Several improvements to the HTML NEWS version:

* rename to "Changelog"
* recognize more issue links
* add NEWS as a dependency for Sphinx

Doc/tools/sphinxext/pyspecific.py

@@ -149,10 +149,9 @@ class DeprecatedRemoved(Directive):
 
 import re
 import codecs
-from docutils.statemachine import string2lines
-from sphinx.util.nodes import nested_parse_with_titles
 
-issue_re = re.compile('Issue #([0-9]+)')
+issue_re = re.compile('([Ii])ssue #([0-9]+)')
+whatsnew_re = re.compile(r"(?im)^what's new in (.*?)\??$")
 
 class MiscNews(Directive):
     has_content = False
@@ -166,8 +165,10 @@ class MiscNews(Directive):
         source = self.state_machine.input_lines.source(
             self.lineno - self.state_machine.input_offset - 1)
         source_dir = path.dirname(path.abspath(source))
+        fpath = path.join(source_dir, fname)
+        self.state.document.settings.record_dependencies.add(fpath)
         try:
-            fp = codecs.open(path.join(source_dir, fname), encoding='utf-8')
+            fp = codecs.open(fpath, encoding='utf-8')
             try:
                 content = fp.read()
             finally:
@@ -176,8 +177,9 @@ class MiscNews(Directive):
             text = 'The NEWS file is not available.'
             node = nodes.strong(text, text)
             return [node]
-        content = issue_re.sub(r'`Issue #\1 <http://bugs.python.org/\1>`__',
+        content = issue_re.sub(r'`\1ssue #\2 <http://bugs.python.org/\2>`__',
                                content)
+        content = whatsnew_re.sub(r'\1', content)
         # remove first 3 lines as they are the main heading
         lines = content.splitlines()[3:]
         self.state_machine.insert_input(lines, fname)

Doc/whatsnew/news.rst → Doc/whatsnew/changelog.rst

-+++++++++++
-Python News
-+++++++++++
++++++++++
+Changelog
++++++++++
 
 .. raw:: html
 

Doc/whatsnew/index.rst

@@ -24,10 +24,10 @@ anyone wishing to stay up-to-date after a new release.
    2.1.rst
    2.0.rst
 
-The "Python News" is a HTML version of the file :source:`Misc/NEWS` which
-contains *all* nontrivial changes to Python.
+The "Changelog" is a HTML version of the file :source:`Misc/NEWS` which
+contains *all* nontrivial changes to Python for the current version.
 
 .. toctree::
-   :maxdepth: 1
+   :maxdepth: 2
 
-   news.rst
+   changelog.rst

Misc/NEWS

@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ Library
 - Issue #15509: webbrowser.UnixBrowser no longer passes empty arguments to
   Popen when %action substitutions produce empty strings.
 
-- Issues #12776, #11839: call argparse type function (specified by add_argument)
+- Issue #12776, issue #11839: call argparse type function (specified by add_argument)
   only once. Before, the type function was called twice in the case where the
   default was specified and the argument was given as well.  This was especially
   problematic for the FileType type, as a default file would always be opened,