he world is starting to understand that there is no way to fully and lastingly protect itself from President Donald Trump.

The man just can’t let things go — and he’ll get creative to get what he wants.

The latest blowup over Ukraine is emblematic of Trump’s wily persistence, and it suggests a challenging two years lie ahead for the international set even if Democrats gain some power in the midterm elections.

Not that long ago, Trump seemed to have patched up ties with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Kyiv made gains against Russia. Trump signed legislation last month that was championed by his late friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), to impose heavy new sanctions and tariffs to punish Russia for its war on Ukraine.

This month, the original Trump — the one who fawns over Russian leader Vladimir Putin and despises Zelenskyy — roared back. He waived many of the legislation’s penalties on Russia, moved to buy Russian diesel and signaled he’s more interested in doing business with Moscow than seeking justice for Kyiv. Ukrainians suspect the U.S. has pressured them by throttling its satellite connections and intelligence-sharing. (The Trump administration disputes much of this.)

“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” Trump said Monday as he welcomed the idea of an arms control summit with Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that might include talks about Ukraine.

The lesson, foreign officials and others steeped in diplomacy tell me, is that you cannot truly change Trump’s mind or stop his overall trajectory. Even if Trump seems briefly chastened or stages a tactical retreat, he will eventually return in new, often-surprising modes to push his original views and goals. He will try to exhaust you into submission.

Imagine how startling it is to be Ukrainian these days as Trump pressures you to make concessions to Russia by blaming you for a global energy crisis he caused by launching a war on Iran. Or what it’s like for officials across European capitals trying to craft a response, knowing there’s never an end to the process.

“There is no immunity to Donald Trump. He makes a deal in order to make a better deal the next day,” one senior European official mused, having been granted anonymity because the topic involves sensitive diplomacy.

It’s hard to blame world leaders who think they’ve learned to manage Trump only to be bewildered by a sudden left hook on his part. Foreign policy is often driven by hope when you lack good options. And Trumpology is a confounding, but still a relatively new, subfield.

Besides, Trump’s messaging is inconsistent, incoherent and nonstrategic — characteristics that can obscure his single-minded pursuit of his goals. So the global actors dealing with him — whether it’s the Gulf Arab states who shower him with gifts or the Canadians furious over his trade and territorial threats — sometimes think they’ve come to terms with him only to find they’re fighting on a newly configured plane.

A Supreme Court ruling that gutted many of Trump’s tariffs earlier this year was good news in many capitals. But since then, the so-called Tariff Man has moved to impose the import taxes under pretexts not considered by the court, including turning to accusations involving forced labor.

The White House doesn’t dispute Trump’s aggressive tactics.

“There is no greater fighter for America First interests than President Trump — and he is willing to look anyone in the eye to deliver wins on behalf of the United States,” spokesperson Anna Kelly told me in a statement.

The Greenland saga shows the limits of trying to mollify Trump.

In his first term, Trump wanted to buy the frozen island. The idea was shelved amid global laughter, but authorities in Greenland and Denmark made it clear to Trump that they welcomed more U.S. investment in the Danish territory.

In his second term, Trump huffed and puffed about an all-out U.S. takeover of Greenland, only to agree in September to an expanded U.S. military footprint that he could have gotten anyway under existing, decades-old diplomatic accords without all the drama. The whole affair has led to lingering anger in Europe about what Canada’s leader called a “rupture” in the global order — but many European officials hoped that the saga had faded away.

Yet, it’s far from certain that Trump has given up on possessing Greenland. Just days ago, he touted on social media plans to start oil, gas and mineral exploration in “our new and beautiful Greenland.”

The use of “our” is more than a little suggestive.

Defying Trump, too, can get you only so far.

Brazilians effectively told Trump to take a hike when he used tariffs and sanctions to punish the country for charging its former president, Jair Bolsonaro, in a coup attempt.

A few months later, as Bolsonaro was about to start his prison sentence, Trump seemed to admit defeat in his effort to help his political ally. “That’s too bad,” he said in November 2025, with little emotion. (“Brazil Defied Trump and Won,” The New York Times declared.)

But Trump wasn’t done with Brazil. He and his team have pursued efforts to undercut the current Brazilian government while quietly backing Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio, in his efforts to win the presidency this year. The runoff election is on Sunday, and it’s tight.

World leaders are doing what they can to make their countries Trump-resistant, if not all-out Trump-proof.

That has meant everything from diversifying their sources of trade and security alliances to joining Trump on ventures that, on the surface at least, can be helpful to them. (Then there are the many countries, especially in Africa, that diplomats privately tell me are happy to be off Trump’s radar.)

My takeaway from watching all of this, though, is that it’s not enough to stay one step ahead of Trump. You have to stay several steps ahead, and you have to be wildly imaginative about the lengths to which Trump and his devoted aides are willing to go to complicate your life.

The second Trump administration is filled with people who have turned to unique, bizarre and clever interpretations of law and reality to push his agenda. It’s not always clear who is behind which move, but it’s hard to imagine Trump isn’t fine with most of what’s happening.

It’s why a teenager is being held in immigration detention for the actions of his grandmother decades ago. It’s why Congress can scream and shout about its spending orders yet Trump ignores it.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said other nations should not hope that the Republican Party will shed Trump’s worldview, including his disdain for allies, once Trump’s out of power.

“I would love for our allies to know that we have consistent common adversaries that we’re going to work together to fight. I just don’t know that you can make that guarantee,” Murphy, a frequent Trump critic, told me. “That’s painful to say, but given the state of the Republican Party right now, it’s true.”

I understand why Ukraine and the European Union are trying to diversify their sources of intelligence and military industrial bases as Trump keeps chasing love from Russia.

Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claims, the reality is that the United States can no longer be trusted for such security assistance.

But it’s not enough to find new intelligence partners or weapons manufacturers. You have to ask bigger questions, like, “What are the untapped streams of intelligence that no one knows are out there? What’s a potential weapon no one has considered? How can I acquire what I need before Trump stops me?”

Governments need to have plans — now — for scenarios that seem completely crazy. Better to be wrong than unprepared.

Still, even if you do all of that … “I don’t think it’s possible to stay two or three steps ahead of Trump,” said Charles Kupchan, a former senior national security official during the Obama administration who apparently enjoys raining on parades.

“He acts on impulse,” argued Kupchan, who has a new book out on the crumbling world order. “We need to try to limit the damage he’s causing and ride him out.”

A Democratic win in November’s midterms — one or both chambers of Congress — is unlikely to do much to rein in Trump’s actions abroad during his final years, current and former U.S. and foreign officials tell me.

He still has the veto and has been willing to ignore congressional demands. There’s also the fact that presidents have significantly more power to act in unilateral ways overseas than they do domestically.

Ukraine, the European Union, the world — all will be dealing with a politically wounded Trump who’s likely to double down on what he feels he must have.

“He’s going to be angrier,” Murphy predicted.

Two vulnerabilities found in the programming language PHP put enormous swaths of the internet in danger.

By some accounts, up to 70 percent of websites use PHP in some capacity. It powers Wikipedia, WordPress, Drupal, and a host of other popular sites and platforms, including DeviantArt and 4Chan, which were temporarily shut down after the vulnerabilities were disclosed. Even governments weren’t immune.

But it’s not as simple as updating a few servers. The vulnerability exists in every version of PHP dating back roughly 20 years, many of which are no longer supported. That means some older sites and services that are no longer actively maintained are at risk, leaving them with little option but to permanently shut down.

Here’s all the latest developments in what security firm Wiz has called “among the most severe vulnerabilities discovered … in software history.”

• Two old-school Japanese mobile games are shutting down over the PHP exploit.
• The PHP2Shell exploit hit Cloudflare hard.
• PHP: The three letters that shut down sites all over the internet today
• GPT‑5.6 Sol was used to identify critical PHP flaw.
• A critical PHP vulnerability may take websites down today

The vibe-coding platform said all of its customers should revoke and rotate their private keys, after hackers were able to decrypt some customer secrets.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron has instructed local authorities to ban protests on Saturday except those organized by unions, he said Thursday.

Any request to “protest” or “regroup” made by people “who have no legitimacy to do so” will be “refused,” Macron said after a security meeting with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and intelligence services.

The aim, he added, is to maintain public order and “protect businesses” after last week’s turmoil in France.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, while incidents of vandalism and looting affected thousands of businesses and public buildings on the sidelines of the protests.

Calls for a fresh round of protests have already begun to emerge online, raising the possibility of a protest movement that becomes a weekly occurrence, as was the case during the 2018-2019 Yellow Vest movement.

“The president believes that six months before a presidential election, debate should take place more in TV studios, in newspapers, and ultimately by the choice at the ballot box,” a person close to the French president said.

Trade unions usually hold talks with local authorities ahead of planned demonstrations. For Saturday, authorities may offer “alternative routes” to ensure maximum security, Macron announced.

He added that he will chair a defense council Friday and announce “new decisions” afterward.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said elite tactical police units and a military unit normally deployed on French soil for counterterrorism operations would also be mobilized this weekend.

The government has been accused of mismanaging last week’s protests by significantly underestimating the number of demonstrators and consequently failing to deploy enough police to prevent criminal acts on the sidelines.

A protest organized by a major trade union Saturday in Paris has been approved, French media reported, while all protests in the area including Lyon, one of the country’s biggest cities, have been banned.

LONDON — Brussels is proposing to extend negotiations on its core demand for cut-price tuition fees for EU students studying in the U.K. beyond next month’s leaders’ summit, as a package of deals nears completion, three EU diplomats with knowledge of the talks told POLITICO.

The European Commission on Wednesday presented the option to member countries of decoupling the tuition fee demand from the long-delayed U.K.-EU summit on Nov. 20.

A postponement would clear the way for a deal to be struck on other key elements of Britain’s “reset” with the bloc, including new agreements on agri-food trade, emissions trading, and a youth experience scheme.

The diplomats — all of whom were granted anonymity to speak freely about ongoing talks — said the proposal would involve asking the U.K. to commit to finalizing an agreement on tuition fees within six months. The proposal was first reported by the Financial Times.

The EU is pushing for European students to pay the domestic rate for tuition fees when studying at British universities, as they did before Brexit.

But one of the diplomats highlighted that the tuition fee demand was still part of a wider “package” linked to the other three agreements slated for the summit, and that the agreements would not enter into force until there was agreement on all areas. 

In addition, the diplomats confirmed that both sides were considering a joint summit statement on economic security, amid mounting U.K. concerns about the EU’s Made in Europe proposals.

Meanwhile, negotiations on a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal — which would see the U.K. and EU align on agri-food standards — are close to completion, two of the diplomats said. The deal would include temporary arrangements for gene-edited plants and novel foods, such as lab-grown meat.

For gene-edited plants, the U.K. wants to keep its own rules until equivalent EU rules come into force, and has pledged not to change them in the meantime.

For novel foods, the U.K. would follow EU decisions to approve or reject products, but could set its own rules for products the EU has not yet assessed. In both cases, the products would be sold only in Great Britain and would not have access to the EU single market.

Dan Bloom contributed to this report

LONDON — Britain’s energy regulator is planning to authorize urgent investment to increase gas pipeline imports from continental Europe this winter, amid fears over the country’s ability to supply all customers in an emergency scenario. 

The plans, outlined in a document published Thursday morning, have been published a day after Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh approved a controversial North Sea gas project, Jackdaw.  

Government documents show that gas security considerations were given “substantial weight” in her decision. 

In a consultation paper, Ofgem said that, without intervention, Britain would have a “negative supply margin” this winter, in the event of a one in 20-year cold day — a day so cold Britain would only be expected to have one every 20 years — coinciding with the loss of key gas infrastructure. 

This unlikely scenario is a key standard followed by Britain’s energy authorities to assess its resilience in maintaining gas supply — also called the “N-1 gas security” standard. 

A shortfall in gas supply would be a national emergency, potentially requiring power plants or factories to shut down, or in extreme cases homes being disconnected from the gas network.  

Britain has never experienced a “network supply emergency,” but diminishing domestic supply and the threat of Russian sabotage of key undersea gas pipelines has raised fears over the country’s energy security. 

Last year the energy system operator, NESO, said long-term declines in domestic North Sea gas supply and global competition for LNG imports could mean the N-1 gas security standard is breached in winter 2030/31. 

However, there are now fears of a crunch point as soon as this winter, after the Belgian operator of the undersea gas pipeline Interconnector said it would cut planned export capacity to the U.K. because of soaring maintenance and operating costs. EU countries are also facing concerns over gas supply this winter. 

Ofgem, the regulator, said it is now planning to amend gas system operator National Gas’s regulatory licence, allowing them to cover the costs of maintaining imports from Belgium at current capacity, in agreement with Interconnector Ltd, majority-owned by Belgian firm Fluxys. 

“Without intervention, Great Britain could potentially face a negative supply margin in winter 2026/27 involving extremely high gas demand on a 1-in-20 cold weather day and the loss of the single largest element of GB gas infrastructure,” Ofgem said. “The position could become more constrained in future winters without intervention. While these are low-probability stress scenarios, their potential consequences are significant.” 

Costs will be recouped through customers’ energy bills. Ofgem said costs of £147 million could be passed on to bills, adding an estimated £1.19 to every domestic energy bill per year over a five-year period.  

Interconnector Ltd said it would restore British import capacity to 27.8GW this winter, an additional 11.3GW of capacity above the previously announced level. 

National Gas welcomed the plans but insisted that the warning over gas security “should not be interpreted as an indication that gas shortages are expected.” 

The Conservatives’ Shadow Energy Secretary Andew Bowie called the situation “utterly outrageous.” 

Britain is “going cap in hand to Europe and paying vast sums to import foreign gas,” he said, criticizing the Labour government for what he characterized as a failure to fully exploit domestic gas supplies. 

“Britain has one of the most secure and resilient energy systems in the world– and gas interconnectors form part of our diverse energy mix,” Energy Minister Michael Shanks said in a statement. 

“We are working with industry to build a gas system fit for the future, ensuring value for money for consumers while giving investors’ confidence to back Britain’s energy sector.” 

Cyberattackers have made “millions” of attempts to take advantage of a critical hole in a building block of the internet, a key cybersecurity provider said early Thursday.

Two top European cyber officials later told POLITICO that hackers have so far struggled to exploit the vulnerability.

Cybersecurity agencies worldwide continue to scramble to respond to the public revelation Wednesday of a flaw in PHP, a foundational computer programming language used to underpin 70% of the internet. 

Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, an internet services company that is widely used by websites to block cyberattacks — giving it a high level of visibility over what hackers are doing — said in a post on X that it’s seen “millions” of “attempts to exploit” the flaw.

Cloudfare saw thousands in the 10 hours before the flaw was publicly announced, meaning information must have leaked, then tens of thousands in the 45 minutes after the announcement, hundreds of thousands within two hours, and now millions, Prince said.

Amazon’s cloud division also said the flaw is “now being broadly exploited in the wild.”

But Thomas Caspers, vice president of Germany’s cyber agency BSI, said in an interview that though his agency has also seen attacks, it has not seen any successful use of the flaw by hackers. 

“It seems a little bit more complicated than expected to exploit,” he said. “When we had the planning process before the release of the patch, we were expecting a much faster track of the attackers.” 

Caspers is not certain why this is the case at this stage, but said it appears that successfully making use of the flaws is harder than expected. Global cyber officials were part of a process coordinated by OpenAI, to find and fix the flaws. “An ad hoc exploitation seems a little more difficult than expected,” he said.

The challenge for bad actors may also be linked to the major AI providers building guardrails so their tools can’t be used to exploit flaws, he said. When a POLITICO reporter as a test asked ChatGPT and Claude, models from OpenAI and Anthropic respectively, how to exploit the PHP vulnerabilities, both chatbots declined to provide the information. The two companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Numerous European government departments took their websites offline as a precaution to Wednesday’s developments. As of Thursday morning, key French websites such as the justice ministry and the data protection authority still featured a message they were undergoing maintenance. 

Matthijs van Amelsfort, the head of the Dutch cybersecurity agency, told POLITICO that his agency has no indication that the flaw is “actively being misused” but said that can change, particularly because AI makes it easier to exploit flaws. The agency took its website offline on Wednesday, but it is now back up.

This article has been updated.

Eiliko, a cute robot charm you can hang on your bag with built-in AI conversations, turned out to be a security nightmare. It told owners that "your secrets are safe with me," but hackers could easily read complete transcripts of everything we told the toy, and that was just the beginning. The Verge and security researcher Sammy Azdoufal spent over a month trying to get in contact with the company, including emails to Energize Lab CEO and founder Shaw Yeung. Nobody would answer our questions.

Now, the company is finally breaking its silence, though its response leaves something to be desired.

"We have confirmed the core issues ide …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon Web Services logged attempts to leverage the internet-melting PHP2Shell bugs four days ago. They’re now being “broadly exploited” across the internet.

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, told European lawmakers on Wednesday that Russia and Ukraine need to negotiate a peace deal, while insisting that German businesses require access to cheap Russian energy to remain competitive.

“It isn’t about capitulating to Russia, far from it, absolutely not, but we want people to sit down around the table. It’s high time they did, and went into it with a sensible diplomatic approach, making sure we pay due regard to the interests of both Ukraine and Russia,” she told a press conference.

Four and a half years since Russia launched its war on Ukraine, President Donald Trump is pressing Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow, while Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on Wednesday to resume trilateral talks with Ukraine.

Weidel made the comments during a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where she unveiled her opposition AfD party’s EU program at an event organized by the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group.

The party aims to shrink the Commission, turn the European Parliament into an assembly of delegates appointed by national parliaments, and seek an opt-out for Germany from EU policies it can’t reform to its liking — potentially including an exit from the Schengen border-free travel area, she told reporters.

During an event following the press conference, Polish MEP Tobiasz Bocheński, from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, asked what she thought of Poland’s fears regarding Russia. Weidel said her party “puts German interests first,” insisting that “now we are in a critical phase that our industry is dying without Russian gas and oil.”

Germany needs “a sustainable, reliable and cheap energy resource that has been guaranteed by Russia for the last four decades,” she added, claiming that sanctions on Russia have “destroyed” Germany’s “business model.”

German industry is shedding jobs amid high energy costs, Chinese competition and U.S. tariffs, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz continues to push for reforms to revive a stagnant economy.

Weidel said that Russia, the U.S. and China are the only ones steering talks on Ukraine while European leaders aren’t even invited to sit at the table. The EU should have pushed for peace since the start, she added, as “four years down the road, it’s in a much worse position going into negotiations with Russia.”

EU countries are discussing who should represent them at the negotiating table. European leaders have repeatedly said that any decision on a peace deal must involve Ukraine and must include security guarantees.

Asked whether she was in contact with France’s far-right National Rally to repair ties, Weidel said the AfD was “pragmatic.” The French party broke with the AfD in 2024 and later helped shut it out of the far-right Patriots group amid concerns about its extremism and stance on Russia.

“We need to work together on a European unique level, and therefore we need to be in talks and discussions,” Weidel said, adding: “And we are.”

Two bugs found with AI are behind major issues today for 4chan, DeviantArt, Wikipedia, and the blog where the bar around the corner posts pictures of people's dogs. The "critical vulnerabilities" were discovered in the PHP programming language, which underpins much of the internet, including any site built on WordPress. But it's far bigger than that. Some Dutch and Finnish government agencies took their sites down as a precaution. The NSA Cybersecurity account on X recommended that organizations take their systems offline if "an immediate update is not feasible," as did the UK's National Cyber Security Center. Even Pokémon Home and Pokémon C …

Read the full story at The Verge.

BRUSSELS — There is a growing realization among European governments that they may soon need to nominate someone to face Russian leader Vladimir Putin in direct talks on a peace deal for Ukraine. 

The main problem is deciding who should take on such a hazardous task.

The question gained urgency this week after U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Russia to offer Putin a three-way summit with Donald Trump and Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an effort to press for a ceasefire. 

“President Putin disregards the European Union as an authority,” Czech President Petr Pavel said Tuesday in an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters’ Network, of which POLITICO is a part. “He doesn’t want to talk to Ursula von der Leyen, he doesn’t talk to Kaja Kallas. He stopped talking to other European leaders, including Emmanuel Macron.”

He added that the EU should “identify a person or a group of people who would speak for Europe. Not necessarily representatives of the EU or NATO, but simply leaders who would be given a mandate by the others to negotiate.”

In recent days, Trump has dismayed Ukraine and its European allies by talking over their heads with Putin and appearing increasingly willing to take Russia’s side in the almost five-year war. 

That has reignited debate in Brussels and beyond about the need for Europe to have its own direct line to the Kremlin to safeguard the region’s interests and bolster Ukraine’s ability to resist a lopsided deal. 

“Much as it sticks in the craw, I do think a channel of some kind to Putin would be a good thing to have,” said David Lidington, a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “I am not optimistic that it would achieve anything much in the short term, but to have a channel which can then be used as and when an opportunity arises is not a bad thing.”

Diplomats and officials disagree on who would be the best person to represent Europe.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, has negotiated directly with Trump on trade, while the president of the European Council, António Costa, has previously opened a line of communication with the Kremlin through his office. EU High Representative Kaja Kallas is another potential player who speaks for European interests as a whole. 

But the Brussels bubble needs to accept that a deal with Putin and Trump won’t be dictated by EU protocols, in the view of a diplomat from a European Union country who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

“We cannot show up with two or three people all speaking on behalf of the EU,” the diplomat said. “The choice of who ends up representing the EU will be based on what would provide the most value, not personal power struggles or narcissistic preferences.”

Will Stubb step up?

One name outside the EU’s machinery that is gaining attention is Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland. Two key factors count in his favor: He has arguably the best relationship with Trump among EU leaders, and Finland has long experience of dealing with Russia — the two countries share a 1,300 kilometer border and have been at war in the past.

“Stubb is of interest because of Finnish knowledge of and traditional dialogue with Russia,” the diplomat said. “They know more than anyone on our side [about] what it takes to feel secure in such a situation.”

A second EU diplomat noted that Stubb was “the only person who has come forward so far” to show high-level political leadership, and could serve as a European envoy at a future peace summit. Stubb was in Norway with Zelenskyy and Witkoff on Tuesday for negotiations ahead of the U.S. envoy’s visit to Russia to meet Putin. 

Also attending the gathering in Oslo was von der Leyen’s most senior aide, Bjoern Seibert, who has joined meetings of national security advisers as part of the Coalition of the Willing to support Ukraine.

A third European diplomat said it was vital that the EU itself be represented in the talks, instead of a small grouping of powerful countries such as Germany, France and the U.K.

That means both Seibert and Pedro Lourtie, the top aide to Costa, must have seats at the table during preparatory talks, the diplomat said, and that EU member countries must be properly updated on progress.

Calling Costa

According to a fourth EU diplomat, European leaders asked Costa at last week’s summit in Brussels whether it might be time for him to talk to Putin. “Costa said, no, he’s not going to talk to Putin now,” they said. “But Costa should start talking to Putin if we want to play a role in the negotiations. By not speaking, we are playing into the hands of our opponents.”

The fourth diplomat said Costa would be a better choice than von der Leyen or Kallas, who are both seen as too invested in the Ukrainian side to represent the EU effectively at leader level. Kallas in particular has been outspoken in her criticism of Trump. “Costa comes across as more of an honest broker,” they summarized.

The European Commission insists the EU is already present at the peace talks, flagging Seibert’s presence in Oslo on Tuesday. “The main aim [in Oslo] was to explore if the parameters are there for a possible move to trilateral or even multilateral talks with Ukraine and Russia present at the same table,” European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho told reporters on Wednesday. 

She said the talks had focused on territory, security and post-war prosperity for Ukraine; Witkoff is expected to debrief Ukraine and the Europeans after his trip to meet Putin. “What is very important is that we are sitting at the table, that we are able to present our position, and that we can engage in what is a shared objective to put an end to this horrific war,” she added. 

Gerardo Fortuna and Paul Ronzheimer contributed to this report.

From AI-discovered PHP vulnerabilities to flaws in Node.js and popular AI tool LiteLLM, cybersecurity teams have plenty to worry about this week.

This is the kind of security issue that was found and prevented by AI, but is also a high risk because of AI.

OpenAI disclosed a pair of safety incidents that involved AI agents weakening their safety monitoring systems during internal coding tasks. In one incident, OpenAI says its GPT-6 Astra agent disabled its safety monitor when copying reference code - and then lied about it.

"The reference didn't configure a monitor, and Astra decided that was reason to remove the monitoring integration from the user's code," Marcus Williams, an AI safety researcher at OpenAI, writes on X. "When the user asked whether Astra had removed monitoring, it lied and said that it had not."

A separate incident occurred after a GPT-6.1 Sol agent suppressed automatic se …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The PHP Foundation has revealed two serious vulnerabilities that could impact millions of websites. Security experts warn that failure to quickly patch the flaws could have dire consequences.

Hackers around the world are all-in on using agentic AI to wage attacks—and manipulating tools like Anthropic’s Claude to help them carry out their crimes.

The company is suspending the feature after security researchers discovered how easy it was to access sensitive information shared with the AI assistant.

Ein massiver Datenklau erschüttert die AfD: Über 400.000 interne E-Mails, darunter von Alice Weidel und Alexander Gauland, sind an die Öffentlichkeit gelangt. Die geleakten Papiere offenbaren nicht nur eklatante Sicherheitslücken, sondern bergen teilweise politische Sprengkraft.

In Nordrhein-Westfalen eskaliert derweil erneut der Machtkampf zwischen Landeschef Martin Vincentz und dem Lager um den Bundestagsabgeordneten Matthias Helferich. Der Konflikt wird mittlerweile sogar mit scharfen Klingen bei einer burschenschaftlichen Mensur ausgetragen. Gleichzeitig greift der Bundesvorstand mit harten Ordnungsmaßnahmen ein und droht, die internen Mehrheitsverhältnisse zu kippen.

Auch in der Bundestagsfraktion zeigt sich Uneinigkeit: Bei Abstimmungen über Auslandseinsätze der Bundeswehr stimmt die Partei zersplittert ab, Fraktionschef Tino Chrupalla enthält sich. Pauline von Pezold und Frederik Schindler analysieren den Spagat zwischen Sicherheitspolitik und der Inszenierung als Friedenspartei.

„Inside AfD“ ist der POLITICO-Podcast über die umstrittenste Partei des Landes. Trotz Radikalisierung und Beobachtung durch den Verfassungsschutz wächst die AfD weiter. Wie ist das möglich? Was treibt ihre Anhänger, Strategen und Gegner an? Wie funktioniert das Innenleben der Partei? Und was bedeutet ihr Aufstieg für das politische System Deutschlands?

Antworten liefern immer mittwochs Pauline von Pezold von POLITICO und Frederik Schindler von WELT — unaufgeregt, aber kritisch.

Fragen und Feedback gern an insideafd@politico.eu.

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Security patches for the PHP programming language, widely used to build websites and web apps, are expected to roll out today, with the goal of fixing two critical vulnerabilities that could wreak havoc on the internet if left unchecked. In an advisory published on Tuesday, PHP developers said the vulnerabilities have a severity rating of 9.2 out of a possible 10, with some cybersecurity agencies encouraging websites to temporarily take their systems offline if they're unable to apply the fix immediately.

The security patch is expected to drop today at 10AM ET - though the developers say they may release it earlier if the vulnerability deta …

Read the full story at The Verge.