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A UK airport with international flights is set to undergo a multi-million redevelopment – its first in nearly a decade.

Belfast City Airport in Northern Ireland has revealed the latest plans for its £200million expansion.

The plans are part of the airport’s Master Plan 2040 and would include expanding passenger facilities as well as creating new airfield infrastructure.

There will be new airport access as well as a new forecourt, additional parking and a hotel.

There are currently no plans to extend the airport though.

The airport is also hoping to increase its operating hours from 15 to 16 hours per day.

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In addition, the airport wants to increase its annual flights from 48,000 to 61,000.

Other plans include a potential new rail connection.

The wider 2040 plan includes serving up to seven million passengers per year, compared to just 2.36million today.

Eventually there will be new aircraft stands, aprons and a taxiway too.

Routes from the airport are mainly to other UK destinations, but there are flights to Amsterdam as well as seasonal routes to destinations including Majorca in Spain.

Matthew Hall, Chief Executive of Belfast City Airport, said: “Delivery of our Master Plan is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that will benefit passengers and businesses across the region, whilst delivering key elements of the Northern Ireland Executive’s Programme for Government.

“Every airport on the island of Ireland will need to play its part in meeting future demand, and this draft Master Plan exemplifies Belfast City Airport’s commitment to doing so, while reinforcing our position as a vital economic enabler for the region.

“We want more passengers to arrive by public transport and leave their cars at home, hence a focus on greener journeys within the Master Plan.

He added that they have partnered with Translink to look into creating a new rail halt linking the airport with Belfast city centre on the Bangor line.

WhatsApp says the feature is designed to give its three billion users a new layer of control over who can contact them.

WhatsApp will let users go by usernames instead of phone numbers, closing a longstanding privacy gap on the app used by more than three billion people.

The Meta-owned platform said on Monday that it has begun letting users reserve unique usernames before a wider rollout later this year when people will be able to choose to be found and contacted only by their handles.

WhatsApp said the change was designed as a core privacy feature with no public directory of usernames and no autocomplete suggestions, meaning users will need to know someone’s exact username to reach them for the first time.

WhatsApp offers end-to-end encrypted communication across smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. Until now, it has allowed users to be contacted by anyone who has their phone number.

The app said in a blog post that over the “coming months”, users will get the option to be found and contacted only by their username, and not their number. It wasn’t more specific about the timeline.

“We have designed this as a core privacy feature,” Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp’s vice president of product, told reporters.

“People will need to know your exact username to contact you for the first time,” she said.

WhatsApp’s current privacy settings are limited to blocking individual users and silencing unknown callers.

The app also allows users to add a profile name, but that’s only displayed in chat groups for other people who don’t have the user’s contact info saved.

A scramble for unique usernames

While people in the United States still prefer text messaging to WhatsApp, the app is widely used in Europe, Asia and much of the rest of the world.

Catchy online handles are highly coveted, and users will likely scramble to claim a desirable one.

“I think a lot of people will go and get usernames, and that’s why we decided to open reservations early,” Newton-Rex said.

Companies, organisations and creators with existing accounts on Meta’s social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, will get the chance to claim their usernames on WhatsApp.

Usernames need to be three to 35 characters. To prevent impersonation, WhatsApp will hold back usernames for high-profile people or groups, such as celebrities, public figures and government entities.

“The Pitt” has put “ER” veteran Noah Wyle back where he excels: a fictional emergency room. But this time, Wyle has assumed far more control over the Emmy chaos by producing and directing as well as acting.

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In 2025, Wyle won the lead drama actor Emmy for playing complicated miracle worker Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, plus a producing prize for drama series.

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Wyle was nominated five times (1995-1999) without winning for his supporting performance as Dr. John Carter on “ER,” his first hospital-set collaboration with producer John Wells.

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Nominations that “ER” actors Wyle, Julianna Margulies, Anthony Edwards, Sherry Stringfield, Eriq La Salle, George Clooney, Laura Innes, Gloria Reuben, CCH Pounder and Maura Tierney amassed in supporting and lead categories.

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Emmy wins that resulted from those nominations: Margulies’ supporting triumph in 1995.

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“The Pitt” doubled that haul in one season, with Wyle’s lead and Katherine LaNasa’s supporting wins. (And added a guest actor Emmy for Shawn Hatosy, who moves up to supporting in Season 2.)

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Wyle could grab three more nominations this time around, including for his “Pitt” directing debut (Season 2, Episode 6).

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He also no longer competes against his co-stars, as he did with La Salle, and as at least eight “Pitt” performers (LaNasa, Taylor Dearden, Fiona Dourif, Sepideh Moafi, Isa Briones, Patrick Ball, Gerran Howell and Hatosy) could this year.

Spain is redoubling its efforts to push its tourist appeal beyond the familiar “sun and sand and coast” model as it prepares for another record-breaking year in which the number of foreign visitors could reach 100 million for the first time, the country’s tourism minister has said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Jordi Hereu rejected suggestions that Spain was now saturated with tourists but said it had become clear that the “old formulas no longer work”, especially amid growing concerns about overtourism and the effects of the climate emergency.

Hereu, the minister of industry and tourism, said the steady growth in tourist numbers – which could be further boosted this summer by uncertainty over Middle Eastern destinations after the US and Israel’s war on Iran – could be managed sustainably and responsibly.

Last year, the number of foreign tourists rose by 3.2% to 96.8 million, while the value of their spending grew by 6.8% to hit €134bn (£116bn). Figures from the first quarter of this year show tourist numbers up by 3.4% and revenue up by 6.7%.

“With that growth, we could reach 100 million,” Hereu said. “But I’d like to point out that that doesn’t worry us or obsess us … [We favour] what I call calm growth – in other words, growth that can be easily managed. And this year, despite what’s happening and the demand diversion effect, I think that in general, for the moment, our forecast is for moderate growth.”

While tourism has long been a pillar of the Spanish economy, making up more than 12% of its GDP, its rapid and unchecked growth in many parts of the country over recent years has triggered protests and a furious backlash. Overtourism, not least the proliferation of tourist flats, has changed the face of entire neighbourhoods and cities, priced locals out of the housing market and increased pressure on public services and natural resources.

Asked if the current rates of tourism were sustainable, Hereu said: “Yes, if we do our homework, and no if we don’t do anything.” The minister, a former mayor of Barcelona, praised his successor in that role, Jaume Collboni, a fellow socialist, for pushing ahead with a decision to ban tourist flats in the Catalan capital by 2028, but he said Spain’s highly decentralised nature made it hard for the central government to drive local change. He also contrasted the different approaches of leftwing and rightwing administrations.

“I think there are places in Spain that are now seeing the effects of not regulating anything,” he said. “But I also want to be very clear, because this is also influenced by political stripes. The left is more in favour of regulating tourism than the right, because the right holds the view that we should allow freedom because the market will self-regulate, which isn’t true, and in many places it’s clear that it isn’t self-regulating.”

Hereu said that while he believed anti-tourism feeling was “very much a minority thing” in Spain, it was becoming increasingly clear that a new approach was needed and that local and regional authorities needed to properly limit, regulate and tax their tourist offerings.

“What I do believe is that in some places there’s a demand for better tourism in the sense of a better model,” he said. “But the culture I see throughout Spain is a culture of a country that knows how to welcome people. Our key principle is that we’re in favour of transforming the model to keep ahead and that we’re working humbly to transform that model because the old formulas no longer work.”

Although he defended traditional beach tourism, which still makes up 37% of all visits, and said Spain had to be open to “all sectors” of the market, he noted that people were now seeking experiences beyond their sun loungers.

“It’s very interesting to see in the qualitative surveys that people who come basically because ‘hey, I’m here to relax, sun and beach, etc,’ also start asking for add-ons – like ‘beach plus’,” Hereu said. “I think this is also a good trend, because what we need is to add value.”

The minister said Spain’s socialist-led coalition government was committed to the socially, economically and environmentally sustainable principles set out in its 2030 tourism strategy.

“One is decentralising destinations over time and we’re also working towards deseasonalisation,” he said. “The third, very clear principle is the diversification of our offering away from all those decades of sun and sand and coast, which is where the [Spanish tourist industry] was born, and which is still the dominant offering.”

Although Spain has been pushing the summery charms of its eastern and southern coasts for decades, Hereu argues that the key to sustainable tourism lies in making it less seasonal, less beach-fixated and more geographically and culturally diverse.

The country’s current advertising campaign, called Think You Know Spain? Think Again, swerves sun-kissed costas to focus instead on images of churches, paradores, orange groves, folk festivals, food, wine, lakes, green spaces, handicrafts and brown bears. It even features rain.

“You don’t see any coastal beaches; instead, it’s inland Spain and the green Spain of the north,” he said. “So, it’s about decentralising and discovering other realities. And what’s happening? Low and mid season are growing much more than high season, and the inland, green Spain is growing much more than the majority segment.”

Spain’s reliance on tourism was laid bare during the Covid pandemic. In 2020, international visitor numbers dropped by 77% to just 18.9 million. That led the government to invest €3.4bn of EU next generation funds in a plan to modernise and transform the sector.

According to Hereu, that investment has allowed less visited areas of Spain – such as Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and Navarre – to develop their tourist markets.

“There’s a lot of potential there, and that’s where we need growth to happen,” he said. “Because, for example, on the Mediterranean coast, especially now, in the high season, there are limits.”

The minister believes that diversifying and decentralising the tourist industry can help Spain tackle depopulation by ensuring that young people don’t have to leave their home towns in search of work elsewhere. Lengthening the season would also help to provide more stable employment, he added.

“Before it was June, July, August and, at most, September,” he said. “But now people open in April, May or June, and we have more stability. October is also very important now, and the truth is, in some cases chains tell me they’re open almost all year round. This also gives us more job stability, and it’s obvious that salaries also have to increase, right? You have to attract people to the sector and retain them. And that’s good news because it also brings social stability and a redistribution of profits.”

Hereu said the government was also seeking to help the industry adapt to the effects of the climate emergency, which are becoming ever more evident in Spain in the form of droughts, heatwaves, forest fires, floods and rising sea levels. He said renewable energy, efficient water use and good waste management could all help mitigate the consequences of the crisis.

It was now abundantly clear, he added, that sticking to the old model would be a mistake. “We’d have the opposite of what we have now – we’d be growing the number of tourists rather than the spending value,” he said. “And 1781961576 we are growing more in value than in number.”

Claire Danes’ performance in Netflix’s “The Beast in Me” appears like a lock for an Emmy nomination for lead actress in a limited series or TV movie. In typical fashion, Danes left it on all the floor in portraying a reclusive author who suspects her developer neighbor (Matthew Rhys) of misdeeds.

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The Golden Globes rarely get it as right as they did in awarding Danes the drama series best actress award, at 15, for ABC’s “My So-Called Life.”

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The lifespan of the authentic teen drama that introduced viewers to Danes’ unique emotional translucence, counted in episodes.

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Danes also received an Emmy nomination for the series — the first of eight for acting so far.

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She is the second-youngest Emmy nominee ever for lead actress in a drama series, between Melissa Sue Anderson (15, for “Little House on the Prairie”) and Kristy McNichol (17, for “Family”).

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Danes won an Emmy for playing the real-life animal science professor in the HBO movie “Temple Grandin,” and two for playing complex CIA officer Carrie Mathison on Showtime’s “Homeland.”

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Span of years between Danes’ first and 2026 nominations, if she receives one.

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Danes’ Emmy longevity may not equal the likes of Carol Burnett, nominated in 2024 for “Palm Royale” 62 years after her first, but it’s mighty impressive for someone Danes’ age.

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There’s even a contender in her category this year whose span between nominations would be longer than Danes’ lifetime: Sally Field, who appears in Netflix’s TV movie “Remarkably Bright Creatures.”

Jason Bateman could snag limited series Emmy nominations for his lead role as a deep-in-debt barman on Netflix’s “Black Rabbit” and supporting role as a sexually adventurous weatherman on HBO’s “DTF St. Louis.” Drawing more than one nomination in a year has been the norm for Bateman.

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Bateman’s previous Emmy nominations encompass acting, directing and producing.

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His lone Emmy win came in 2019, for directing an episode of his Netflix crime drama “Ozark.”

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The former child actor’s first nomination, as lead of the Fox (later Netflix) comedy “Arrested Development,” came in 2005. Bateman’s adult “comeback” has lasted 21 years and counting.

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Times he has received multiple nominations in a year, most often for acting in, directing and producing “Ozark.”

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“Black Rabbit” and “DTF St. Louis” would mark his second time receiving acting nominations for different shows in the same year.

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Bateman competed for drama lead for “Ozark” and guest actor for HBO’s “The Outsider.”

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Bateman is overdue for an acting Emmy. His brilliant straight-man work in “Arrested Development” lost out to Emmy juggernauts Tony Shalhoub (“Monk”) in 2005 and Jim Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory”) in 2013.

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The Actor Awards have been kinder: Bateman won three lead actor statuettes for “Ozark.”

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The guilds already have spoken on “Black Rabbit,” with Bateman receiving Actor, DGA and PGA nominations.

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Also a producer on “DTF St. Louis,” Bateman has a shot at five Emmy nominations this year.