Taliban says it will only hold direct talks with the US as Kabul delegates repeat offer of talks without preconditions.

Some 5,000 Central Americans rested in makeshift refugee camp in city's stadium to prepare for next leg of journey.

A vacuum giant may be looking to hoover up some of the wearable tech market. From a report: Dyson is considering making a wearable air purifier that could double as headphones, according to Bloomberg, which reported the company submitted patents for wearable air-purifying tech earlier this year. Air purifiers are popular in Asia, especially in China where atmospheric pollution is a serious issue. Air purifiers remove pollutants through filtration, electrostatic precipitation or ionization. Many Chinese citizens also wear face masks when they go outside to avoid inhaling air pollution.

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China has violated an accord it signed with the U.S. three years ago pledging not to engage in hacking for the purpose of economic espionage, a senior U.S. intelligence official said this week. From a report: The 2015 bilateral agreement had significantly reduced the amount of Chinese cybertheft targeting American companies, but Beijing's commitment to the deal has eroded, said Rob Joyce, senior adviser for cybersecurity strategy at the National Security Agency. "It is clear they are well beyond the bounds of the agreement today that was forged between our two countries," Joyce said during a panel conversation at the Aspen Cyber Summit. Joyce's comments were the latest sign of Washington's rising frustration over China's alleged violation of the pact signed between then-President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Last week, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said China wasn't adhering to the deal, in which the U.S. and China agreed not to conduct cyber operations against each other to steal intellectual property or other forms of economic intelligence.

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Farmers will receive 100% compensation for any damages caused by bears, wolves and other wild carnivores.

Organisers charged with maintaining silence over the jailing of acclaimed photographer, a claim they deny.

World leaders to gather in France to mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War.

In a new agreement between tech giants Amazon and Apple, shoppers will soon see a selection of the latest Apple products on Amazon.com. This is not good news for everyone. Motherboard: John Bumstead is a computer refurbisher who, every year, saves thousands of laptops from the shredder. He buys MacBooks en masse from electronics recyclers, fixes them, then sells them on Amazon Marketplace or wholesales them to vendors who do the same. Friday morning, Bumstead got an email from Amazon informing him that he'd no longer be allowed to sell Apple computers on the platform, thanks to a new agreement between Apple and Amazon that will only allow "authorized resellers" to sell Apple products. "As part of a new agreement with Apple, we are working with a select group of authorized resellers to offer an expanded selection of Apple and Beats products, including new releases, in Amazonâ(TM)s stores," the email says. "You are receiving this message because you are currently selling, or have previously sold, Apple or Beats products. Your existing offers for those products will soon be removed from Amazon's online store in the United States. Please contact Apple if you would like to apply to become an authorized reseller on Amazon." As the email notes, this is part of a new agreement between two of the largest companies in the world that will allow Amazon to sell new Apple products around the world; in exchange, Amazon agreed to let Apple pick-and-choose who is allowed to sell Apple products on the site.

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It just popped in my head to check today — and, sure enough, I’ve been doing The Omni Show podcast for just over a year now.

There are a bunch of reasons why I like doing it. The main reason is that it’s fun to show the personalities of the people who work at Omni — and the personality of the company — to the outside world.

It’s also fun as a way for co-workers to get to know each other a little better. We’re showing our personality to ourselves.

I also like it as documentation. This is a special time — our industry is still so young — and so I like it in the same way I liked doing The Record with Chris Parrish. This history will all be lost unless we record it.

And recording this history means not just talking to the usual suspects, the same people you hear every week. It means talking to people who’ve never been on podcasts before, but who all have stories to tell. This is a personal challenge — it takes extra work to prepare for someone different every episode — but it’s so satisfying. I love it.

PS For the curious: last April I wrote, on The Omni Blog, How We Do the Omni Show.

Entire communities destroyed as fire fighters struggle to contain fires plaguing state.

Regional and European observers deny serious irregularities, as alleged by a former president.

Dark Mode is not just more aesthetically pleasing to many people, there are real battery-life boosts to be had -- and Google has the numbers to prove it. From a report: Touting the benefits of Dark Mode, Google showed that with screen brightness set to 50 percent, using YouTube with Dark Mode enabled resulted in 14 percent less battery usage. With screen brightness set to 100 percent, the saving jumps to 60 percent. These are not numbers to be sniffed at, but the biggest savings are to be seen on phones with AMOLED screens as anything that is black does not require pixels to be powered. Slides from the event show Google comparing the power usage of its own Pixel phone with an LCD iPhone 7. It shows a 63 percent battery saving when displaying a screenshot of Google Maps in normal and night mode.

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Cord-cutting promised us that we won't have to pay the ludicrously large cable bills. But it turns out, as long as you do not just want to watch a very limited set of movies and TV shows, you will have to subscribe to any number of these services: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Go, Hulu, and Disney+ (and more.) For some living outside the US, the situation has become even more dire as they browse through as many as three dozen services. This, in addition to making watching TV expensive, is also creating a number of other confusions. No wonder piracy is on rise again.

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Austrian chancellor says a retired army colonel may have worked with Russian intelligence since the 1990s.

Police set to examine bodies found in area between Oromia-Somali regions during probe into case of held ex-leader.