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Duration - 3:24
[a video on Peertube about Cuba from the news collective Belly Of The Beast]

Last year, ICE detained Heidy Sánchez at an scheduled immigration appointment and deported her to Cuba within days, separating her from her husband and two-year-old daughter in Tampa.

Belly of the Beast spoke with her in Havana after her deportation. She had an immigration lawyer, who helped her apply at the U.S. embassy for a visa to reunite with her family in the United States.

More than a year has passed, and her requests to return to the United States have gone unanswered.

In July, four Democratic members of Congress met with Heidy as she recounted the moment ICE took her daughter from her arms.

Plastic Pollution Treaty negotiations at a turn - International Science Council

Dramatic tilt increase and a surge in earthquakes point to a new intrusion of magma beneath Kīlauea. Geology professor Shawn Willsey discusses new data and activity

Scientists have identified what may be an entirely new subspecies of whale living in Earth’s oceans.

Genetic analysis suggests the Arabian Sea humpback could be a fourth subspecies of humpback whale, according to research published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

The discovery follows 25 years of whale studies in Oman conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society working closely with the Environment Society of Oman (ESO).

From the newsletter:

We’ve recently released tailcat, a remix of pieces of Tailscale that gives you a way to use the open-source Tailscale data plane without the Tailscale control plane, written by the people who made Tailscale.

Specifically, tailcat is both an open-source Go package and a CLI tool using that package. It lets you run a server-side listener and a client to connect to that server, moving bidirectional bytes back and forth.

Potential usage info from the website link - https://tailscale.com/tailcat:

Setting up a tailnet makes sense when you need governable access, identity, and policy. Sometimes you don’t. You might need to SSH into a development environment for an hour. Give an agent access to a test machine for one task. Connect a game session. Move a file between two machines. Tailcat gives you a secure connection without requiring either side to become part of a larger network.

A technical explanation from the github:

Tailcat is a remix of Tailscale open source pieces to act like netcat, but over Tailscale's data plane, without Tailscale's control plane. Tailscale's data plane (magicsock, internally) gives you point-to-point WireGuard®-encrypted tunnels between two machines with DERP as the NAT-hole-punching communication side channel and the ultimate relay-of-last-resort if NAT traversal fails. Instead of using the Tailscale control plane, all tailcat connection metadata is exchanged out of band, however you want.

License: BSD 3-Clause License

Chinese refiners suspend October fuel exports, sources say

OpenMandriva has published refreshed installation images for ROME, its rolling-release edition, combining the distro’s current software stack in the new 26.09 snapshot.

OpenMandriva ROME 26.09 ships with Linux kernel 7.2 by default, while kernel 7.3-rc4 is also available for users who want to test the upcoming series. The distro also provides kernels in both Clang-compiled and GCC-compiled variants.

On the desktop side, KDE Plasma has been updated to 6.7.5, accompanied by KDE Gear 26.08.1 and KDE Frameworks 6.29. GNOME users get version 50.3, while LXQt moves to 2.4. Xfce remains on the 4.20 series, and MATE 1.28 now includes an experimental Wayland session.

The repositories also contain newer releases of Hyprland, COSMIC Desktop, Niri, Sway, i3, IceWM, Qtile, and several other window managers and desktop environments.

Under the hood, a significant change is the move to RPM 6.1. OpenMandriva has extended it with an optional %pgo section for spec files to simplify Profile-Guided Optimization when building packages. Several packages already use this feature alongside broader Link-Time Optimization.

The development toolchain has also moved forward. LLVM/Clang 23.1.2 is now the default compiler, GCC has been updated to 16.2, and the distribution ships glibc 2.44.

Graphics support comes with Mesa 26.2.3 and ROCm 10.0, including patches aimed at extending ROCm support to older Radeon GPUs. For NVIDIA hardware, the open NVIDIA kernel module has been moved directly into the kernel, avoiding situations where it becomes out of sync after kernel updates. The proprietary driver has meanwhile been updated to version 610.57.

Interestingly, another notable addition is Snap support. OpenMandriva already supports Flatpak with Flathub enabled and AppImage, but users can now install snapd from the repositories. The project stresses that native RPM packages remain its preferred format due to tighter system integration and reduced duplication.

The Plasma and LXQt editions have a new default browser. Helium 0.17.2 replaces ungoogled-chromium and is based on that project, restoring selected Chromium functionality without reintroducing Google services. OpenMandriva has adapted Chromium Embedded Framework to use Helium, allowing OBS Studio to use a CEF plugin based on the browser.

For gaming, ROME 26.09 includes Wine 11.18 with WoW64 support, Proton 11, DXVK 3.0.2, vkd3d 2.0, and vkd3d-proton. The Steam installer available through the non-free repository has also been updated to version 1.0.0.86.

Moreover, the release brings Qt 6.11.2, GTK 4.22.5, PipeWire 1.6.9, FFmpeg 9.0, GStreamer 1.28.6, Firefox 156, Thunderbird 155, LibreOffice 26.8, GIMP 3.2.4, Blender 5.2.2, and Krita 6.0.4, which has now moved to Qt 6.

OpenMandriva has also expanded the selection of local AI software available from its repositories, including Ollama, llama.cpp, Whisper.cpp, Stable Diffusion.cpp, ComfyUI, KoboldCpp, Aider, and several other tools. Many use the system-wide GGML library with GPU acceleration through ROCm, Vulkan, or OpenCL.

For additional details, see the announcement.

The refreshed ROME 26.09 images are available in Plasma X11, Plasma Wayland, and GNOME Wayland editions, with community-maintained LXQt, MATE, and Xfce spins also offered. Plasma and LXQt images are available for regular x86_64 systems as well as optimized znver builds for AMD Ryzen processors. An AArch64 server image is available too.

One exception is COSMIC Desktop: a ROME 26.09 COSMIC installation image was held back because of an issue with the login manager. Existing COSMIC users can continue updating normally, while new users can install it from the repositories.

Since 2010, F-Droid has been the go-to place for downloading free and open source apps for Android. Its client app is the one people interact with the most, and it has received many upgrades over the years.

But now it's time for a massive rewrite that has emerged from more than a year of development and numerous test releases.

A comprehensive redesign

Kotlin replaces the original Java codebase, and the interface has been rebuilt on Jetpack Compose. The result is an app that follows Material Design throughout, so that it looks and behaves like it belongs on a modern Android device.

The app's bottom bar now has three sections: Discover for browsing, Search for queries and quick access to categories, and My Apps for tracking installed apps, updates, and issues.

You will also find that the Settings menu has moved to the top-right, being placed alongside the new Repositories menu.

Coming back to the Discover page, it has been configured to highlight newly added apps, recently updated ones, and the most downloaded ones in the repository. Related categories are grouped together, making it easier to browse the full catalog without getting lost in a long list.

Search now handles categories, app descriptions, and translated content in addition to app names, and results for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean queries have improved. Your search history is also saved for future queries.

Filtering has been reworked too; results can be narrowed by anti-features, device compatibility, and category all at once.

What else's changed?

This is how the old F-Droid app looks in comparison.

The app now checks for updates in the background by default, removing the need for the pull-to-refresh gesture that used to trigger repository scans. Of course the manual check is still available from the My Apps page once you go into the three-dot menu.

Similarly, the app hiding feature for changing F-Droid's logo to a calculator app has been moved into the Settings menu under "App Icon," and the Nearby app sharing tool has been temporarily removed.

Concluding their announcement, F-Droid stated that:

F-Droid 2.0 represents a major milestone, but it is not the end of the story. Rebuilding the app has given us a stronger foundation, yet there is still plenty of work ahead.

As the rollout reaches more users, we expect to learn a great deal from real-world usage. Community feedback has shaped F-Droid 2.0 from its earliest design discussions through many alpha and RC releases, and it will continue to guide future improvements.

A looming threat

Last year in August, Google announced that starting 2027, every Android app developer would need to register with the company, providing government-issued ID, signing key evidence, and a fee.

This way, apps from unregistered developers would be blocked from running on certified Android devices.

Of course F-Droid didn't sit by idly; one of their board members, Marc Prud'hommeaux, launched the Keep Android Open campaign in response, which has since brought together over 70 organizations from 20+ countries.

Its signatories include big names like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, KDE, Proton, Codeberg, VideoLAN, LineageOS, CryptPad and the Tor Project.

Seeing that we are shy of the 90-day mark for this absurd lockdown to occur, F-Droid introducing such a major update only strengthens their stance of not backing down to Google's strongarming tactics. Get F-Droid 2.0

This revamp is rolling out gradually over the coming weeks, so if you haven't received this on your existing installation, just wait. For new installations, it is a similar situation, as the latest stable release is still v1.23.2.

On the other hand, if you can't be bothered with practicing the virtue of patience, then you could download the latest 2.0 beta build from the packages portal.

Since 2010, F-Droid has been the go-to place for downloading free and open source apps for Android. Its client app is the one people interact with the most, and it has received many upgrades over the years.

But now it's time for a massive rewrite that has emerged from more than a year of development and numerous test releases.

A comprehensive redesign

Kotlin replaces the original Java codebase, and the interface has been rebuilt on Jetpack Compose. The result is an app that follows Material Design throughout, so that it looks and behaves like it belongs on a modern Android device.

The app's bottom bar now has three sections: Discover for browsing, Search for queries and quick access to categories, and My Apps for tracking installed apps, updates, and issues.

You will also find that the Settings menu has moved to the top-right, being placed alongside the new Repositories menu.

Coming back to the Discover page, it has been configured to highlight newly added apps, recently updated ones, and the most downloaded ones in the repository. Related categories are grouped together, making it easier to browse the full catalog without getting lost in a long list.

Search now handles categories, app descriptions, and translated content in addition to app names, and results for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean queries have improved. Your search history is also saved for future queries.

Filtering has been reworked too; results can be narrowed by anti-features, device compatibility, and category all at once.

What else's changed?

This is how the old F-Droid app looks in comparison.

The app now checks for updates in the background by default, removing the need for the pull-to-refresh gesture that used to trigger repository scans. Of course the manual check is still available from the My Apps page once you go into the three-dot menu.

Similarly, the app hiding feature for changing F-Droid's logo to a calculator app has been moved into the Settings menu under "App Icon," and the Nearby app sharing tool has been temporarily removed.

Concluding their announcement, F-Droid stated that:

F-Droid 2.0 represents a major milestone, but it is not the end of the story. Rebuilding the app has given us a stronger foundation, yet there is still plenty of work ahead.

As the rollout reaches more users, we expect to learn a great deal from real-world usage. Community feedback has shaped F-Droid 2.0 from its earliest design discussions through many alpha and RC releases, and it will continue to guide future improvements.

A looming threat

Last year in August, Google announced that starting 2027, every Android app developer would need to register with the company, providing government-issued ID, signing key evidence, and a fee.

This way, apps from unregistered developers would be blocked from running on certified Android devices.

Of course F-Droid didn't sit by idly; one of their board members, Marc Prud'hommeaux, launched the Keep Android Open campaign in response, which has since brought together over 70 organizations from 20+ countries.

Its signatories include big names like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, KDE, Proton, Codeberg, VideoLAN, LineageOS, CryptPad and the Tor Project.

Seeing that we are shy of the 90-day mark for this absurd lockdown to occur, F-Droid introducing such a major update only strengthens their stance of not backing down to Google's strongarming tactics. Get F-Droid 2.0

This revamp is rolling out gradually over the coming weeks, so if you haven't received this on your existing installation, just wait. For new installations, it is a similar situation, as the latest stable release is still v1.23.2.

On the other hand, if you can't be bothered with practicing the virtue of patience, then you could download the latest 2.0 beta build from the packages portal.

yt-dlp has over 195,000 stars on GitHub, supports thousands of platforms, and is actively maintained by a global developer community. Unfortunately, the IFPI would like to see it on the EU's piracy watchlist.

Just so you know, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) represents around 8,000 music labels across 70 countries.

In its submission to the EU's Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List consultation, the group calls yt-dlp "a major problem for the music industry" and names four of its maintainers by their GitHub handles.

A Piracy Watch List?

Run by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Trade and Economic Security, the Watch List identifies online services and physical marketplaces outside the EU reported to engage in or facilitate copyright infringement.

While it sounds serious, the undertaking isn't meant to gather legal findings and does not mandate any form of direct action. It's closer to a naming exercise intended to pressure operators and governments outside the EU into addressing the identified services.

The 2027 edition is being compiled from submissions received through September 2026, with the final list expected in Q2 2027. What does their submission say?

IFPI's submission covers a wide range of copyright enforcement concerns, from AI music generators and cyberlockers to streaming fraud services and domain registrars. yt-dlp appears under the "stream ripping" section, grouped with commercial websites like Y2mate and Savefrom.

They describe the tool as an application that retrieves content by parsing web page data and interacting with platform playback endpoints, with GitHub serving as the primary delivery method for its source code, pre-compiled binaries, and installation instructions.

IFPI names four of the project's maintainers by their GitHub handles: pukkandan, who founded the project and led it between 2021 and 2024, and some core maintainers mentioned in the project's Maintainers.md file, like coletdjnz, bashonly, and Grub4K.

The same submission also flags X, Discord, Telegram, and Vimeo as platforms facilitating copyright infringement at scale.

It's a tool, not a service

The Watch List, as described by the European Commission, targets online service providers and physical marketplaces located outside the EU. yt-dlp fits neither description in any conventional sense.

IFPI acknowledges this by noting that the project's open source nature, its Unlicense licensing, and an extensive international developer community make it "difficult to contain and/or remove."

From their point of view, there's no central domain to block, no payment processor to cut off, and no hosting provider to strongarm into complying with a takedown request.

The source code is distributed globally and can be compiled by anyone with the skills to do so. But that doesn't mean yt-dlp is a piracy platform.

It's a command-line tool for downloading audio and video content, and categorizing it alongside dedicated ripping or piracy websites conflates a general-purpose downloader with services whose primary purpose is facilitating unauthorized copying. Closing thoughts

The Watch List has been used in connection with enforcement against commercial stream-ripping platforms before.

Y2mate.com and eleven other stream-ripping sites were shut down in Vietnam in 2025, and Y2mate had previously appeared on the list.

Before that, in 2024, a German court held the host provider for youtube-dl.org liable in connection with facilitating circumvention. This shows that grouping an open source command-line tool with those commercial services in the same breath does not, by itself, make the tool one of those.

Thunderbird 157 is now available, bringing a long list of fixes across mail handling, authentication, encryption, calendars, and account setup, along with a couple of new controls aimed at enterprise deployments.

One notable fix addresses an issue where Thunderbird’s status bar could remain active after an operation finished, potentially pushing CPU usage to 100%. The release also fixes cases where the message list displayed the wrong sender and where sent messages silently failed to save to the IMAP Sent folder.

OpenPGP users get several improvements. Thunderbird 157 fixes an issue that could cause valid RSA OpenPGP keys to be rejected and prevent encryption. Key discovery can now correctly locate replacement keys after an existing key is revoked. The client can also display remote content in OpenPGP messages encrypted with integrity protection.

On the authentication side, intermittent Gmail OAuth2 failures on Windows have been addressed, along with SMTP OAuth2 problems caused by large access tokens. Exchange users should see more reliable NTLM authentication after password changes. Another fix targets SMTP AUTH LOGIN failures following username challenges.

Moreover, Thunderbird could hang while waiting for an IMAP server greeting during account setup. Pending message moves inside the same IMAP account could sometimes make messages disappear. Both issues are fixed in version 157. Plus, manual IMAP and POP configuration is also simplified, as specifying a port is now optional.

Calendar and contacts users are covered too. The update fixes recurring events appearing beyond their configured end date, outdated CalDAV task content after synchronization, CalDAV invitations failing when accepted before a calendar synced, and some CardDAV address books failing to synchronize.

On the enterprise side, administrators now have two additional policies: DisableChat, which disables Thunderbird’s Chat functionality, and DisableFileLink, which disables FileLink. Plus, the built-in Thundermail add-on has been updated to version 2.0.16.

Rounding things out are fixes for disappearing inline images in edited drafts, incorrectly triggered message filters, blank Yahoo messages under certain MIME handler configurations, the Quick Filter keyboard shortcut, and various visual and UX issues.

For additional details, see the announcement

Surprisingly, it's LGPL v2.

The Sequoia PGP is part of the default seed, with the sq package in the main repo and officially supported. It’s said to provide a “modern, and memory-safe OpenPGP implementation”.

Ubuntu isn’t making Sequoia the distribution’s default OpenPGP toolchain. It ships preinstalled, but lives alongside the standard implementation.

However, the goal is to make Sequoia PGP Ubuntu’s default in the near future, with sq and sqv replacing gpg and gpgv.

For now, gpg will still invoke GnuPG, while sq (or an app configured to use Sequoia’s libraries) calls on Sequoia. Users can run e.g., sq sign or sq verify instead of gpg from the command line to try it too.

Canonical says adopting Sequoia will enable Ubuntu to maintain OpenPGP interoperability while benefiting from a “more maintainable and memory-safe foundation”.

It’s not the only Rust-related change in the new Ubuntu release, either. Ubuntu 26.10 ships a full set of Rust-based core utilities out-of-the-box, completing work that began in 25.10. GNU-versions of cp, mv, and rm are now provided by uutils.

Canonical’s engineers plan to ‘oxidise’ more foundational packages in future releases. A Rust rewrite of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) being eyed for inclusion as the default time sync client in Ubuntu 27.04.

The company is also a gold sponsor of the Trifecta Tech Foundation, paying €40,000 a year to help fund work on Rust software.

US tells France and Germany to release diesel stocks or face US export ban, sources say

https://web.archive.org/web/20261001085543/https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/01/switzerland-glacier-loss-fossil-fuel-pollution-europe

Refreshing honesty from Anthropic