Britain’s government has backed a tortured effort to build a third runway at Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, throwing its weight behind a decades-old proposal that has been beset by political, legal and environmental challenges.

The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister), Rachel Reeves, gave a green light to the ambitious plan and a swathe of other infrastructure projects in a major speech on Wednesday, in a push for economic growth.

The announcement is a major moment for one of the world’s most expensive and controversial aviation projects. Since 2003, Heathrow has said its terminals and runways are running near capacity, and that a £14 billion ($17.3bn) expansion is needed to keep up with the pace of tourism and business travel.

But environmental campaigners have bitterly resisted the plans, arguing it would jeopardize Britain’s net zero commitments.

Reeves said on Wednesday that a third runway would “make Britain’s the world’s best-connected place to do business,” and insisted that ministers “cannot duck the decision any longer.”

A third runway is “badly needed,” she argued, adding: “There are emerging markets and new cities around the world that we aren’t connected to because there aren’t the slots at Heathrow – or indeed any other airport – to fly to.” Heathrow said it served 83.9 million passengers last year, its busiest year on record.

It could still be years until work starts on a new runway; the government will assess proposals from this summer, and the final plan will likely require a parliamentary vote and could see legal challenges. The pre-pandemic plan for a third runway was blocked by a court on environmental grounds in 2020, before the Supreme Court overturned that decision.

The UK has made a legally-binding commitment to reach net zero (where greenhouse gas emissions equal emissions removed from the atmosphere) by 2050. Non-profit organization Transport & Environment said Wednesday’s announcement was “dystopian,” insisting major airports like Heathrow should reduce flight numbers and focus on becoming hubs for sustainable aviation fuel.

Heathrow expansion was the centerpiece of a range of announcements made by Reeves on Wednesday. Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer have pledged to unpick the country’s labyrinthine planning laws, and Reeves took direct aim at environmental requirements that have stalled large-scale construction efforts.

Reeves said she would “stop blockers getting in the way of development” and reduce environmental requirements placed on developers if they pay into a centralized nature restoration fund, “so they can focus on getting things built, and stop worrying about the bats and the newts.”

“I have been genuinely shocked about how slow our planning system is,” Reeves said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Other plans backed on Wednesday include the building-up of the so-called Oxford-Cambridge Arc – the corridor of land between two of the world’s leading universities – which Reeves pitched as “Europe’s Silicon Valley.”

Britain has been plagued by low economic growth and a number of costly, high-profile projects, like a new high-speed rail line, have been announced, challenged, delayed and then shelved in recent decades.

Starmer’s Labour government, which came to power in July, has made the reversal of those trends its priority. But even those lofty aspirations succeed, the government must also tackle the short and medium-term grievances of a population dismayed by crumbling public services, comparatively low wages and crises in housing supply, migration and the cost of living.

The three Israeli hostages due to be released in Gaza on Thursday have been named by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office (PMO), which also confirmed that five Thai nationals will be freed.

“The list of names received from Hamas today by the mediators Qatar and Egypt includes: Arbel Yehud (29 years old), Agam Berger (19) and Gadi Moses (80),” the PMO said.

The names of the five Thai citizens to be freed have not made public.

A total of 33 Israeli hostages taken captive by Hamas and other armed groups in the October 7 attacks were set to be freed in phase one of the ceasefire and hostages release deal between Israel and Hamas. Two rounds of releases have already taken place.

Eight of the remaining Israeli hostages set to be released are dead, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said on Monday.

All three Israeli hostages named for release on Thursday are believed to be alive, according to the Hostage and Missing Families Forum.

Yehud was kidnapped from her home in the Nir Oz kibbutz, along with her partner Ariel Cunio, the forum said on Wednesday.

Moses, a grandfather and keen agronomist, was taken from the same kibbutz community.

Berger was an Israeli soldier abducted from a military base beside the Nahal Oz kibbutz.

“We will not give up or stop at any stage until all hostages return home – down to the very last one – the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial,” the forum said.

Moses’ family said Wednesday they had “received with great excitement the wonderful news of our beloved Gadi’s return to us tomorrow,” thanking “the people of Israel for their embrace and support.”

Israel will also release almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in the first part of the agreement.

The ceasefire delivered a reprieve for the people of Gaza, after more than 15 months of Israeli bombing following the October 7 attacks.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Britain’s Princess Beatrice has given birth to a daughter named Athena Elizabeth Rose Mapelli Mozzi, Buckingham Palace announced Wednesday.

Beatrice’s second daughter was born at 12.57 p.m. local time on January 22, weighing four pounds and five ounces, the palace said in a statement. She was born at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, it added.

“Their Majesties The King and Queen and other members of The Royal Family have all been informed and are delighted with the news,” the statement reads.

Beatrice is the elder daughter of Prince Andrew, King Charles’ younger brother, and Sarah Ferguson. The princess and her husband, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, thanked hospital staff for their “wonderful care.”

Both mother and baby are “healthy and doing well,” the statement adds.

Beatrice and Mapelli Mozzi, who is a real estate manager, married in a secret ceremony at Windsor Castle in July 2020, attended by her grandparents, the late Queen Elizabeth II and the late Prince Philip.

Athena joins older siblings Sienna, to whom Beatrice gave birth in September 2021, and Wolfie, who is Mapelli Mozzi’s son from a previous relationship.

Athena’s first middle name is a tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth. Her sister, whose full name is Sienna Elizabeth Mapelli Mozzi, was also named after the monarch.

Sienna and Athena are not the late Queen’s only great-grandchildren to have been given a name that honors her.

In June 2021, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex welcomed their second child, a daughter.

The couple named her Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, a nod to the Queen’s childhood nickname and to Harry’s mother, the late Princess Diana.

Australian police have said they foiled a potential antisemitic attack on discovering a trailer packed with explosives in northwest Sydney, alarming the Jewish community following a spate of arson and graffiti incidents.

New South Wales (NSW) Police discovered the caravan on a rural property in Dural on January 19, after being contacted about the vehicle, the force’s Deputy Police Commissioner David Hudson told a news conference Wednesday.

The trailer contained explosives and an “indication” they would be used in an antisemitic attack, Hudson added.

A joint counter terrorism team comprised of NSW Police, Australian Federal Police (AFP), NSW Crime Commission and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) have launched an investigation. Over 100 officers have been mobilized.

Hudson added that “periphery” arrests had been made, but they were still searching for perpetrators who may have been involved. He asked anyone who might have seen the vehicle parked in a “hazardous position” to come forward.

According to Hudson, the current threat to the Jewish community has been contained. “We understand the concerns of the Jewish community and we take these threats exceptionally seriously,” he said.

Hudson also stressed during the conference that the discovery of the van signaled a possible change from the type of antisemitic attacks recently seen in Sydney, including graffiti and arson.

“This is certainly an escalation of that, with the use of explosives that have the potential to cause a great deal of damage,” he said.

NSW State Premier Chris Minns said in a statement: “I want to make it incredibly clear that anyone attempting this level of violence will be met with the full force of a massive and growing police response.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the act, saying that “hate and extremism have no place in Australian society.”

Former al Qaeda member Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, has been named as Syria’s president for a transitional period.

“We announce the appointment of Commander Ahmad al-Sharaa as head of state during the transitional period. He will assume the duties of the president of the Syrian Arab Republic and represent the country in international forums,” commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, spokesman for the Syria Military Operations Command, said in a statement Wednesday.

“The president is authorized to form a temporary legislative council for the transitional phase, which will carry out its duties until a permanent constitution is enacted and put into effect,” Ghani added.

The command also announced several resolutions, including the suspension of the country’s constitution, the dissolution of the country’s parliament, and the dissolution of the former regime’s army and its Baath party.

Al-Sharaa was the leader of the main militant group that spearheaded the lightning offensive that led to the overthrow last year of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose regime had been in power for several decades.

His task now will be rebuilding a country torn apart by more than a decade of civil war that has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced millions more, according to the UN. The conflict broke out during the 2011 Arab Spring when the Assad regime suppressed a pro-democracy uprising and soon plunged into a full-scale war that pulled in other regional powers from Saudi Arabia and Iran to the United States and Russia and enabled ISIS to gain a foothold – for a while – in the country.

Shortly before he was named president, Al-Sharaa said the Assad regime had “left behind deep societal, economic, political and other wounds, and fixing them requires great wisdom, hard work and doubled effort.”

A sense of duty was what Syria “needs today more than ever,” he said.

“Just as we were determined in the past to liberate it, our duty now is to be determined to build and develop it,” Al-Sharaa added.

Who is Ahmad al-Sharaa?

Al-Sharaa became a Syrian “foreign fighter” in his early 20s, crossing into Iraq to fight the Americans when they invaded the country in the spring of 2003. That eventually landed him in the notorious US-run Iraqi prison, Camp Bucca, which became a key recruiting ground for terrorist groups, including what would become ISIS.

Freed from Camp Bucca, he crossed back into Syria and started fighting against the Baathist Assad regime, doing so with the backing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would later become the founder of ISIS.

In Syria, he founded a militant group known as Jabhat al-Nusra (“the Victory Front” in English), which pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, but in 2016, he broke away from the terror group, according to the US Center for Naval Analyses.

Since then – unlike al Qaeda, which promoted a quixotic global holy war – Al-Sharaa’s group, now known by the initials HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), has undertaken the more prosaic job of trying to govern millions of people in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, providing basic services, according to the terrorism scholar Aaron Zelin who has written a book about HTS.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Lots of hair shedding, tons of fun and a constant invasion of your personal space.

That’s what you’re going to get with a pug, according to Cheryl Gaw, who has seen more than a few of the squashed-nosed pups in her time.

Gaw has rescued more than 2,500 pugs in South Africa over the years after she and her husband sold their house, lived in a trailer home for a while and generally reset their lives to help as many dogs in need as they could.

They eventually established their Pug Rescue South Africa in Johannesburg in 2010 because of an overflowing number of dogs in their house. It was “never part of the plan” when they looked ahead to their retirement, said Gaw, who is 63. “Of course, the pugs won,” she added.

The center is currently home to nearly 200 pugs, the latest batch who have hit hard times and need a helping paw. Some of them were abandoned, some sick, and many were given up by owners who couldn’t look after them anymore.

Gaw’s pug life started in 2008 when her husband, Malcolm, gave her one as a gift. At a pug club, someone asked if they’d be interested in providing a foster home for “a couple” of pugs. In the first year, the Gaws provided a temporary home to 60 pugs and had 19 in their home at one point — too much fur for one small house.

“They are known as the clowns of the dog world, and they can make you laugh,” said Gaw, giving her own breed guide. “Always in your space. They’re just an amazing, lovable breed. And you always have hair on you.”

The rescue center’s staff do their best to keep order. The routine is: 5.15 a.m., the dogs wake up and come out of the cottages where they sleep in groups according to their “age and personality,” said Gaw. Then there’s breakfast, medication for those that need it, bathtime, playtime, grooming time, midday snacks, afternoon rest, more playtime, evening meal, more medication, and all pugs back in their rooms between 6-7 p.m.

Fights occasionally break out. The veterinary bill for the center is nearly $40,000 a year, and it’s a constant process of rescue, rehabilitation, and then trying to rehome them, with more pugs arriving all the time.

“The operation doesn’t stop,” said Gaw.

There is a reason why so many pugs need a new home. Their short muzzles, a mark of the breed, give rise to breathing problems and other health issues like eye and ear infections, she said. A pug’s vet costs are not to be sniffed at and Gaw warns prospective owners to do their homework and get a good pet insurance policy: “You’re going to need it.”

Many of the pugs have come to the Gaws because their owners can’t afford those vet bills. Be prepared for their problems, she said, and also the hair, which she can’t stress enough.

“They shed an enormous amount of hair,” she said. ”You can brush them all day long, they still shed.”

The junta-led West African nations of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have formally withdrawn from the regional bloc known as ECOWAS, the body said Wednesday.

The previously announced withdrawal, which marks the culmination of a yearlong process during which the group tried to avert an unprecedented disintegration, “has become effective today,” ECOWAS said in a statement.

The bloc, however, said that it has also decided to “keep ECOWAS’ doors open,” and requested member nations to continue to accord the trio their membership privileges, including free movement within the region with an ECOWAS passport.

ECOWAS president Omar Alieu Touray told reporters in Nigeria’s capital Abuja that despite the split, the bloc hopes to still collaborate with the countries in tackling some of the region’s challenges, including the deadly extremist violence ripping through the region.

The split “worsens a legitimacy crisis of ECOWAS which has often failed people’s expectations in upholding the rule of law,” said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

“That the three poorest member states decided to leave the bloc makes ECOWAS in the eyes of its citizens look even more like a loser in this conflict,” he said.

Widely seen as West Africa’s leading political and regional authority, the 15-nation ECOWAS was formed in 1975 to “promote economic integration” in member states. It has struggled in recent years to reverse coups in the region where citizens have complained of not benefitting from rich natural resources.

The bloc has since grown to become the region’s top political authority, often collaborating with states to solve domestic challenges on various fronts from politics to economics and security.

In parts of West Africa, however, ECOWAS has lost its effectiveness and support among citizens, who see it as representing only the interests of the leaders and not that of the masses, said Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center think tank.

After coming into power, the juntas in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso announced that they were leaving ECOWAS. They then created their own security partnership known as the Alliance of Sahel States, severed military ties with longstanding Western partners such as U.S. and France, and turned to Russia for military support.

It’s the first time in the bloc’s half-century of existence that its members have withdrawn in such a manner. Analysts say it’s an unprecedented blow to the group that could threaten efforts to return democracy and help stabilize the increasingly fragile region.

ECOWAS said that its members were also required to treat goods and services coming from the three countries in accordance with ECOWAS regulations and provide full support and cooperation to ECOWAS officials from the countries during their assignments.