Issue #20245: The open functions in the tarfile module now correctly handle empty mode.
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 7d950d1..c1221b5 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -35,6 +35,9 @@
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #20245: The open functions in the tarfile module now correctly handle
+  empty mode.
+
 - Issue #20086: Restored the use of locale-independent mapping instead of
   locale-dependent str.lower() in locale.normalize().