World

Strait of Hormuz: Iran seizes ships, Pentagon says mines could take six months

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seized two vessels — the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca and Greek-flagged Epaminodas — while both the US and Iran maintained competing naval blockades of the strait. Tehran called the US counter-blockade a “flagrant” ceasefire breach; Trump unilaterally extended the ceasefire, but Iran’s position hardened. Pakistan is acting as intermediary in stalled diplomacy. EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen warned European holiday fuel plans are at serious risk.

Sources: Guardian · Guardian analysis · BBC · Al Jazeera · Al Jazeera video · Reuters · Washington Post · NRK · Aftenposten · TU

The UAE dangles yuan oil pricing — the sharpest petrodollar threat since the 1970s

The UAE has signalled to Washington it could begin pricing oil sales in Chinese yuan if the Iran war drains dollar liquidity in the Gulf. Treasury Secretary Bessent confirmed Gulf and Asian allies have requested dollar swap lines; Trump said a UAE currency swap is under active consideration. Analysts describe the episode as the most serious structural challenge to the petrodollar system in half a century.

Sources: Defence Security Asia · Reuters · Al Jazeera

Iran nuclear talks: Revolutionary Guard and diplomats openly at odds

The Iran-US track in Islamabad is fracturing internally — Revolutionary Guard and diplomatic corps publicly contradict each other on whether talks should proceed. An advisor to Iran’s chief negotiator alleged Trump extended the ceasefire only to buy time for a surprise attack. A Pakistani expert warned a new round may be the last chance to prevent a third world war. No new date was set.

Sources: NRK — forhandler med seg selv · NRK — Trump forlenger · NRK — 3. verdenskrig

US military leadership keeps bleeding out

Navy Secretary John Phelan departed “effective immediately”; Undersecretary Hung Cao steps in as acting. The exit comes a week after Hegseth fired the Army’s top officer, extending a broader wave of senior departures under Trump. The pattern is raising civil-military stability questions at the exact moment of the Iran war.

Sources: BBC · Guardian · NPR

Iran war economic shockwaves: China factory orders, Lufthansa flight cuts

China’s export-driven manufacturing sector is showing pressure on factory orders, costs and jobs from Middle East supply-chain disruption — a harder challenge for Beijing, the BBC writes, than Trump’s tariff campaign. Lufthansa is cutting 20,000 summer flights as jet fuel prices surge, joining a growing list of carriers scaling back operations.

Sources: BBC — China · BBC — Lufthansa

Iranians cross into Turkey to use the internet

Iran has severed access to the global internet; NPR reports citizens are now physically crossing the Turkish border just to make video calls and access the web before returning home. Tighter information control as wartime policy.

Sources: NPR

US turns to Ukrainian counter-drone technology

After Iranian drone attacks exposed gaps in American air defence, the US military is moving to acquire Ukrainian-developed counter-drone systems — a tacit acknowledgment that three years of Ukrainian drone warfare have produced battlefield solutions the US lacks.

Sources: Reuters

Germany’s 2039 military plan; Denmark picks a European Patriot rival

Berlin published a detailed strategy for becoming Europe’s leading military power within 13 years, amid the wider post-Iran-war rearmament push. Denmark separately chose a European-made alternative to the US Patriot for its air defence — another procurement signal that European defence is quietly diversifying away from American systems.

Sources: Defense News · Reuters — Denmark

North Korea tests engine for missile reaching US mainland

Pyongyang conducted an engine test for a ballistic missile designed to reach the continental United States — advancing long-range strike capability while global attention remains fixed on the Middle East.

Sources: AP

Peru cabinet crisis after F-16 deal postponed

Top Peruvian ministers resigned after the president suspended a major F-16 purchase. The Trump administration called the move “bad faith” and warned it could damage the bilateral relationship — tensions between Peruvian domestic politics and US procurement pressure surfacing.

Sources: Al Jazeera

Canada refuses US USMCA dictation; Washington demands “entry fee”

PM Mark Carney said Canada won’t let the US unilaterally set USMCA review terms, while sources reported Washington is demanding an unspecified “entry fee” from Ottawa before negotiations can begin. A US trade official called Canadian policies “insulting”; Canada is meanwhile signalling a strategic “doubling down on globalisation” away from US dependency.

Sources: Reuters · CBC · Global News · CTV

Two CIA agents killed in Mexico drug raid Sheinbaum wasn’t told about

The two US officials who died in a drug raid in Chihuahua were CIA agents, reports confirm — a presence not disclosed to Mexican authorities in advance. President Sheinbaum is demanding answers from Washington about unilateral covert operations on Mexican soil.

Sources: Guardian · Al Jazeera — Sheinbaum

US restricts intelligence sharing with Seoul after minister exposed suspected nuclear site

Washington has reportedly curtailed intelligence sharing with South Korea after a South Korean minister publicly identified a suspected nuclear facility — a rare signal of serious US frustration with alliance handling of sensitive material.

Sources: Guardian

Virginia voters approve redistricting; Trump calls it “rigged”

Virginia voters approved redistricting 51.4% to 48.5%, redrawing maps analysts say could flip up to four US House seats to Democrats. Trump immediately called the election “rigged.” The vote continues a tit-for-tat redistricting cycle that risks normalising gerrymandering as a partisan weapon.

Sources: BBC · Al Jazeera · Al Jazeera — Trump

Israel kills journalist in Lebanon in “double-tap” strike; second French peacekeeper dies

Israeli forces killed Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil and injured Zeinab Faraj in what Lebanon described as a deliberate “double-tap” strike in southern Lebanon, where a follow-up attack prevents rescuers reaching survivors. IDF strikes also hit Red Cross vehicles. A second French UNIFIL peacekeeper died after an ambush attributed to Hezbollah.

Sources: Guardian · BBC · Al Jazeera · SCMP

Sexual violence as a systematic tool in the West Bank

Al Jazeera documents a pattern of sexual violence and harassment by Israeli soldiers and settlers as a deliberate tool of intimidation and displacement against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Sources: Al Jazeera

Russia’s domestic pressure surfaces — economics, and Dzerzhinsky symbolism

Sweden’s intelligence chief warned Russia faces “financial disaster” as Moscow conceals its true budget deficit. Russia’s Communist Party leader separately told parliament the faltering economy risks revolution — a rare open criticism from within the legislative chamber. Putin answered by renaming the FSB Academy after Felix Dzerzhinsky — organiser of the Cheka’s Red Terror — a pointed signal of ideological consolidation and endorsement of mass-repression methods for internal control.

Sources: Kyiv Independent · Reuters — Communist warning · r/UkrainianConflict

Abramovich takes Jersey asset freeze to ECHR

Roman Abramovich has filed a case at the European Court of Human Rights claiming Jersey’s criminal investigation into his finances — and the freezing of £5.3bn in assets — is “unfair and abusive.” The funds are Chelsea FC sale proceeds, long probed for potential sanctions violations and Ukraine-earmarked use.

Sources: Guardian

Moldovan oligarch Plahotniuc jailed for “theft of the century”

Once Moldova’s most powerful man, Vlad Plahotniuc has been convicted and jailed for his role in a banking fraud that siphoned roughly 12% of Moldova’s GDP — a long-running symbol of post-Soviet kleptocracy finally catching up with him after years abroad.

Sources: BBC

Czech journalists threaten strike over public broadcaster funding

Czech public broadcaster journalists say they’ll strike unless PM Andrej Babiš’s government withdraws plans to replace independent licence-fee funding with direct state funding — a step critics say would bring public television and radio under government control, particularly sharp given Babiš’s own private media holdings.

Sources: Guardian

Gene therapy for rare deafness shows lasting results

A gene therapy enabled deaf children and adults as old as 32 to hear for the first time, with benefits persisting for more than two years in some patients — among the most durable results yet for gene therapy in hearing loss.

Sources: NPR

Ukraine

Drone campaign hits Russian oil for a third straight night

Overnight strikes ignited an oil pumping station in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and a petrochemical plant in Samara Oblast, extending Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign well into Russian territory. The Tuapse refinery complex is still burning on day three, with an oil slick now spreading off the Black Sea coast near the port. Ukrainian forces separately struck the Black Sea Fleet’s naval traffic control centre in Sevastopol and an oil depot in Feodosiia, Crimea.

Sources: Ukrainska Pravda · r/ukraine — Tuapse day 3 · r/UkrainianConflict — oil slick · Militarnyi — Sevastopol strike

EU provisionally unlocks €90bn loan; 20th sanctions package advances

EU member states reached preliminary agreement on the €90bn Ukraine loan after Hungary dropped its veto — the same day Ukraine resumed pumping Russian crude through the repaired Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia. Zelenskyy called it “the right signal” but cautioned the procedure is not yet formally complete. The 20th Russia sanctions package advanced in parallel — energy, banks, crypto services, shadow fleet, 120+ new individuals and entities. Belgium announced a €1bn military aid package including 15 Gepard air-defence systems.

Sources: BBC · Zelenskyy caution · Guardian · Guardian live blog · NRK · Dagsavisen · Belgium Gepards

Kyiv: frontline position “strongest in a year”

Ukraine reports 159 combat clashes in 24 hours and claims its overall frontline position is the strongest in a year. Andriivka in northern Sumy Oblast appears liberated; Russian VDV units there are being rotated out exhausted, replaced by motorised rifle elements. Near Kostyantynivka, Russia is shifting from foot infiltrations to light-motorised assaults on motorcycles and civilian vehicles, racing through drone kill zones. Pokrovsk remains the highest-tempo sector — 688 Russian assaults logged since April 1.

Sources: Ukrainska Pravda · Guardian briefing · r/UkrainianConflict

Trump extends both Russia and Iran oil sanctions waivers; Zelenskyy warns of diplomatic stall

The Trump administration extended oil sanctions waivers on both Russia and Iran, citing requests from countries affected by the Hormuz blockade. Zelenskyy warned publicly that the Iran war risks stalling Ukraine diplomacy entirely — a direct concern that US attention and leverage is being pulled away until the Iran situation resolves.

Sources: Ukrainska Pravda — waivers · Ukrainska Pravda — Zelenskyy

Peace diplomacy: Turkey pushes for leader-level talks; Kyiv rejects “ersatz” EU membership

Erdoğan confirmed Ankara is actively working to revive Russia-Ukraine peace talks, and Kyiv has asked Turkey to host a leaders-level meeting with Moscow. Foreign Minister Sybiha firmly rejected reports of a “symbolic” EU membership pathway: “we will not accept any ersatz membership” — only full accession is acceptable.

Sources: Al Jazeera — Turkey · Kyiv Independent — Sybiha

Norway

Psykiske plager øker — nær én av tre sliter

FHI’s Folkehelseundersøkelse shows 29% of the Norwegian population reports mental health difficulties, with a sharp rise since the pandemic. Young women are the hardest-hit group — economic pressures play a significant role. The 30–59 cohort also shows a marked rise.

Sources: Aftenposten · NRK · Dagsavisen

Vestre og Stenseng: for lett å få full sykmelding

Health Minister Jan Christian Vestre and AP leader Kjersti Stenseng publicly argued that it has become too easy for people to obtain full sickleave certificates from their GP, pushing gradert sykmelding as the default. Several workers separately report that disputed sickleave claims leave them in legal and financial limbo for extended periods while NAV deliberates. The framing — that GP-issued sick notes are a systemic rather than a medical problem — has sparked debate about patient rights and trust in the healthcare system.

Sources: Aftenposten · Dagsavisen

Fokusert Helse: 90% ADHD-diagnose på video

NRK’s documentary investigation into Fokusert Helse: 333 people assessed in 2024, roughly 90% diagnosed — purely through three video consultations at 20,000+ NOK, no in-person evaluation, no cross-source information from parents, teachers, or medical records. The County Governor found the clinic violated health personnel law; national ADHD assessment guidelines are being revised. The clinic says it is implementing changes.

Sources: NRK dokumentar

Kripos slår alarm: seks barn drept på fem år, Munchausen by proxy på agendaen

Kripos published its first analysis of criminal cases involving Münchausen by proxy and medical child abuse — 17 cases from 2019–2024 — and a separate report found six small children killed in Norway over five years, most often by their parents. Nearly all suspected perpetrators were mothers, many with healthcare backgrounds; victims were typically 3–5 years old and suffered suffocation, poisoning, or deliberate starvation. Kripos specialist Liridona Gashi warns mørketall are large because fragmented medical records and non-verbal victims make detection extremely difficult.

Sources: NRK · Aftenposten

To av tre realister sliter med å få jobb

Norway’s 2025 Kandidatundersøkelse found 21% unemployment among new master’s graduates in natural sciences and technical fields — a sharp rise from previous years. Two in three report job-hunting was harder than expected, up from roughly half in 2023. Electronics master’s student Simen Husby Norrud (25): “You hear throughout your studies that jobs will be easy to find, but it doesn’t match reality.” Researchers point to credential inflation and AI adoption as structural factors.

Sources: Universitas

Staten overtar Fensfeltet

The Norwegian government has assumed planning authority for Fensfeltet in Nome, home to Europe’s largest documented deposit of rare earth minerals. Nome’s municipal council requested the step Tuesday evening to accelerate development and secure financing. Industry expects the state takeover to roughly halve time-to-operation. Sp and Rødt argued the step doesn’t go far enough and called for a fully state-owned mineral company.

Sources: NRK · Dagsavisen · TU

Statnett freezes all new large-scale power reservations in Nord-Norge

Statnett has temporarily halted all new electricity consumption reservations above 5 MW north of Svartisen, citing projected regional demand growth of around 60% from seafood-industry expansion, transport electrification, and defence investments. The standard consumption limit in East Finnmark was also lowered from 5 MW to 1 MW. Høyre and FrP sharply criticised the government’s energy policy in response.

Sources: TU · TU — reaksjoner

Midt-Norge fikk Europas dyreste strøm — og ingen forklarer det

Despite abundant Fosen wind production, Midt-Norge posted Europe’s highest electricity prices in April 2026 — paradoxically rising the harder the wind blew. Explanations vary: a major Trøndelag grid bottleneck, low reservoir levels, planned outages, the 2024 Flow-Based Market Coupling. The energy minister admitted confusion about how the coupling mechanism works. The r/norge thread headline: “Ingen har noen god forklaring.”

Sources: VG

Mandatory open source for public sector under consideration

Digitalisation Minister Karianne Tung (Ap) is pushing to substantially strengthen open source requirements across Norwegian government agencies — 75% of which currently rely on Microsoft products. The initiative, which cites Germany’s planned 2028 mandate, targets vendor lock-in, licensing costs, and digital sovereignty concerns amid broader nervousness about strategic dependence on US tech firms.

Sources: Digi.no

Midtøsten-uro truer norsk jernbane

Train manufacturer Alstom has formally warned Bane NOR of potential force majeure, citing Middle East geopolitical instability affecting supply chains, material availability, and component pricing for Norwegian rail projects.

Sources: TU

Gassanlegg på høyeste sabotasjeberedskap siden 2022

Norway’s six coastal gas processing facilities — including Kårstø, which handles ~25% of Norwegian gas exports — are running crisis drills more frequently than at any point in their history, in response to PST’s assessment that Russia may attempt sabotage operations against Norwegian infrastructure in 2026. Norway now supplies ~30% of Europe’s gas imports. Measures cover both physical hardening and cybersecurity upgrades.

Sources: NRK Rogaland

Hotell- og restaurantstreiken trappes opp til 3 000+

The wage dispute between Fellesforbundet/Parat and NHO Reiseliv escalated Thursday morning as over 1,000 more hotel workers walked out at 08:00, bringing the total past 3,000 nationwide. Trondheim, Tromsø, and Sandefjord are among the worst-hit cities. The union confirmed no negotiations are scheduled: “We are ready to meet whenever they are ready to move, but they have not done so far.” The strike is expected to continue for an extended period.

Sources: NRK · NRK Troms og Finnmark · Aftenposten

Togulykke i Danmark — fire kritisk skadd

Two passenger trains collided head-on near Kagerup north of Copenhagen, injuring at least 17 people — four critically. Danish police describe it as a serious high-speed accident near a level crossing. Emergency services from across North Zealand were dispatched.

Sources: NRK · TU · Aftenposten

Svalbard-permafrosten tiner rekordtidlig

Ground temperatures at Svalbard reached 0°C at 20 cm depth in April — unprecedented timing, according to meteorologists. April is normally a frozen month at these latitudes. The record-early warming is the latest marker of accelerating Arctic climate change on the archipelago.

Sources: NRK

Norway — Street Level

Russland bygger “fiendtlig Norge”-narrativ

Researchers from UiT and Institutt for forsvarsstudier document how Russia is deliberately constructing a narrative portraying Norway as a hostile country, as part of broader hybrid influence operations — with geographic focus on border areas like Kirkenes and Sør-Varanger. Commentary on the thread warned readers to keep this in mind when domestic figures repeat NATO-skeptic disinformation.

Sources: Nettavisen

Axacator: 20 timer på case — så null ansettelser

TV2 reported on applicants’ anger at debt-collection firm Axacator, which required seven of eight interview candidates to spend roughly 20 hours on a 19-page assignment — developing product concepts, financial models, implementation plans — before rejecting everyone without making a hire. Candidates suspected the company was harvesting free ideas; Axacator acknowledged the scope was excessive.

Sources: TV2

Krympflation: vaskemiddel kutter vask med 40%

A r/norge user documented a classic shrinkflation move: a detergent brand redesigned packaging from 250 ml at 5 ml per wash (50 washes) to 300 ml at 10 ml per wash (30 washes) — cutting effective washes by 40% while the larger bottle implies more product. Active ingredient concentration appears reduced. Price reportedly unchanged.

Sources: r/norge

Tech

Mozilla + Claude find 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox 150

Mozilla’s Firefox team collaborated with Anthropic’s Claude (Mythos Preview) to ship patches for 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox 150 — an unprecedented scale of AI-assisted discovery. Mozilla argues this represents a turning point where defenders get a decisive edge in the zero-day arms race. Whether AI-driven large-scale vulnerability discovery becomes standard defensive practice — or a cat-and-mouse race with the Lazarus side of the ledger — remains to be seen.

Sources: Mozilla · Lobsters

OpenAI’s macOS signing pipeline hit by Axios supply-chain compromise

On March 31, the widely-used JavaScript library Axios was compromised. A malicious version was pulled by a GitHub Actions workflow in OpenAI’s macOS app-signing process, giving it access to code-signing certificates for ChatGPT Desktop and Codex. OpenAI found no evidence of successful certificate exfiltration or user data exposure due to timing, and has rotated certificates and released updated app builds. A sharp reminder of CI/CD supply-chain surface area.

Sources: OpenAI · Hacker News

Claude Code pricing scare: Anthropic accidentally published a $100/month restriction

On April 22, Anthropic’s pricing page briefly updated to restrict Claude Code to $100+/month Max plans — up from the $20 Pro tier — causing widespread developer-community alarm. The change was reversed within hours; an Anthropic employee clarified it was an error: public-facing pages were mistakenly updated while a small 2% test was running for new signups. Simon Willison’s breakdown cuts through the confusion.

Sources: Simon Willison · Lobsters

Reversing SynthID: Google’s AI watermark is extractable and forgeable

Hacker Factor’s analysis of Alosh Denny’s reverse-engineering of SynthID finds the watermark pattern is consistent and extractable — and argues this makes things worse, not better. It opens the door to injecting or stripping the watermark to manipulate Google’s training pipeline, enabling misattribution and data poisoning. The post frames AI watermarking as a regulatory fig leaf rather than a genuine safeguard.

Sources: Hacker Factor · Lobsters

Firefox/Tor cross-origin fingerprint via IndexedDB

Fingerprint.com researchers found non-deterministic IndexedDB entry ordering in Firefox exposes a stable, process-scoped identifier that leaks across origins — letting unrelated sites correlate a user’s activity within a browser session. The vulnerability is especially severe in Tor Browser, where it survives the “New Identity” reset. Mozilla patched in Firefox 150 and ESR 140.10.0 (bug 2024220) by sorting results before returning them.

Sources: Fingerprint.com · Hacker News

LLM over-editing: models rewrite more code than necessary

A write-up and metrics for the tendency of coding LLMs to rewrite more code than necessary when fixing bugs — “over-editing.” Measured across frontier models (GPT, Claude, etc.), shown to be widespread, and reducible through RL training that rewards more minimal, faithful edits without degrading general coding ability. Practical for anyone using coding assistants for targeted fixes.

Sources: nrehiew.github.io · Hacker News

Using LLMs to find bugs in Python C extensions

LWN on using LLMs to systematically surface memory-safety and correctness bugs in Python’s C-extension layer — reasoning about C memory semantics at scale and finding bugs that traditional static analysis and fuzzing miss.

Sources: LWN · Lobsters

Zed launches parallel agents with multi-worktree orchestration

Zed now supports orchestrating multiple AI agents in parallel within a single editor window via a new Threads Sidebar — grouping threads by project, mixing models per-thread, isolating worktrees per agent, and monitoring all agents simultaneously. The release reflects Zed’s “agentic engineering” philosophy: keeping the developer in control while scaling AI-assisted work across independent tasks. Available in the latest release, opt-in for existing users.

Sources: Zed · Hacker News

ChatGPT Workspace Agents — persistent, org-wide

OpenAI introduces Workspace Agents — persistent AI agents deployable organisation-wide with admin-configured access to integrated tools (web, code execution, files, connected services). Agents persist state and are invokable by team members: OpenAI’s move toward organisation-level agentic infrastructure rather than individual-use AI.

Sources: OpenAI · Hacker News

Forge: unified CLI for GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, Forgejo, Bitbucket

Andrew Nesbitt built Forge, a unified CLI and Go module providing a consistent interface across multiple git forges. Targets the friction of cross-platform work with incompatible APIs, designed with AI coding agents in mind alongside humans.

Sources: nesbitt.io · Lobsters

David Crawshaw’s new cloud

David Crawshaw (Tailscale co-founder) announces exe.dev, a new cloud-infrastructure company targeting what he argues are fundamental flaws in existing providers’ VM isolation, storage, and networking costs. Thesis: current clouds were designed around 2006-era constraints and are ill-suited for modern workloads — especially as AI agents drive increased software development.

Sources: crawshaw.io · Hacker News

Apple patches iPhone bug used by law enforcement to recover deleted chats

Apple has patched a vulnerability that allowed law-enforcement forensic tools to recover deleted chat messages from iPhones. The bug was actively exploited by extraction tools used by police forces. The fix lands in the latest iOS update.

Sources: TechCrunch · Hacker News

What async promised, and what it delivered

A critical retrospective tracing three generations of async programming — callbacks, promises/futures, async/await — arguing each solved the previous ergonomic problem while introducing new structural costs (callback hell → promise type splits → function colouring and “futurelocks”). The author contends async/await’s “sequential trap” hides parallelism and accumulated ecosystem fragmentation outweighs the gains, pointing to Go goroutines, Java virtual threads, and Zig’s interface-based runtime selection as more principled alternatives that avoided colouring entirely.

Sources: Causality · Lobsters

Borrow-checking without type-checking

A deep exploration of runtime borrow-checking in a dynamically-typed language — using reference counting on the stack to track owned, borrowed, and shared references. Enables interior pointers and explicit stack allocation while preserving value semantics, with overhead limited to refcount operations at reference creation/destruction. Shows borrow-checking is a memory-safety mechanism orthogonal to static type systems.

Sources: scattered-thoughts.net · Hacker News

The edge of safe Rust: generativity-based GC with internal raw pointers

A TokioConf 2026 talk writing up garbage collection with circular references in safe Rust — progressing from Vec-based indexing to a generativity-based design that keeps all unsafe code internal while exposing a safe API. The pattern is underappreciated; real-world examples live in Ruffle (Flash emulator) and Fields of Mistria.

Sources: kyju.org · Lobsters

LemmaScript: formal verification for TypeScript via Dafny

LemmaScript is a TypeScript-to-Dafny compiler that lets developers add formal verification to TypeScript code without changing the executable source — annotations live as comments, making it non-invasive for existing codebases. Bridges practical TypeScript work with Dafny’s correctness proofs, for both greenfield and brownfield projects.

Sources: Midspiral · Lobsters

How Shazam’s audio fingerprinting actually works

A clear technical explainer of Shazam’s core algorithm: extracting spectrogram peaks, building constellation maps, generating combinatorial hash pairs, and matching against a database in constant time regardless of database size. Walks through the specific design choices that make it robust to noise, recording artifacts, and partial clips.

Sources: Per Thirty-Six · Lobsters

Linux & Infrastructure

wdotool: xdotool for Wayland, built around Hyprland

A new Wayland-native automation tool that fills the gap left by xdotool. Unlike ydotool — which writes directly to /dev/uinput, requiring root, bypassing the compositor, and breaking in sandboxed sessions — wdotool uses native Wayland protocols: libei via XDG RemoteDesktop portal, wlroots virtual-keyboard/pointer, D-Bus for compositor-specific scripting. Dedicated backends for Hyprland, Sway, GNOME, and KDE. Standout feature: runtime keymap generation — the wlroots backend uploads temporary keymaps with one keycode per character, enabling arbitrary text injection without server-side changes. Directly relevant if you rely on xdotool-based scripts.

Sources: GitHub · r/hyprland

Sensee: local-only gesture control for Home Assistant

A gesture-based smart home control system in public beta. A local engine with a camera runs MediaPipe + OpenCV for real-time hand gesture detection; a companion Flutter app maps gestures to HA actions over the local network. No cloud, no voice. Stores only an HA URL and long-lived access token in a local config file.

Sources: GitHub · r/homeassistant

Self-hosted personal finance: n8n + Actual Budget + SimpleFIN + Claude

A detailed homelab setup combining Actual Budget (self-hosted), n8n for automation, the SimpleFIN bridge for bank sync, and Claude Haiku via the Anthropic API for AI-assisted transaction categorisation. The n8n workflow is open-sourced. A practical example of composing self-hosted tools with LLM APIs for personal automation without handing data to a third-party finance app.

Sources: GitHub · r/selfhosted

Twenty v2.0: self-hosted CRM turns into an app-building framework

Twenty 2.0 is out — the biggest release since the project launched. Headline feature: the ability to build apps on top of the CRM without forking, positioning Twenty as a framework layer above standard web frameworks with extensibility as a first-class concern. Open-source self-hosted alternative to Salesforce/HubSpot.

Sources: GitHub · r/selfhosted

NASty v0.0.4: Docker runtime rewrite, bcachefs 1.38

NASty — the NixOS-based NAS OS built on bcachefs — v0.0.4 ships a rewritten Docker/compose runtime with syntax highlighting and live output, full bcachefs 1.38 support with per-subvolume options, a new file browser with preview/download, a nasty-top monitoring tool, audit logging, and firmware update support. NFS, SMB, iSCSI, NVMe-oF, built-in Tailscale VPN, NixOS atomic updates. Note: requires UEFI firmware (OVMF for Proxmox — SeaBIOS won’t work).

Sources: GitHub · r/NixOS

ie-r: a Linux color picker with first-class NixOS support

The author of Instant Eyedropper (a Windows color picker maintained for 20 years) has ported it to Linux as ie-r. Works on Wayland and X11, supports 10 color formats (HEX, RGB, HSL, HSV, CMYK, etc.), multi-monitor with fractional scaling, HiDPI magnification, configurable hotkeys, and a system tray with history. First-class NixOS support: nix run github:miaupaw/ie-r or nix profile install. Flake handles desktop files and KWin authorisation automatically.

Sources: GitHub · r/NixOS

Reaction: log-scanning daemon packaged for NixOS via NGI

Reaction scans program outputs for repeated patterns and takes action — primary use case being scanning SSH and web server logs to ban hosts with repeated auth failures (fail2ban alternative). Now packaged for both NGIpkgs and nixpkgs proper, funded by the NGI0 Core grant. Solid choice if you’re running public-facing services on NixOS.

Sources: NixOS Discourse

Terminal-top: TUI dashboard with panels authored as Nix domain files

A Haskell/Brick TUI dashboard where each display panel is configured via .nix files in a domains/ directory — auto-discovered without manual registration. Contributors write high-level constructs (headlines, stats, sparklines, tables) rather than raw JSON, and a Nix validation module provides path-aware error messages at evaluation time. The runtime uses a pre-built JSON baked into the binary, so the dashboard itself has zero Nix runtime dependency. A clean example of Nix-as-configuration-language rather than build system.

Sources: NixOS Discourse

“yo”: voice assistant as a NixOS flake module with build-time intent compilation

A flake-based voice assistant for NixOS where intent data and the fuzzy index are precompiled at build time — faster than runtime-compiled alternatives. Users define voice-driven scripts declaratively within the module. Fits the NixOS philosophy well: evaluated once, not at runtime.

Sources: r/NixOS

Portable devenv.sh environments via Nix flakes

A write-up on making devenv.sh developer environments portable across machines via Nix flakes — structuring devenv config so it composes cleanly and travels with the project. The flake integration enables sharing environments without Docker or separate tooling.

Sources: r/NixOS