The Evening Edit: France accuses Iran over freezer hacking; Trump says deportations went too far; deadly blast at Turkish steel plant

Show Notes

France has formally accused an offensive cyber unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards of hacking supermarket refrigeration systems nationwide, turning units across 700 food distribution sites into defrosting ovens. In Washington, Donald Trump expressed second thoughts about his mass deportation drive just hours after elevating its architect, Stephen Miller, to White House chief of staff. Meanwhile, Wall Street rallied as oil prices dropped over 5%, and Boeing announced plans to cut roughly 2,500 commercial airliner staff as it slows its production ramp.

What is The Angus Briefing?

Everyone already knows AI can write code. We wanted to know whether it could write anything worth listening to — whether it could hold a room, land a joke, sit properly with a life worth remembering, or read the day's news without sounding like a press release. So we stopped handing it problems and started handing it a microphone. What came back is this network: ten public programs, a full bench of hosts and correspondents, an anchor desk, a pub table, a Sunday service, and a Saturday-night variety hour broadcast from a town that doesn't exist. Every word of it was written by AI. We only pressed record.

THE EVENING EDIT — France accuses Iran over freezer hacking; Trump says deportations went too far; deadly blast at Turkish steel plant

Alistair Carmichael: Good evening. Some of today asks for a quieter voice, and it will have one, before the evening turns kinder. France has accused Iran's Revolutionary Guards of hacking the cooling systems of its food shops in October, and Paris wants Tehran punished for it. In Washington, President Trump says his drive to deport migrants went too far, days after putting its chief author in charge of his White House staff. In western Turkey, an explosion has torn through a steel works near the port city of Izmir, killing workers there, and President Erdogan says investigations are under way. And on Wall Street, shares closed firmly higher on Monday, smaller companies leading, as the price of oil fell. With that, the evening begins. This is The Evening Edit for Monday, the ninth of November. To begin with, the day's news in more detail. Allison.

Allison Murray: France has accused Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps of October cyberattacks that raised temperatures in supermarket fridges and freezers nationwide. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot says Iran's ambassador has been summoned and France will seek European sanctions. President Donald Trump says his mass deportation policy was too tough, after heavy Republican losses in the midterms. On Friday he named the architect of that crackdown, Stephen Miller, as White House chief of staff. In western Turkey, an explosion at a steel plant near Izmir has killed at least sixteen people, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. The regional governor's office says a crane fell into a furnace; rescuers are searching the rubble. America's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has called the war on Iran unpopular but necessary. President Trump says renewed American strikes are highly unlikely if Iran signs a strong agreement. Germany's Christian Democrats have nominated Ilse Aigner for federal president. With Social Democrat and Green support pledged, she is in line to become the country's first woman head of state at the January thirtieth vote.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Allison. Our lead, then, given the room it needs. France says it knows who turned its supermarket freezers into ovens in October, and Iran's ambassador has been summoned. What does Paris have to go on, and what would sanctions change? Marin.

Marin Gallagher: Paris prosecutors have opened an investigation into the head of Shahid Kaveh, an offensive cyber unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and his two deputies, and are reported to have requested international arrest warrants. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot calls it the first large-scale cyberattack aimed at sabotage on French soil.

Alistair Carmichael: What exactly did they sabotage?

Marin Gallagher: Refrigeration controllers running software from the Danish engineering firm Danfoss. Over the nights of October the eleventh and twelfth, the hackers overrode the settings, switched off safety alerts and set off abnormal defrost cycles. Units meant to sit at minus twenty-seven climbed past fifty degrees Celsius.

Alistair Carmichael: How many shops opened up to that?

Marin Gallagher: Barrot puts it at seven hundred food distribution points: Intermarché and its Netto stores, Coopérative U, Carrefour, Monoprix and E.Leclerc, plus butchers, a slaughterhouse and food processors. In some, equipment melted or caught fire, and retailers say millions of euros of food was spoiled.

Alistair Carmichael: How does France know it was Iran?

Marin Gallagher: Investigators point to Farsi in the traces, IP addresses linked to devices in Iran, and methods matching the unit's earlier operations. Nobody claimed it at the time. Tehran hasn't responded officially, and some Iranian media call the allegations baseless.

Alistair Carmichael: How hard was it to get in?

Marin Gallagher: Not hard. The controllers were reached through web interfaces, often with default passwords or open remote access. Crude work, but carried out across a whole country's chilled food in a single night.

Alistair Carmichael: What would European sanctions do that a summons doesn't?

Marin Gallagher: Barrot, speaking at a Group of Seven meeting in Paris, wants them alongside other necessary and proportionate measures, to deter anyone who might try it again. Stores in Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Estonia and Sweden have since been hit too.

Alistair Carmichael: By the same people?

Marin Gallagher: That isn't established. A wave on November the second reached at least eleven countries, and a French blood bank was hit as well. Paris now has to carry its sanctions proposal to its European partners, with Tehran yet to respond officially.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Marin. Easy to break in, it seems, and far harder to prove who did. Donald Trump now says his deportation drive went too far, days after his party's midterm losses and hours after giving the White House to the man who built it. Which of those is the policy, Hugh?

Hugh Danner: On Friday the President named Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration crackdown, as White House chief of staff in place of Susie Wiles. Several hours earlier he'd taped a television interview, aired Sunday, saying of that crackdown: I think it was too tough.

Alistair Carmichael: Too tough on whom, in his telling?

Hugh Danner: People with good jobs, he said, whose only violation was entering illegally. He's reported to have said yes when asked if a deal with Democrats could give undocumented workers legal status, for those in the country ten or fifteen years, while removing serious criminals. Actually doable, he called it.

Alistair Carmichael: What does he blame for the defeat?

Hugh Danner: Accounts differ. One has him blaming the Iran war and higher gasoline prices, agreeing with Vice President JD Vance, while saying he'd go to war again. Another has him blaming bad messaging and playing down the war's economic toll.

Alistair Carmichael: I'm joined by the dissident writer and campaigner Mara Halvorsen and the national-security specialist Eleanor Shaw. Mara, should Democrats take an offer from the man who just promoted its opposite?

Mara Halvorsen: Yes. Behind that offer are people who have paid rent and raised children for fifteen years under the threat of a knock at the door. When a president names their situation honestly, you hold him to the words.

Amb. Eleanor Shaw: I'd welcome the deal, Mara. An offer taped hours before that appointment has to survive Stephen Miller's office first.

Alistair Carmichael: Mara, a listener will say legal status for people who broke the law is simply an amnesty. Is it?

Mara Halvorsen: Call it amnesty, then; I won't hide behind a softer word. One crossing, fifteen years ago, against a working life since. The President himself keeps removing serious criminals. I think that's a law fitted to the people it governs.

Alistair Carmichael: Eleanor, how would you know if he means it?

Amb. Eleanor Shaw: Watch who carries the message to Capitol Hill. If Miller's people are drafting the ten-year version, I'll believe it. If the only place this deal exists is a Sunday interview, it's a mood.

Mara Halvorsen: Then Democrats should write it themselves, Eleanor, and send it to him. Make him choose in ink between the man he hired and the sentence he said.

Alistair Carmichael: The same Friday he recorded his regrets, he promoted the author. A busy day for second thoughts. Now, the more ordinary business of simply getting to work. Commuters in Barcelona lost time to late Rodalies trains on Monday, and three strike days begin Tuesday. What is this week costing someone getting to work there, James?

James Harlow: Twenty to thirty minutes a trip, says the rail chief, Òscar Playà, and ninety-four on the R4 between Sant Vicenç and Manresa. The R7 isn't running; Renfe, the operator, is arranging buses.

Alistair Carmichael: Why, before any strike?

James Harlow: Renfe blames the management of its drivers. Their works council declared several long-standing agreements broken last Monday, so Renfe imposed new shifts that start and end at Sants station. Playà calls it a situation of strike, of conflict.

Alistair Carmichael: A strike by another name, then?

James Harlow: Catalonia's president, Salvador Illa, respects their right to strike but says Monday was not the way to resolve things. The drivers' union, SEMAF, says safety agreements from February have stalled; Renfe says it has kept them.

Alistair Carmichael: What runs from Tuesday?

James Harlow: On the drivers' days, Tuesday and Thursday, two trains in three at peak. Wednesday's general strike, over housing and living costs, leaves a quarter at peak and none otherwise. Anna Gomez, for the riders' group Dignitat a les Vies, called Monday a shame.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, James. A long week on the platforms, and it has only begun. Stanford University has a new seminar on sleep, anxiety and healthier habits, built around RM, the leader of the South Korean band BTS. One of the entry requirements is a healthy respect for the band. Is that a serious course, Hollis?

Hollis: Every word of it. It's called Namjooning, three credits, taught by a professor of psychiatry named James Jacobs.

Alistair Carmichael: You'll have to explain Namjooning.

Hollis: It's the fans' word for how RM unwinds. Ridin' a bike, goin' to art museums, readin', spendin' time out in nature. Stanford pairs that with the research on sleep and anxiety.

Alistair Carmichael: So the syllabus is a bicycle and a library card.

Hollis: My mama taught that course in her kitchen, no tuition. Bed by nine, out to the creek after supper, a book before the lamp went off, eat what's on your plate. Only prerequisite was a healthy respect for her wooden spoon. The old advice just got a better-lookin' face.

Alistair Carmichael: Oh, that's wonderful. And the spoon did the trick?

Hollis: Whole house asleep by five past nine. I laugh about it now, mind. Didn't then.

Alistair Carmichael: In fairness, it's a psychiatrist with data, not a mother with a spoon.

Hollis: It's honest, I'll give it that. Says get plenty of sleep is sensible, then makes the students work out how many hours plenty is.

Alistair Carmichael: And the final project?

Hollis: Somethin' inspired by RM's solo album, Indigo. Mama's final project was always the dishes.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Hollis. Before continuing on with the news, let's check in on the financial markets. Joe.

Joe Marchetti: Wall Street closed more than two percent higher across the board on Monday, the Russell two thousand of smaller companies leading, up three percent when New York closed at four. Oil did the lifting. Brent fell five and a half percent. Nvidia fell anyway, over an alleged Chinese spying scandal. Europe rose too. The Stoxx Europe six hundred was up one and a quarter percent in the last minutes before London closed. In Asia, Japanese shares gained more than two percent when Tokyo closed, and Taiwan nearly five. Hong Kong dipped. Honda is putting three billion dollars into a new assembly plant near Marysville, Ohio, with production due in twenty twenty-nine. That's two hundred forty thousand vehicles a year, lifting its US capacity to one point three million. Elon Musk says Tesla will return a lot of Cybertruck deposits because orders far exceed production. His fix is to shut the Texas line in about eight months and build Cybercab robotaxis instead. Lucid missed on revenue and earnings, bringing in about three hundred fifty million dollars against four hundred seven million expected. Its largest shareholder, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, topped up its credit line by one point seven five billion dollars.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Joe. A generous shareholder is a fine thing to have on a bad day. Boeing, the American planemaker, is cutting about five percent of the people who build its airliners, while still promising to build more airliners. Why shed staff on the way up, Vivian?

Vivian Hale: Roughly two thousand five hundred people, it's reported, out of about fifty thousand in commercial airplanes. Stephanie Pope, who runs that division, told staff that adjusting schedules and reducing output leaves them overstaffed. The way up got slower.

Alistair Carmichael: How much slower is the way up?

Vivian Hale: In late October Boeing said it would miss its twenty twenty-six delivery target. Raising the seven thirty-seven Max from forty-seven to fifty-two planes a month now waits until the second half of twenty twenty-seven. Chief executive Kelly Ortberg pointed at wing production, and fuselage production in Kansas.

Alistair Carmichael: Who receives the notices, and when do they arrive?

Vivian Hale: Notifications begin in December, alongside people who leave and simply aren't replaced. The work sits in Renton and Everett in Washington state, in South Carolina for the seven eighty-seven, and in Wichita, Kansas. Many states require sixty days' warning.

Alistair Carmichael: The factories stumble, and the workers pay. Is that fair?

Vivian Hale: Boeing's answer is that reduced output leaves it overstaffed, and a slower ramp gives factories and suppliers time to steady. Pope also credited those same employees with this year's certifications of the Max Seven and Max Ten.

Alistair Carmichael: What does the market want from Boeing?

Vivian Hale: More seven thirty-sevens. Investors treat a higher Max rate as central to profit growth, after years of losses tied to safety problems, including two deadly crashes. Ortberg expects steadiness at forty-seven to take into next year; December's notices come first.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Vivian. An unwelcome thing to open in December. There's just time now for a news update. Allison.

Allison Murray: Polish police say the man suspected of killing six people in Krakow's Main Market Square on Saturday has died in hospital. Prosecutors are investigating the attack as terrorism, and he's also suspected of killing his parents and sister. Israel's President, Isaac Herzog, has given the former military chief Gadi Eisenkot the first chance to form a government, after the October twenty-seventh election left no clear majority. He has twenty-eight days; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu governs in the meantime. In northern China, a fire in an apartment building in the city of Taiyuan has killed at least fourteen people, state media say. Thirty-eight were taken to hospital, and five of them later died. Colombia's former President, Gustavo Petro, is under investigation in a sex scandal, the president of the country's Supreme Court of Justice said on Saturday. A woman says she and about thirty others received state contracts for sexual relationships with him; he denies the accusations. Organisers say about two hundred thousand people marched in Amsterdam to demand tougher Dutch action against Israel over the war in Gaza, including sanctions and an end to arms dealings. Prime Minister Rob Jetten did not attend. The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has begun a visit to Romania, part of a Black Sea tour that follows drone attacks on commercial ships. She says she backs Ukraine's call for a ceasefire covering food and energy infrastructure.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Allison. Much loss in that bulletin, and we stay with loss a while longer. Turkish officials say a falling crane set off Monday's blast at a steel works near the port city of Izmir. How does a crane bring down a plant, and who will answer for it, James?

James Harlow: The Izmir governor's office says an overhead crane broke off and fell into an industrial furnace during casting at the Habas Demir Celik plant in Aliaga, about sixty kilometres north of the city. The governor says it was carrying a replacement boiler.

Alistair Carmichael: What was happening inside the plant at that moment?

James Harlow: The company says scheduled maintenance on one of its electric arc furnaces. It came around midday, at a shift change, with about two hundred people on site instead of three hundred. A gas line was damaged and fire spread. One witness, Deniz Ulker, thought it was an earthquake.

Alistair Carmichael: How many people have died?

James Harlow: President Erdogan put it at sixteen, with thirteen injured, two seriously. The health minister, Kemal Memisoglu, is later reported to have said one of the critically injured has died, which would make seventeen. Every one of them worked at the plant.

Alistair Carmichael: Is anyone being held to account yet?

James Harlow: Mr Erdogan says investigations are open and will examine whether there was negligence. The justice minister, Akin Gurlek, has announced one too. At least five people are reported to have been arrested.

Alistair Carmichael: What does this plant's own record show?

James Harlow: Officials call it a mechanical failure. Workers' groups and opposition parties call it a pattern: one Turkish newspaper counts at least eleven workers killed there in ten years, and labour groups say this is the third fatal incident in three weeks. Habas declined to comment.

Alistair Carmichael: Is the count of the dead settled?

James Harlow: Not yet. Izmir's mayor, Cemil Tugay, says the exact number of victims will be known only once the wreckage is cleared, and rescue teams are still searching it for trapped workers.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, James. People who went to work on an ordinary Monday and did not come home. Our thoughts are with their families, and with everyone still waiting for word. Something gentler now. Germany's Christian Democrats have settled on their candidate for head of state, as we heard earlier, and for how that came about, Konrad, in Berlin.

Konrad Falk: Right you are, Alistair. Berlin's sparrows have been chirping it from the rooftops for days. On Monday the Christian Democrats formally put Ilse Aigner forward as head of state. So why did Merz keep Bavaria waiting?

Alistair Carmichael: Bavaria asked first, then?

Konrad Falk: Her own party, the Christian Social Union, proposed her earlier this year. Merz held back to weigh the alternatives, and the sister parties grew testy. He said nothing in public until a party dinner on Sunday.

Alistair Carmichael: Does the vote on January the thirtieth hold any suspense?

Konrad Falk: Very little. Tallies give the coalition a majority of at least fifty votes, and the Greens are signalling support. The far right's Beatrix von Storch called the choice an Armutszeugnis, a confession of poverty. Aigner won't be calling on their group.

Alistair Carmichael: How is she taking the wait?

Konrad Falk: Standing beside Merz at party headquarters, she called herself the candidate of a strong centre and admitted the whole process had been exciting, even for her. The proposal is reported to have drawn long applause. Alistair?

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Konrad. A patient woman, by the sound of it, and now a rewarded one. A five-time Olympic judo champion has announced he's running for president of France, and he hasn't hung up his belt. Where does the campaign trail meet the training mat, Beth?

Beth Hartley: In Los Angeles, ideally. Teddy Riner, thirty-seven, announced today that he's running in next year's French presidential election, and he still hopes to fight at the twenty twenty-eight Olympics, if his duties as president allow it and the French people give him their blessing.

Alistair Carmichael: Which corner of the ring is he standing in?

Beth Hartley: Neither, he says. Not right-wing, not left-wing, but a president who brings people together, and he won't accept voters ending up with only the extremes. A late-October poll had Marine Le Pen, of the far right, on thirty-six percent and the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon on seventeen point six.

Alistair Carmichael: Has he ever done any of this before?

Beth Hartley: Never, and he expects to be called crazy for it. If refusing to accept chaos makes me crazy, he said, then I'm completely crazy. First, though, he needs five hundred signatures from elected officials, as French law requires.

Alistair Carmichael: I'm joined by the historian Gervase Marchmont and the demographer Yara Okonkwo. Gervase, has a champion ever made it from the podium to the presidential palace?

Gervase Marchmont: Oh, the walk has been made. George Weah, the footballer, became president of Liberia in twenty eighteen. But I'm charmed by the sport. Judo means the gentle way: you win by using the other fellow's weight. Rather a manifesto, I think.

Dr. Yara Okonkwo: A useful one, Gervase, because the weight is lopsided. Those two poll leaders hold a little over half the vote between them. Nearly half of France is standing somewhere else, and that's the mat he's eyeing.

Alistair Carmichael: He's won eleven world titles. Are five hundred signatures harder, Gervase?

Gervase Marchmont: A different stamina entirely. Traditionally most of them come from mayors, a great many in tiny villages, and each must be courted in person. Eleven world titles' worth of handshakes, usually across a kitchen table.

Dr. Yara Okonkwo: My bet is his pull runs young. Sporting heroes reach people who switch politics off entirely, and those are precisely the voters who skip polling day. Turning admirers into turnout is his real final.

Alistair Carmichael: Plenty of candidates promise to fight for France. Few ask for leave to do it in Los Angeles. From the judo mat to the consulting room. Clara and Doc, I spent the weekend reading about my liver, which never asked for the attention. An experimental drug improved a serious fatty-liver disease on biopsy. Have I mistaken that for a promise I'll keep the organ, Doc?

Doc Sullivan: A little. Three hundred and eighty-one adults with MASH, liver inflammation driven by fat and metabolism, plus moderate or advanced scarring. After a year, the inflammation cleared in about six in ten on Merck's efinopegdutide, against thirteen percent on placebo.

Alistair Carmichael: That sounds rather like a liver I get to keep.

Doc Sullivan: It's a photograph at one year, taken with a needle. Scarring improved in about half on the middle dose, against a fifth on placebo. Whether fewer people reach liver failure, or live longer, that film hasn't been shot.

Dr. Clara Whitfield: A biopsy is the most satisfying thing medicine hands anyone, a before and after with a verdict on it. People hear a verdict as a warranty, and a warranty is when the effort quietly stops.

Alistair Carmichael: Was it measured against anything already prescribed?

Doc Sullivan: Semaglutide, the weekly injection, ran alongside, openly. It cleared inflammation in fifty-three percent and improved scarring in a quarter. Side effects looked similar, mostly stomach trouble. One mid-stage study; the drug remains investigational.

Alistair Carmichael: Not one for the pharmacy counter, then.

Dr. Clara Whitfield: Not yet; clinical guidance doesn't include it. If you've been told your liver is fatty, bring the study to your doctor as a question, and ask which of the options that exist today suits you.

Alistair Carmichael: What would settle it, Doc?

Doc Sullivan: Larger, longer trials that count liver failure, transplants and deaths, not just slides under a microscope. American regulators have given it Fast Track status. It doesn't skip the proof.

Alistair Carmichael: I'll put the biopsy photograph on the fridge, then, and not mistake it for the deeds. The machines now, and the day's technology news. Katie.

Katie Galbraith: Launderers working for North Korea are minting throwaway meme coins to move crypto stolen from Binance. The analytics firm Elliptic says about four hundred and thirty thousand dollars passed through six of them between November fifth and seventh, and the trail is still traceable. Google has told an Australian Senate inquiry that the government's Digital Duty of Care bill could force it to block under-eighteens from Gmail. Communications Minister Anika Wells's office says cutting children off from email is not the intention. The European Union's IT agency is suing IBM, Atos and Leonardo over delays building its Entry-Exit System for border checks. The agency says the case concerns development only, and the system's current operation is unaffected. SpaceX has proposed a twenty-four billion dollar data centre in Starbase, Texas, with its own gas plant of about seven hundred and forty-eight megawatts. A public hearing on tax breaks is set for December ninth. Meta is preparing to launch its AI assistant, Muse, in Britain. In Singapore it went live in late October, shopping, handling email and planning travel for its users.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Katie. A helper that books your travel; I'd want to see where it sends me first. NASA is hiring astronauts again, and Jared Isaacman, who runs the agency, says some could live and work on the Moon. What is the job, and who gets it, Adrian?

Adrian Calvert: A government starting salary of one hundred and sixty-four thousand, three hundred and ninety-five dollars, and a commute nobody has made since nineteen seventy-two. NASA aims to land people again in twenty twenty-eight, then build a base near the Moon's South Pole.

Alistair Carmichael: What would they do all day up there?

Adrian Calvert: Walk on it, live at the base, and work out the systems that might one day carry crews to Mars. Randy Bresnik, who commands the Artemis three flight, says they have far more work than astronauts. NASA has thirty-two.

Alistair Carmichael: Who's allowed to put a hand up?

Adrian Calvert: American citizens with a master's in science, technology, engineering or maths, and three years' work after it. Two years of a doctorate, some medical degrees or test-pilot school can stand in, and NASA now says a nursing master's counts. Then the long-duration flight physical.

Alistair Carmichael: And the odds for a nurse in Leeds?

Adrian Calvert: An American nurse, I'm afraid. In twenty twenty-four more than eight thousand applied and ten were chosen. This round closes on December the third, a minute before midnight Eastern, with the final pick expected late in twenty twenty-seven, then about two years of training in spacewalking and lunar geology.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Adrian. Long odds, and a lunar geology exam at the end of them. Some members of Congress are reported to say they'll vote against impeaching the Secretary of War because they like his war. Did anyone on X argue about the charges themselves, Owen?

Owen Byrne: Congressman Thomas Massie did. He says colleagues tell him Mr Hegseth has been effective and they agree with the war, so they'll vote no. Wrong question, says Massie. Did he commit impeachable acts? Yes, eight times.

Alistair Carmichael: Eight. Who's counting them?

Owen Byrne: Massie is. His point is narrower: liking a war doesn't answer a charge.

Alistair Carmichael: What did the right make of the President's second thoughts on deportations?

Owen Byrne: Matt Walsh, the conservative commentator, says the policy wasn't too tough; there should be more deportations, not fewer. The mistake, he says, was deportation theater, down to government accounts on X posting spicy memes. Just do it, efficiently and professionally.

Alistair Carmichael: Advice to post less, posted.

Owen Byrne: In Britain, the commentator Darren Grimes says Burnham's government is spending money in court to stop people learning what foreign criminals have done there, after the data watchdog said publish, twice. Half of Britain thinks it's a cover-up, he adds, without saying whose half.

Alistair Carmichael: Was Scotland spared?

Owen Byrne: Not by Rupert Lowe, the MP. He says the Scottish Government's account on X marked the Sikh event Bandi Chhor Divas on Remembrance Sunday morning, and said nothing about Remembrance all day.

Alistair Carmichael: Can that be checked?

Owen Byrne: Easily; it's one account's own feed. The millions of Scots sharing his utter disgust with the Scottish National Party are his suspicion, his own word, not a count.

Alistair Carmichael: Did the future get a word in?

Owen Byrne: The commentator Peter Wildeford posted the President's exchange with his interviewer, Ross Douthat. Told that Silicon Valley thinks AI is what he'll be remembered for, Trump said: I don't know if that's true. He's an AI bull, because it's all between America and China.

Alistair Carmichael: A whole day of certainty on X, and the one I don't know came from the President. A question, now, for someone who reads the past for a living. Paris names Iran's Revolutionary Guards for its warmed freezers, and Barcelona's commuters stand on platforms before a strike has even begun. When the archive opens on these two, whose responsibility will it record, Hugo?

Hugo Carr: The freezers have been here before, only smaller. In twenty twenty-two, sixteen supermarkets in Russia and around forty stores in Israel had their temperature and defrost settings tampered with, through the very same Danfoss controllers.

Alistair Carmichael: Who carried the blame that time?

Hugo Carr: The front door, largely. Weak or default passwords, controllers left facing the open internet, and in Israel no proper firewall. It was read as opportunistic, low-skill mischief. Then in twenty twenty-four the American Justice Department laid an attack on a Los Angeles meat processor at the door of a pro-Russian group.

Alistair Carmichael: Then Monsieur Barrot's word, unprecedented, is doing some heavy lifting.

Hugo Carr: Generous on the method, fair on the scale. If Paris is right, a state's own cyber unit doing it nationwide, overnight, is new. But the record tends to keep the name of whoever left the gate open, too.

Alistair Carmichael: Catalonia's train drivers. Have they done this before?

Hugo Carr: Only last month. On October the seventh, drivers refused to take Rodalies trains out without safety certificates, after storms, a tree down at Vilanova i la Geltrú and January's accident at Gelida. The R1 seized up, and the government called it a labour dispute then, too.

Alistair Carmichael: Which of the two will a historian find easier to judge?

Hugo Carr: The freezers, oddly. Code leaves traces, and Paris says it has read them. A strike a month after a refusal leaves two sides blaming each other and no verdict yet. Both come down to who was meant to check the lock, or sign the safety sheet.

Alistair Carmichael: Seven hundred shops and a regional railway, and history may hang on a default password and a missing signature. The dull things, it seems, that matter most. The news has had its hearing, and some of it was grievous. What is left of this Monday is yours, and we'd like to share it. Minnesota's Vikings play host to the Buffalo Bills, and Declan Rafferty brings Europe's football in with him. Gideon has a film, Wild Horse Nine, and Beth has a table at the Ambassadors Clubhouse, in New York. Florida has handed Rufus McCrae a mystery. Birdie and Rhett take up the matter of Donald Trump, and Sanford has thoughts on Elon Musk. Penelope Hastings brings the forecast for New York, London, Barcelona and Washington. Aubrey Vellum minds the stars, and Epictetus speaks last. The sport first, for anyone with a team to worry about. Barcelona won a big one in Madrid today, and in America two NFL sides with a single defeat apiece meet on Monday night. Start with Spain, Declan.

Declan Rafferty: In Spain's La Liga, Barcelona beat Atlético Madrid two-one at the Metropolitano, Atlético's own ground. That leaves Barcelona three points clear of Real Madrid in the race for the title.

Alistair Carmichael: Why would a Real Madrid fan mind a match they weren't even in?

Declan Rafferty: Because Atlético are Real's neighbours across the city, and they failed to take points off Barcelona, so Real now need a win just to draw level.

Alistair Carmichael: Let down by the neighbours. Anything from Italy or France?

Declan Rafferty: In Italy's Serie A, Fiorentina and Juventus drew two-all. In France's Ligue 1, Marseille won two-one away at Lens, and Brest beat Lyon two-nil.

Alistair Carmichael: Over to America.

Declan Rafferty: In the NFL, the Buffalo Bills visit the Minnesota Vikings, kick-off at eight-fifteen Eastern. Both have won six and lost one. Buffalo score more points a game than anyone in the league, and Minnesota give up fewer than anyone.

Alistair Carmichael: Is that why people stay up for it?

Declan Rafferty: The league's best attack against its best defence. Whoever wins has seven wins and one defeat; the other has lost twice in eight.

Alistair Carmichael: Who should someone like me keep an eye on?

Declan Rafferty: Carson Wentz, starting at quarterback for Minnesota, the man who throws the ball and runs their attack. The Vikings' defence can only stop Buffalo scoring; Wentz has to find the points at the other end.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Declan. So the quarterback carries the attack, and presumably the blame. Easter Island in the early nineteen-seventies, two American spies stranded on it, and a Manhattan dining room hung with tiger-print curtains. Both promise a raucous evening, and both are better shared. The film first, Gideon.

Gideon Thorne: Wild Horse Nine, in cinemas since November the sixth, from Martin McDonagh, who made In Bruges. Two CIA men, a mission tied to the run-up to the coup in Chile, and they wind up marooned on Easter Island.

Beth Hartley: Two spies stuck on about the most remote island they could find. Who's playing the pair, and can they stand each other?

Gideon Thorne: John Malkovich is the cantankerous, world-weary one, Sam Rockwell the affable partner, and Steve Buscemi turns up too. One reviewer said Malkovich seizes the salty dialogue like an actor reborn. Another called it his best work in years.

Alistair Carmichael: Who will love it, and how should they see it?

Gideon Thorne: Anyone who loved The Banshees of Inisherin: profane banter, male friendship, guilt, now with biting politics. See it in a full cinema. One critic praised the stuttering, jabbing rhythm of the dialogue, and that rhythm wants a room laughing with you.

Alistair Carmichael: Beth, your pick comes with its own soundtrack, I'm told.

Beth Hartley: Bhangra, loud, over paisley carpets and tiger-print curtains. Ambassadors Clubhouse, in the NoMad neighbourhood of Manhattan, chef Karan Mittal. It began in London and opened here in New York early this year. Punjabi-leaning cooking, from royal kitchens to street chaat to the tandoor.

Gideon Thorne: Now I'm hungry. Give me the one dish you'd send a man across town for, and don't be shy about it.

Beth Hartley: The Original Barbecue Butter Chicken Chops. Chicken thighs marinated in buttermilk, charred in the tandoor, then into a sweet, smoky cashew sauce. They crossed the Atlantic from the London kitchen and lost nothing on the way.

Gideon Thorne: I'm a lamb man, though, every time. A menu that loud must have something for me.

Beth Hartley: The Warqi Lamb Seekh Kebab, wrapped in flaky naan, and you'll only find it at the New York branch. Then the Ma Ki Dal, buttery and wonderfully simple, which reviewers couldn't stop mentioning.

Alistair Carmichael: Who gets the invitation?

Beth Hartley: Four friends who share everything, because the plates are generous and made for passing. Finish on the cassatta baked Alaska, which suits a room that loves an entrance. Book well ahead; tables are hard to come by.

Gideon Thorne: Then the evening writes itself. Wild Horse Nine first, the late table second, and you argue over who was funnier, Malkovich or Rockwell, across a plate of butter chicken chops.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Gideon and Beth. Malkovich or Rockwell; I suspect the chops win that argument. A Florida county paid a million dollars for an ocean liner whose transatlantic record still stands, and on Thursday it plans to sink her. What's the thinking, Rufus?

Rufus McCrae: Okaloosa County, on the Florida Panhandle. She's the SS United States, nine hundred and ninety feet, record set on her maiden voyage in nineteen fifty-two, retired in sixty-nine. The valves are due to open twenty-five miles off Destin, Thursday morning, weather permitting.

Alistair Carmichael: Why buy a ship at all, just to sink it?

Rufus McCrae: To save her. The county's natural resources chief, Alex Fogg, says they're saving the ship by giving it another life as the world's largest artificial reef. First rescue I've ever heard of that finishes a hundred and eighty feet down.

Alistair Carmichael: There has to be more to it than kindness.

Rufus McCrae: Divers. Her upper deck should sit fifty-five to sixty feet down, in reach of holiday divers, and Pensacola's tourism people chipped in a million and a half. She'll be the biggest of twenty-one wrecks on the Panhandle's shipwreck trail.

Alistair Carmichael: Surely someone keeps a souvenir.

Rufus McCrae: The two funnels came off for a planned museum. So the chimneys get a nice dry retirement, and the record-breaker goes nowhere, very slowly, for good.

Alistair Carmichael: Weather permitting. Back up to dry land now, and some American politics. President Donald Trump offered the White House press secretary's job, empty for three weeks, to Dana White, who runs the Ultimate Fighting Championship, then said he was only kidding. Rhett Pike has the verdict; first, the offer, from Birdie Maddox.

Birdie Maddox: Saturday, on his Truth Social site, he calls Dana a violent Fighter and Warrior, offers him the job, and asks him to bring fighters along as assistants, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, a whole fight card!

Rhett Pike: First briefing room I ever heard of that needs a weigh-in.

Birdie Maddox: And Dana plays right along, sugar! He posts a computer-made picture of himself at the briefing podium, captioned On to the next chapter, then tells reporters in London he's got a lot of jobs already!

Alistair Carmichael: When did the joke become a joke?

Birdie Maddox: Sunday, on the tarmac in West Palm Beach! Only kidding, he says, just a little fun, those rough faces should've given it away. Then he turns right around and says Dana loves the idea!

Rhett Pike: Bless his heart. Dana's still due in Washington today, for a meetin' the President says is for other reasons. Job was a joke, says the President, and the man still means to keep the appointment.

Alistair Carmichael: Three weeks empty, and so far the only man at that podium is a computer picture. Now, a man who has watched a good many sales pitches. Elon Musk says Tesla will hand back Cybertruck deposits to a lot of people, because orders far exceed what the Texas factory can build before the line shuts in about eight months. A sell-out, Sanford?

Sanford Kagan: Too popular to keep making. Orders pouring in, so switch the line off around the middle of next year and post the refunds. I've heard of a restaurant too crowded to visit. Never one too crowded to keep open.

Alistair Carmichael: He insists the truck isn't unprofitable. It's the opportunity cost of its complexity.

Sanford Kagan: Lovely phrase. He once forecast two hundred and fifty thousand a year. American sales last year fell forty-eight percent, to about twenty thousand. In my day that wasn't complexity. That was a quiet showroom.

Alistair Carmichael: One buyer stayed keen. Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, bought a hundred and thirty-one million dollars' worth last year.

Sanford Kagan: Selling to your own rocket company is family, not demand. And the floor space goes to the Cybercab, a two-seat robotaxi. Strangers queued for his truck, and he'd rather build a car with nobody at the wheel.

Alistair Carmichael: You sound almost sorry for the truck.

Sanford Kagan: Sorry for the people who put money down and waited for a truck shaped like a doorstop. That's devotion. Run the extra shift, build every one you can, and send the rest their deposit back with a proper apology.

Alistair Carmichael: On Saturday he said there will never be another vehicle like it. That forecast, at least, looks safe. Before anyone packs a bag for tomorrow, the weather. Tuesday sends Barcelona to work around a drivers' strike and keeps Washington waiting on the House. First, though, our two regulars: which of them can leave the umbrella at home, Penelope?

New York can: cloud giving way to sunshine, dry, sixty-one degrees, with a westerly gusting near twenty-five miles an hour. London needs it from midday, light rain at ten Celsius, after thick fog under a yellow warning until late morning.

Alistair Carmichael: How bad is that fog for the commute?

Properly awkward. In places you'll see less than a hundred metres ahead, so set off with time in hand, and expect the roads to crawl until it lifts.

Alistair Carmichael: Barcelona, with the drivers out?

Barcelona is kind to anyone on foot: twenty-four Celsius, well above the November norm, cloud coming and going, a light westerly, and barely a chance of rain before evening. Comfortable shoes, and leave the coat behind.

Alistair Carmichael: What about Washington?

Washington should get sunshine and sixty-nine degrees, with hardly a breath of wind after today's gusts. It clears after dark and drops to forty-three, so a jacket for anyone still at their desk late.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Penelope. Fog for some, sunshine for others; fairness of a sort. No moon at all, the darkest sky of the month. So who's worth losing sleep over, Aubrey?

Aubrey Vellum: Jupiter, gloriously bright in the southeast about an hour before sunrise, with Mars just above him, faintly red, like a coal nobody quite put out. Northern skies, mind, North America and Europe.

Alistair Carmichael: An hour before sunrise. In November.

Aubrey Vellum: Coat over the pyjamas, dear man, kettle on for afterwards. Worth every single shiver.

Alistair Carmichael: Thank you, Aubrey. I'll keep the kettle within reach. Our evening is nearly done, but not quite. Epictetus, a judo champion says he'll run France and still fight in Los Angeles, and you sat up.

Epictetus: Nothing else surprised me. That pleased me.

Alistair Carmichael: Teddy Riner, with eleven world titles, would at least stay aboard.

Epictetus: Granted. And listen to his terms. If his duties allow, if the French give their blessing. He's sorted what's his from what isn't before he's even started.

Alistair Carmichael: Five hundred elected officials' signatures aren't his, then.

Epictetus: The signatures aren't. The asking is. Every kitchen table in every tiny village, and he'd better ask as if the answer didn't matter.

Alistair Carmichael: Suppose the mayors say no.

Epictetus: Then he opens my little handbook. Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.

Alistair Carmichael: London might wish its fog on someone else.

Epictetus: Penelope already answered that. Fog under a yellow warning was never London's to choose. The hour a man leaves his own front door always was.

Alistair Carmichael: Will you be up for Aubrey's Jupiter?

Epictetus: An hour before sunrise, in November? Jupiter has waited a long time for me. He can wait until after breakfast.

Alistair Carmichael: Nero would have had him moved. Thank you, Epictetus. And to everyone in Barcelona setting out for work on Tuesday around the strikes: leave early, be patient with one another, and get home safely. That is the news for the night. Good night.