congress in a growing movement for change. Van Hollen is 67 and Schumer 75, so it’s practically a youth movement.

  Van Hollen said he felt the need to answer the “call of the American people” in the midterm elections to bring down costs and end the Iran war. He said he’s an underdog but has the support of at least 10 current and newly-elected senators.

INFINITE SCROLL:

— Pete Hegseth yesterday gave the Joint Service Commendation Medal to the member of the Old Guard who had barked out a caution to the defense secretary and his party on Wednesday about proper decorum and behavior at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.    

THE OBIT PAGE:  Vladimir Uglev, a Russian chemist who was a leader in developing the Cold War-era chemical weapon Novichok ultimately used for political assassination before turning against his government, died at age 80.

  Uglev’s invention was used in one unsuccessful attempt to kill dissident Alexei Navalny, who later died under suspicious circumstances in prison. Novichok was used in another unsuccessful attempt in Britain to kill former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Merely trace amounts of Novichok can be sufficient to kill. 

  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uglev and other scientists urged the successor states of the Soviet Union to destroy their stockpiles. Some of it, at least, is being used. 

THE SPIN RACK: A Washington DC emergency room doctor yesterday in a dispute over mold in his apartment shot and killed his building manager with a handgun before wounding four more people with a rifle from his seventh floor balcony. Dr. Matt Lambert then shot and killed himself. — Millions of people, organizations, and businesses were without Microsoft’s Outlook email yesterday in a global outage. Microsoft is still working to pull it all back together. — Massive breaking waves reaching 25 to 35 feet, with peak sets at 40 to 50, are hitting the coast and surfing spots like Mavericks in the Bay Area. The waves are the product of a storm system hundreds of miles off the coast.

BELOW THE FOLD: The owners of the Heat Hot Sauce Shop in San Leandro, California say they believe they have created the hottest hot sauce ever. Their Mount Diablo rates at 153,000 Scoville heat units. By comparison, your everyday Tabasco rates at the most, 5,000.

  Thanks, we’ll take our sauce on the side.