Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick was sent a classified memo warning about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, whom U.S. intelligence officials believe is a Chinese spy, multiple sources told Axios. Commerce did not comment, and it is unclear whether Lutnick read it. The New York Times reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw the memo, which circulated before Trump’s May 2026 trip to China. The Times also reported that Rubio warned Trump aboard Air Force One before a stop in Anchorage, where Huang joined the delegation. Trump said Monday he did not recall seeing the intelligence saying “Certainly, it didn’t make much of an impact on me.” Reuters reported on May 14 that Commerce cleared about 10 Chinese companies to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips, though Axios says some approvals predated the warning. Lawmakers want Huang to give closed door testimony next week.

Hacked Russian data record 450,000 deaths from the Ukraine war. Since deaths take months to process, meaning recent ones will not yet be included, the hacker group Silent Crow estimates that 504,000 Russian soldiers had died by August 28.

NEW: According to a confidential report by the @iaeaorg, inspectors visited the Deir el-zour site in Syria on Oct. 1 “to access the status of the excavation work, when they observed – amongst the rubble – excavated pipes, structural remains and remnants of reinforced concrete..1/

SCOOP: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was sent a highly classified memo warning about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's relationship with suspected Chinese spy Alice Huang. Lutnick oversees the agency charged with keeping sensitive U.S. technology out of the hands of American adversaries. The warning raises questions about how the department weighed potential security risks as it cleared advanced Nvidia chip sales to China-affiliated entities. W/@MarcACaputo

PENTAGON PUSHBACK: Chief National Security Correspondent @JenGriffinFNC reports that the House of Representatives has voted 211–204 to send Rep. Thomas Massie’s impeachment resolution against War Secretary Pete Hegseth to the Judiciary Committee, effectively stopping the effort. The vote came after Hegseth held a Pentagon news conference rejecting accusations regarding strikes in Iran and the Caribbean as policy disagreements. President Trump praised Hegseth's performance, but the Pentagon chief faces continued scrutiny from Senate Republicans ahead of a December funding deadline.

Wow: #Iran-backed# Kataib #Hezbollah# operative Mohammad al-Saadi, whom the U.S. arrested, orchestrated the terror plot against American forces at RAF Fairford using coded messages while in federal prison.

Inside the CIA’s armed operations in Mexico: The CIA enlisted a Chihuahua state prosecutor under investigation by the FBI for his suspected cartel ties. He embedded CIA officers with state police—and got his revoked U.S. visa back. The CIA sought to build a Mexican special forces unit in Chihuahua state CIA officers helped plan Mexican police deployments, and provided rifle cover during one raid. Masked Americans joined a meth-lab raid. Two CIA officers later died in a cliffside crash, exposing the mission. With @jacknicas

The U.S. evacuated American aircraft from a Royal Air Force base in England on Monday in the wake of a threat from Iran, according to people familiar with the matter. "The U.S. upgraded the security posture at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, both used by the U.S. military, to FPCON Charlie, which occurs when intelligence indicates that a form of terrorist action is likely, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter."

Exclusive: A covert Russian network sought to exploit last month's riots in France by using social media to blame the unrest on uncontrolled immigration and portray the government as having lost control, according to an internal EU assessment seen by Reuters

Great reporting by @nytimes. The US Commerce Dept was approving sales of Nvidia chips to companies in China which either did not exist, were on the sanctions list, and/or had ties to China's military. A brief visit by journalists in China found that two of the offices were just empty shells. Was Jensen Huang a "victim" of a honey trap or was he just trying to make as much money as possible? Was his $25 million donation to Trump's ballroom the price of pay to play? In the US - China tech competition, has the Commerce Dept been co-opted by other interests? Here is a gift article which raises deeply troubling questions. Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.