A flaw in one of the Internet's most widely used coding languages forced government websites offline across Europe and Asia. Russia says it's ready to resume US-brokered peace talks with Ukraine, as freed American prisoner Stephen Hubbard touches down in Texas. The US is pulling some diplomats and their families from its Saudi missions. And in Brazil, phone theft becomes an election campaign issue.

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Tara Oakes Hi, I'm Tara Oakes in Liverpool. It's Thursday, October 22nd. Today, a critical security flaw forces government websites offline in Europe and Asia. Russia agrees to resume peace talks with Ukraine. An American teacher held in Russia is back on US soil. And phone theft becomes a hot button issue in Brazil's elections. This is Reuters World News bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, 7 days a week.

Government websites in France, Finland, the Netherlands, and parts of Asia went dark on Wednesday after a serious flaw was discovered in PHP, one of the programming languages that powers a huge part of the internet. Developers rushed out emergency fixes, but the vulnerabilities appear to have been hiding deep in the code for years. They were uncovered with the help of AI tools developed by Google and OpenAI. Cyber Security reporter Raphael Satter says that AI has also created a challenge for sites to patch their systems before attackers move in.

Raphael Satter AI has really compressed the timelines here. It could take days, weeks, maybe even months before attackers tried to figure out how to take advantage of a weakness that had been patched. Now AI tools enable attackers to do that in a matter of minutes. And that's why it's so important for defenders to get a head start and why it was so troubling that news leaked early and that's in part why we've seen such disruption online with a lot of government websites and other websites just simply being yanked offline because it was feared that hackers would be able to attack those sites before patches could be applied.

Raphael says that while most people probably haven't heard of PHP, they encounter it every day, which makes the stakes here unusually high.

Big organizations, governments, major companies, are likely gonna take really aggressive moves to make sure that their systems are either offline or properly patched. But there's a whole universe out there of people who run personal websites, small storefronts, small businesses, all of that, who run their sites on shared servers. They may not even know who updates their PHPs for instance. And for those people, that's the big worry. And there's an enormous long tail of website owners and operators who just simply may not be aware of what's going on and may find their sites very vulnerable right now.

Russia says it's prepared to resume US-brokered peace talks with Ukraine as soon as next month. The announcement follows a near three-hour meeting in St Petersburg between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US envoy Steve Witkoff. It's their ninth face-to-face meeting since President Trump took office for his second term. It comes amid growing pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal and signs of strain in the Washington-Kyiv relationship, including reported disruptions to intelligence sharing and military satellite access.

Foreign policy editor, Don Durfee, says there are a few reasons President Trump might be pushing for progress in this conflict now. Don Durfee The rising cost of energy globally has been a big political problem for Trump's Republican party. The main cause of that, of course, has been the Iran War, but the Ukraine conflict has played a role as well. Ukraine has very successfully been striking refineries inside Russia, and that has contributed to the rising energy costs.

Has to be said, though, that Iran remains sort of the main factor here. But Trump is frustrated about that, and I think he sees putting pressure on Ukraine and getting some sort of a peace deal as a way of potentially lowering energy costs and improving his party's chances at the ballot box.

Don says that despite Russia's friendly posture in the meeting with Witkoff, Putin has shown little appetite for compromise in talks with Kyiv.

What I think is important to note, however, is that certainly in public, the Russians have given no indication that they're backing off from their core demands, you know, which include getting hold of the rest of the Donbas territory that they don't currently hold, ensuring that Ukraine never joins NATO and some other things. Russia has very little to lose from these conversations. The Trump administration has shown little willingness to put really intense pressure on Moscow to compromise in this conflict. And for Vladimir Putin, who has, you know, signalled that he is determined to continue on with his assaults in Ukraine, any move by the US to encourage talks, also to put pressure on Ukraine, which was happening in parallel here, you know is very welcome to him.

During the meeting, Putin made what he called a goodwill gesture, announcing the release of American prisoner Stephen Hubbard at President Trump's request. Witkoff praised Putin for the move, Steve Witkoff You are a humanitarian also, sir. I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again.

drawing criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. The 74-year-old retired schoolteacher, who was held in Russian custody since 2022, is now back on US soil. Hubbard landed at a military installation in San Antonio, Texas on Wednesday. Trump says nothing was exchanged for his release, and the Kremlin cites Hubbard's poor health as a factor in Putin's decision. The US is taking new precautions in the Gulf, ordering non-emergency staff and their families out of its missions in Saudi Arabia as security concerns grow across the region.

The State Department says the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have stepped up attacks on civilian infrastructure like airports, causing casualties and disrupting travel. US officials tell Reuters the move could go beyond Saudi Arabia, with family members also being pulled from several other diplomatic posts in the Gulf. A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company misled consumers. The case centers on allegations that a political consulting firm got access to Facebook data from millions of users without their consent.

Judge Francis Mathew found that the state is entitled to over $200 billion in compensation, but reduced the figure. It's the latest blow for Meta in New Mexico. Earlier this year, the state won nearly a billion dollars in two separate rulings over child safety on its platforms. Meta's chief legal officer says the company is confident it will win on appeal. Pope Leo will not need any further treatment for lung cancer. That's according to a statement released by the Vatican.

His doctors say tests on tissue removed during surgery confirmed the tumor had not spread. Now to Brazil, where there's a simple rule a lot of people follow: if you're out in public, don't look at your phone. That's because phone theft has become one of the country's biggest security concerns. Scenes like this, of content creator Tabata Lenk's window being smashed and her phone being stolen while sitting in traffic are all too common.

And with the presidential run-off days away, it's become a campaign issue for right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro and incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Reporter Luciana Magalhaes is in Sao Paulo with more. Luciana Magalhaes Well, this is definitely a national issue in Brazil. If you ask Brazilians, the number one concern is violence. And cell phones, they're kind of a symbol of that because we have so many people who are robbed every day.

And even though the numbers are kind of falling, we still have last year more than 800,000 phones robbed. And this is what we know. Because there are many people that do not think that it's worth going to the police and saying that their phone was robbed. So this is a serious problem. And so the candidates, the main candidates, they have proposals regarding cell phone theft. In the case of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, he has raised the prison sentence for people who robbed cell phones from a minimum of four and maximum to 10 years.

But Flávio Bolsonaro, the senator who is a rival of Lula wants to raise even more to a minimum of eight years in prison for anyone who robs a cell phone in Brazil.

And finally, beauty companies are racing to cash in on a side effect of GLP weight loss drugs. Skincare companies like L'Oreal, Galderma, and Brazil's Natura are testing treatments for facial sagging and volume loss, issues that have become known as 'Ozempic face.' The term emerged as drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound became popular for rapid weight loss.

But experts point out that topical creams can't reach the fat layer where volume is actually lost. More on any of the stories from today as well as more analysis and news shaping our world check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app there's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player if you're listening on a smart speaker just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back later with an update.