Putin agrees to peace talks, SpaceX-Tesla merger, Kansas voters (Updated)

Hi, I'm Carmel Kremens in Dublin. And I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. It's Wednesday, October 21st, today. Putin agrees to U.S. mediated peace talks with Ukraine. SpaceX turns its first profit, and Musk signals a blockbuster deal could be on the cards. An internet security flaw threatens sites across Europe. And a Democrat thinks he can end a 94-year losing streak in one of America's reddest states. This is Reuters' World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to resume U.S. mediated peace talks with Ukraine as soon as next month. The news comes after U.S. special envoy Steve Whitkoff, net with Putin in St. Petersburg, where he praised the Russian President for releasing Stephen Hubbard, a retired U.S. school teacher who's been held in Russia since 2022. Following the talks, Putin offered to help President Trump negotiate with Iran and to send fertilizer to the U.S. to help farmers struggling with supplies and high prices due to the disruptions from the war with Iran. It's the ninth time the two have met in person. Wednesday's encounter comes as concerns in Kyiv grow that the United States is backing away from Ukraine and Russia continues heavy attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. According to reporters, Zelensky said Ukraine was again receiving early warnings of Russian missile attacks. He said he also spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Patriot missile interceptors and Starlink, which Kyiv says has stopped working when mounted on fast-moving drones. Defense Secretary Pete Hegset says the order to throttle Ukraine's Starlink access didn't come from the Trump administration. We haven't pulled anything back, there are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to, and that's where Starlink has the option to make those decisions, but nothing's changed from our view. Reporting by the Wall Street Journal says that Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of the Star Shield, the military-grade version of Starlink that Ukraine relies on, citing U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Now, the Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The sources say that Musk and President Trump discussed the matter around the time of the slowdown. Two U.S. officials have told Reuters that the decision ultimately came from the White House. Musk, SpaceX, and the White House have not responded to Reuters' requests for comment. NATO is deploying more aircraft drones and radar systems to the Black Sea after a deadly wave of drone strikes on commercial ships. Both in recent weeks have left dozens of sailors missing or dead, the drones hitting two chemical tankers last week alone near Romania's coast. NATO hasn't publicly blamed anyone, but military analysts say Russia almost certainly carried out the attacks. Moscow hasn't acknowledged responsibility. Government websites across Europe have gone offline after critical security flaws were discovered in PHP, that's a programming language that powers roughly three-quarters of the Internet. The vulnerabilities affected everything from WordPress sites to government portals. Developers have released a fix, but not before hackers began exploiting the flaws. The Netherlands, Finland, and France took sites offline as a precaution, including the Port of Rotterdam and Finland's entire government network. Many experts say AI-driven attacks could exploit vulnerable systems at massive scale before patches are applied. To the US now, we're a closely watched race on folding in Kansas. It's been 94 years since the state has elected a Democrat to the Senate. This year, Democrat and mega-church pastor Adam Hamilton thinks he can end that streak. If Kansas elect Kansas of all states, Alexa Democrat for the first time in 94 years, in the heart of America, it's saying that people who are a reliably red state are saying what's happening in Washington DC is not okay. And polls show he's running neck and neck for a seat in one of the red states in the country. Reporter Renee Hickman says what's happening in Kansas comes down to two things. The leaders we've talked to have cited some of the most unpopular policies of the Trump administration as part of the reason they are interested in voting for Hamilton. The Iran war has resulted in higher prices for gas and diesel used to power farm equipment in this agricultural region of the country. And they spoke to wheat farmers and seed dealers Vance and Louise Empeca. They say this year fuel alone has cost their business $50,000 in unexpected expenses. We cannot pass those costs on to consumers life to eat it. Yeah, we eat it, that's for sure. We're tired of this getting raked over the colds and just getting kicked in the teeth. We're going to vote and we're going to vote for the candidate that is pro farmer. Then there's immigration. Renee says last month ice raids rattled several communities. This region of southwest Kansas has been affected by ice raids on three communities that contain some of the largest meat packing plants in the country, Garden City, where we are now, Dodge City and liberal Kansas. We've spoken to organizers in those communities who have seen an uptick in voter registration and interest in these elections because of the ice raids and because of the Trump administration policies that spurred them. A new Reuters Ipsos poll shows Americans are divided on what should happen when an execution fails. On third, say the government should try again, 39% think the convict should serve life in prison instead, and a quarter were unsure. The question is top of mind in the US after Tennessee's Krista Pike survived two lethal injection attempts last month, regaining consciousness five days later. It's the state's second botched execution this year. Big Chinese tech giants have ordered more than 3 million of Nvidia's new RTX Pro 5500 graphics cards, even though they haven't been released yet. The surging demand highlights how US restrictions have tightened computing power supplies in China as companies race to develop cutting edge AI models. Eduardo Baptista explains, "What we're seeing is that there's so much demand here for hardware that can be used to run AI services, chips that weren't really intended to be deployed in mass in data centers to help run models are now being repurposed for this function, which is increasingly important in the modern economy. And this new Nvidia chip is one example. And more importantly, what we've heard from sources and the movements from these Chinese tech giants indicate that this is a chip that is in compliance with US export controls, which means that it is a much safer supply of AI compute than if Chinese tech giants decided to try and place orders for another model that Nvidia has to offer. So this is just the latest manifestation of how Chinese tech companies here are racing to deploy AI and are trying to find any hardware, whether it's American or Chinese to satisfy the demand created by this AI boom." Nvidia has told customers and partners that it can't actually guarantee that these orders will be fulfilled. In sources of told us the demand from China alone has exceeded the planned production that Nvidia's allocated for this particular chip. 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