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Pakistan and Afghanistan agree to temporary Eid al-Fitr 'pause' in conflict

Al Jazeera

Pakistan and Afghanistan agree to temporary Eid al-Fitr'pause' in conflict Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to a temporary "pause" in hostilities during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr this week, officials said, amid weeks of deadly violence between the neighbouring countries. Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday that the pause - set to run from midnight on Thursday (19:00 GMT on Wednesday) until midnight on Tuesday (19:00 GMT on Monday) - had been requested by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye. However, he warned that "in case of any cross-border attack, drone attack or any terrorist incident inside Pakistan, [operations] shall immediately resume with renewed intensity". Shortly after the announcement, a spokesperson for Afghanistan's Taliban government also said it would temporarily suspend military operations against Pakistan. The pause in fighting is set to begin just days after Afghanistan accused the Pakistani military of killing hundreds of people in an air strike on a drug rehabilitation centre in the country's capital, Kabul.


The neuroscientist who wants us to be nicer to psychopaths

New Scientist

Abigail Marsh has found that many psychopaths don't want to be cruel and uncaring, and argues that they deserve support to help them get there Think of a psychopath and you probably picture someone dangerous, someone whose ruthless self-interest leads to great harm for others and considerable success for themselves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, while only around 1 per cent of people in the general population have psychopathy, roughly 1 in 5 men in prison show signs of it, and research has also found a link between corporate leadership and psychopathic traits . But just as it is painful to know a psychopath, it isn't necessarily fun to be one either. Abigail Marsh, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Georgetown University in Washington DC, studies those with psychopathic traits who largely lead ordinary lives among us. She has uncovered something surprising: many don't want to be psychopathic at all. Researchers are still honing the precise definition, but psychopathy is characterised by callousness, a lack of empathy, glib social charm and impulsivity.


How your ACCENT can hinder your job prospects: Study reveals how people with foreign accents are seen as less competent

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Female pastor is suspended after her shocking Epstein link is exposed... as she compares herself to JESUS while defending their relationship'Tell me to my face': Republican senator torches Noem's replacement as their vicious personal feud spills into public Outrageous full story of scandalous affair that's the talk of Manhattan's exclusive private schools: Family insiders reveal humiliating sex secrets... shock'confession' letter... and the furious relative who exposed it all Ugly new Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban divorce fight ERUPTS: Her friends share humiliating details of'midlife crisis'... and reveal brutal REAL reason daughter Sunday Rose'snubbed' him Perfect All-American family lived in stunning $1.1m Colorado mansion and bankrolled glamorous daughter's horse stables... now matriarch has sullied their good name with a HUGE scandal Meghan unveils new As Ever line with Lilibet... amid claims Netflix has been left with huge $10m surplus of her unsold products after'split' with streamer Woke Democrat, 26, who can't get out of bed in time for meetings loses primary to professor accused of inappropriate relationship by former student I watched the children's book author who poisoned her husband from 5ft away. This is the off-camera moment her mask finally slipped... it was truly chilling I ran America's only Supermax jail: What history's most notorious terrorists and serial killers told me as they waited to die Sinister truth about explosive resignation of Trump's top counter-terror chief Joe Kent... and his shock claim Israel is manipulating the president: MARK HALPERIN Hairdresser who weighs 300lbs says Southwest airport check-in worker looked him up and down and told him he'd have to buy extra seat Kim Kardashian takes a VERY dramatic tumble in towering $80 'stripper heels' and accidentally grabs an'old lady' as she falls on her way out of Vanity Fair Oscar party Everything JFK Jr told friends about his love affair with'sexual dynamo' Madonna... her unprintable pillow talk... and his perverse incest request that she couldn't go through with Saudi, UAE and Qatar energy facilities are evacuated after Iran threatens'full scale economic war' as oil price jumps 5%: Live updates New PILL for psoriasis approved... giving hope to millions suffering from debilitating skin condition How I lost 8st in my 50s and now finally have the figure of my dreams. I've been large my whole life, but I now feel happier than I ever did in my 20s. New York City's accent is dying out, study finds It's something that's fixed from roughly the age of 14. But your accent could be hindering your job prospects, according to a new study.


Pair win Turing Award for computer encryption breakthrough

BBC News

A US physicist and a Canadian computer scientist have won this year's Turing Award for their invention of a form of seemingly unbreakable encryption. Charles H Bennett and Gilles Brassard's work, which dates back to 1984, is known as quantum cryptography and has redefined secure communication and computing, the award's body said. Scientists believe their work will be central to electronic communications in a world that depends heavily on data-sharing, but which for years has been trying to develop more powerful quantum computers. The Turing Award, named after the mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing, is known as the Nobel Prize of computing. It comes with a $1m (£800,000) prize.


Why an up-and-coming indie developer is returning Microsoft's money

The Guardian

'Making people feel powerful' All Will Rise. 'Making people feel powerful' All Will Rise. Why an up-and-coming indie developer is returning Microsoft's money Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? V ideo games are in a funding crisis. Investor money flowed freely during the pandemic gaming boom, but now the well has run dry.


Google expands Search Live globally

Engadget

The tool is now available in every place where the company offers its AI Mode chatbot. After debuting in the US, Search Live is now available globally. After rolling out Search Live to all US Google app users last September, Google is now bringing the feature to every place where it offers its AI Mode chatbot. Search Live, if you need a reminder, allows you to point your phone's camera at an object or scene and ask questions about what you see in front of you. Google debuted the tool at I/O 2025 before it began rolling it out to users.


Google rerouted hundreds of flights to cut climate-warming contrails

New Scientist

A trial involving thousands of flights between the US and Europe has found that planes produce fewer contrails if they follow flight paths recommended by an artificial intelligence to reduce their global warming impact. The streaks of condensation triggered by soot particles produced by aircraft engines are thought to cause more warming than the carbon dioxide that planes emit. Research has also shown that some ice-rich regions of the upper atmosphere are more likely to form contrails when a plane passes through them, and that AI can predict where these regions will be using detailed weather forecasts. We're finally solving the puzzle of how clouds will affect our climate There have been small-scale trials showing that planes rerouted through these regions will produce fewer contrails, but the practice has yet to be applied to commercial flights at scale. Now, Dinesh Sanekommu at Google and his colleagues have used an AI contrail-forecasting tool to give routing advice in a randomised control trial of more than 2400 real American Airlines flights.



Government backtracks on AI and copyright after outcry from major artists

BBC News

We have listened, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said on Wednesday, saying the government no longer favours that approach. However, the government's position is now unclear, saying it no longer has a preferred option for what to do next. Kendall said the government had engaged extensively with people in the creative and AI industries. It is attempting to balance the interests of the two sectors by giving creatives control how their work is used, while recognising AI models need to be trained on work such as writing, music and video. In a report published on Wednesday, the government said there was no consensus on how these objectives should be achieved.


A multi-armed robot for assisting with agricultural tasks

Robohub

In their paper Force Aware Branch Manipulation To Assist Agricultural Tasks, which was presented at IROS 2025,, and proposed a methodology to safely manipulate branches to aid various agricultural tasks. We interviewed Madhav to find out more. Could you give us an overview of the problem you were addressing in the paper? Our work is motivated by StickBug [1], a multi-armed robotic system for precision pollination in greenhouse environments. One of the main challenges StickBug faces is that many flowers are partially or fully hidden within the plant canopy, making them difficult to detect and reach directly for pollination.