World

Hormuz still shut — Trump reviews Iran proposal, Merz calls US ‘humiliated’

The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Iran has offered to reopen it in exchange for the US lifting its naval blockade and ending hostilities, but Trump rejected the proposal because it does not address Iran’s nuclear programme. The UN Secretary-General warned the standoff risks triggering a global food emergency. Iran’s foreign minister traveled to Moscow and praised the “stronger than ever” Russia-Iran relationship, while German Chancellor Merz publicly stated the US is being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership, with “no end in sight.” NYT reports the war has depleted US missile stockpiles so severely it would take years to rebuild.

AP · Al Jazeera · Reuters · The Guardian · NRK · E24

Mali: Wagner retreats from Kidal as insurgents overrun towns

The coordinated JNIM and Tuareg offensive that killed Mali’s defense minister is widening. Russian Wagner-affiliated fighters confirmed their withdrawal from the northern city of Kidal, exposing the limits of Russia’s military backing for the ruling junta. Analysts say the insurgents cannot topple the government but can force it into retreat and embarrass its Russian patrons — a scenario that looked hypothetical a week ago.

The Guardian · The Guardian (Russia angle) · The Guardian (analysis) · BBC · Al Jazeera

Pakistan bombs Afghan university days after peace talks

Pakistan struck a university campus and civilian homes in Kunar province with missiles and mortars, killing at least 7 and wounding 85 — days after both countries held peace talks. Pakistan dismissed Afghan media reports as a “blatant lie”; the Taliban-led government condemned the strikes as a serious escalation.

The Guardian · BBC · r/worldnews

Colombia highway bombing death toll rises to 21

The Pan-American Highway bombing in the Cajibio region — Colombia’s deadliest attack on civilians in decades — now stands at 21 dead and 56 injured. President Petro blamed a cocaine-trafficking rebel group led by a former FARC commander known as ‘Marlon’ and posted a record $1.4 million reward for his capture. The attack comes just weeks before Colombia’s elections.

The Guardian · Al Jazeera · BBC

Nigeria: 29 killed at football pitch, 23 children kidnapped from orphanage

ISIL’s West Africa affiliate attacked a football pitch in Adamawa State, killing at least 29. Separately, gunmen raided an orphanage in Kogi State and kidnapped 23 children and the facility’s manager — part of a continuing wave of violence across multiple Nigerian regions.

The Guardian · Al Jazeera · BBC

Canada launches sovereign wealth fund

PM Carney announced Canada’s first sovereign wealth fund, open to direct public investment, to finance infrastructure and reduce economic dependence on the US. In pointed remarks, he said some tariff-relief offers from Washington are “worthless” — Canada “won’t be chasing a small deal.”

CBC · BBC · r/worldnews

Trump fires entire National Science Foundation board

The Trump administration dismissed all members of the independent NSF governing board, declaring their positions “terminated, effective immediately.” Critics called it a “dangerous attack” on US scientific innovation — continuing the administration’s pattern of dismantling independent federal oversight bodies.

The Guardian · Al Jazeera

Pope Leo signals shift away from sexual morality emphasis

Pope Leo indicated the Catholic Church intends to de-emphasize sexual ethics — a departure that could reshape stances on homosexuality, contraception, and related issues for 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. The signal builds on his predecessor’s more open tone and marks a potential doctrinal reorientation.

Reuters · r/worldnews

Ukraine

Deep-strike campaign widens: Tuapse hit again, three warships damaged

Ukrainian drones attacked the Tuapse oil refinery overnight — the second strike in eight days. The April 20 attack destroyed 24 storage tanks and damaged four more; the new strike ignited fires before the previous ones had been fully extinguished. The General Staff also confirmed the April 26 strike on the Yaroslavl refinery damaged a vacuum distillation unit. Separately, a large SBU strike on Crimea overnight April 26–27 damaged three Russian warships — landing ships Yamal and Filchenkov plus a third vessel — and a MiG-31 fighter. Both landing ships were relocated to Korabelna Bay, likely due to damage. The sustained campaign against Russian energy infrastructure and naval assets is widening at the same time that Russia’s economy minister admits reserves are spent (see leader).

Ukrainska Pravda · Kyiv Independent · Kyiv Independent (Crimea) · r/ukraine

123 drones overnight — hospital hit in Konotop

Russia launched its largest drone wave in days: 123 Shaheds overnight April 27–28, with Ukrainian air defences intercepting 95. Strikes and debris fell across 20 locations. A hospital and residential buildings were damaged in Konotop; one person was killed and five injured in Kryvyi Rih. The prior night’s strike on Odesa caused a sunflower oil spill into Chornomorsk port. Zelensky reported ~1,900 strike drones in the past week, with interception rates above 90%.

Ukrainska Pravda · Ukrainska Pravda (Konotop) · Ukrainska Pravda (Kryvyi Rih)

Pokrovsk axis still hottest — Russia using gas pipelines for infiltration

226 combat clashes in the past day. Russia launched 52 attacks on the Pokrovsk front alone, accumulating tanks and artillery while probing northwest settlements — but faces worsening logistics, with troops reporting shortages of food and medicine. Near Kupyansk, Russian forces are channeling infantry through gas pipelines toward the Oskil left bank despite sustaining up to 70% casualties in such assaults — a tactic now confirmed as a recurring pattern. Russian forces also claimed the village of Ozerne northeast of Slovyansk.

Ukrainska Pravda · ISW Assessment Apr 27

Vance driving Ukraine aid halt; Russia’s demands extend far beyond Donetsk

JD Vance is reportedly not just talking about halting Ukraine aid but actively shaping US policy in that direction — a harder signal than Trump’s ambiguous “constructive” rhetoric. Meanwhile, DNR head Denis Pushilin publicly stated Russia needs a “buffer zone” in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and must fully seize the remainder of Zaporizhia Oblast — directly contradicting Kremlin framing that the only open issue is Ukraine’s refusal to cede unoccupied Donetsk.

Kyiv Independent · ISW Assessment Apr 27

Nord Stream book: Ukrainian divers say they placed the bombs

A new book, reported by a Danish newspaper, contains testimony from Ukrainian divers who claim they placed time-delayed explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea in 2022. If confirmed, it would be the most direct admission of Ukrainian state or state-linked involvement in the sabotage to date.

Dagsavisen · TU

Norway

Strongest earthquake in 22 years shakes Oslo region

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake struck near Sørumsand northeast of Oslo on Sunday — the most powerful tremor in the region since 2004. Houses shook across greater Oslo and walls moved at NTB’s offices in the city centre. No damage or injuries were reported, but NORSAR experts warn they cannot rule out a quake 100 times stronger, and a separate report reveals Oslo lacks specific contingency plans for major seismic events.

TU · TU (expert warning) · TU (contingency)

Statnett freezes Northern Norway — NHO warns of de-industrialisation

Statnett has stopped accepting new grid reservations for industrial projects north of Svartisen in Nordland, blocking roughly 30 planned ventures in seafood, food production, manufacturing, and renewables. NHO sent a crisis letter to the government warning the decision amounts to “de-industrialisation of Northern Norway.” The energy ministry pointed to grid reliability concerns and promised regulatory changes, including allowing national security considerations in capacity allocation. Fornybar Norge is separately calling for emergency wind power construction in the region.

NRK · TU · TU (wind) · E24

Norge brukte mer på forsvar enn USA per innbygger

New NATO figures show Norway spent more on defence than the United States — both as a share of GDP and per inhabitant — in 2025. Frp’s Sylvi Listhaug argues this is still insufficient, calling for more funding and workforce investment. The government also changed rules to allow employees at the Defence Research Establishment (FFI) to own equity and start companies to commercialise defence technology.

Aftenposten · TU · Dagsavisen · DN

Renteheving ventet før sommeren — Norge mest utsatt

Handelsbanken is forecasting Norges Bank will raise interest rates before summer, with two hikes expected in 2026. Their analysts argue Norway faces “a significant inflation problem that emerged even before the conflict in the Middle East.” Economists note Norway is the most exposed developed economy to rate increases given high household debt levels.

E24 · E24 (exposure) · DN

Foxtrot recruited children as young as 12 to bomb Oslo

Three teenagers from Rogaland (aged 16–17) have been charged with planning an explosion in Oslo city centre last autumn on behalf of the Foxtrot criminal network. According to the indictment, two of the accused used Snapchat and Telegram to try to recruit boys as young as 12 to carry out the attack. One was to receive explosives and detonate them at an unspecified location in Oslo sentrum. The case is linked to the broader series of Foxtrot explosions in Oslo last autumn.

NRK · NRK (recruitment)

Epstein-saken: Økokrim signs real-time evidence pact with France

Økokrim has signed an agreement with French investigators allowing real-time sharing of evidence in the probe of former Norwegian diplomat couple Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen. The two are accused of receiving services and goods of significant value from Jeffrey Epstein between 2011 and 2018. France is conducting a parallel investigation “in the same sphere.” Lead prosecutor Marianne Bender confirmed material will be shared as it is gathered, rather than through slower mutual legal assistance channels.

NRK

Regjeringen vil forby sosiale medier for under 16

The government will introduce legislation before the end of 2026 prohibiting social media access for those who have not yet turned 16, mirroring Australia’s approach. Frp is strongly opposed, calling it “an attack on freedom of speech,” but a Storting majority from other parties appears likely to support the ban.

Digi.no · Digi.no (Frp)

Salmon industry bought billions in Russian fish feed since the invasion

Norwegian aquaculture companies have purchased billions of kroner worth of fish feed ingredients from Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The US ambassador to Norway criticised the industry publicly, saying buyers “risk contributing to loss of life.”

E24

KI-juks «ustoppelig» før vårens eksamener

AI models now produce student-quality writing indistinguishable from human work. Experts say censors have virtually no chance of catching AI cheating during this spring’s exams. Education minister Tonje Brenna urges students to practise answering exam questions without AI: “you know more than you think.”

NRK · Dagsavisen

Tech

Microsoft-OpenAI exclusivity ends — revenue sharing over

The exclusive arrangement between Microsoft and OpenAI has been restructured. Exclusivity is gone, revenue sharing is over, and OpenAI can now freely use AWS and Google Cloud. OpenAI committed to $250B in Azure purchases and will pay Microsoft a share of non-Azure revenue through 2030 (capped). Microsoft retains its 27% equity stake but surrenders right of first refusal on compute. OpenAI reportedly threatened antitrust action to force the restructuring.

Bloomberg · HN

GitHub Copilot moves to usage-based billing

GitHub is shifting Copilot from flat subscription pricing to usage-based billing, metering completions and chat interactions. This changes the cost calculus for enterprises and heavy users who previously paid a fixed rate regardless of consumption.

GitHub Blog · HN

Musk vs. OpenAI: $150 billion trial begins

Elon Musk’s lawsuit demanding $150 billion from Sam Altman’s OpenAI began in court. Musk alleges OpenAI breached its founding mission as a nonprofit pursuing safe, open AI for humanity’s benefit. The outcome could reshape the legal and commercial structure of the AI industry, including OpenAI’s planned for-profit transition.

Digi.no

Kasada anti-bot fully cracked — Nike, Twitch, Kick exposed

A security researcher reverse-engineered the Kasada JavaScript virtual machine protecting Nike, Twitch, Kick, Footlocker, and others. The system relied entirely on obfuscation — hardcoded seeds, XOR encryption with extractable keys, and a deterministic Fisher-Yates opcode shuffle with a recoverable permutation table. By brute-forcing time windows and reconstructing the 172-opcode ISA, they built a complete decompiler and an automated solver running in 30–50ms per request. The core lesson: security-through-obscurity fails when a sufficiently motivated analyst has time to read bytecode.

emro.cat · Lobsters

Isabelle’s creator pushes back on “just use Lean”

Lawrence Paulson — creator of Isabelle at Cambridge — argues formal mathematics shouldn’t consolidate around Lean alone. His specific critiques: dependent types require undecidable type checking and leave systems carrying “tens of megabytes of giant terms that denote nothing,” while Isabelle’s simple type theory foundation is more tractable for deep theorem proofs. His broader point: formal methods have always thrived through diversity, and premature consensus stifles innovation.

lawrencecpaulson.github.io · HN · Lobsters

SVG sanitization has more XSS vectors than you think

A detailed account of building an SVG sanitizer for Scratch, documenting the many places JavaScript hides in SVG: event handlers on arbitrary elements, <script> tags, <use> href references loading external content, CSS animations triggering script execution, and URL attributes most sanitizers don’t inspect. A useful checklist for anyone handling user-supplied SVGs.

muffin.ink · HN

FDA approves first gene therapy for genetic hearing loss

The FDA approved the first gene therapy for hereditary hearing loss caused by OTOF gene mutations. The treatment delivers a functional copy of the otoferlin gene and has restored hearing in children after a single administration — a meaningful milestone as gene therapy moves from rare metabolic diseases into sensory disorders.

FDA · HN

Linux & Infrastructure

Hyprland merges Lua configuration support

The lua branch was merged into Hyprland on April 26, enabling full Lua-based configs as an alternative to hyprlang. Migration is opt-in: Lua activates only when a hyprland.lua file is present alongside the existing .conf file. The feature enables dynamic behavior, callbacks, and programmatic configuration that wasn’t possible in hyprlang. Plugin integration, LSP support, and emergency binds are still TODOs.

GitHub PR #13817 · r/hyprland

Quickshell gaining momentum as the Hyprland widget toolkit

Several independent projects this week showcase Quickshell as a composable widget layer for Hyprland: a layout-morphing universal widget that adapts from icon to full-screen for any purpose, a Spotlight-style launcher with web search and calculator, and the Unit-3 Nier Automata-themed dotfiles built entirely on Quickshell. It’s emerging as the de facto toolkit for custom Hyprland shell components.

Determinate Systems: Nix has crossed its inflection point

Determinate Systems argues Nix has reached mainstream adoption driven by four converging forces: LLMs lowering the learning curve (Nix’s strict pass/fail builds pair well with AI feedback loops), supply chain opacity from AI-generated software making Nix’s explicit closures more valuable, enterprise adoption by Shopify, Anthropic, Google, and Replit, and edge hardware proliferation where reproducible builds matter. GitHub’s Dependabot now supports Nix.

Determinate Systems · r/NixOS

pgBackRest abandoned after Snowflake acquires Crunchy Data

pgBackRest, a widely-used PostgreSQL backup tool maintained for 13 years, is no longer actively maintained. After Crunchy Data was acquired by Snowflake, its principal maintainer lost corporate sponsorship and spent over a year unable to find a funded position. The project receives no bug fixes or security patches. Recommended alternatives: WAL-G, Barman, and pgMoneta.

GitHub · HN

Niri v26.04: window blur, NixOS-friendly config, 2–3× faster rendering

The scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor ships window blur via the ext-background-effect protocol, optional config file includes (useful for NixOS setups), a push-based rendering architecture 2–3× faster at building render lists, improved screencasting with cursor metadata, and fixed IME in pop-ups. The project crossed 20,000 GitHub stars.

GitHub Release · Lobsters

26-nanosecond clock precision from a $29 eBay GPS module

Using a decommissioned Oscilloquartz OSA-5401 GPS-disciplined PTP grandmaster in SFP form factor (~$29 on eBay) plugged into a Raspberry Pi 5, a homelab operator achieved ±26ns clock precision — 45× better than GPS PPS alone. Two key fixes: hardware timestamping on the NIC (without it, PTP degrades to NTP-level accuracy), and compensating a 58.3μs latency bias from the GPSDO’s STM32 interrupt path. Total hardware cost: ~$100.

Austin’s Nerdy Things · Lobsters