From this isolated frontier post deep in the sands of the Sahara, the expelled migrants can be seen coming over the horizon by the hundreds. They look like specks in the distance, trudging miserably across some of the world’s most unforgiving terrain in the blistering sun.

They are the ones who made it out alive.

Here in the desert, Algeria has abandoned more than 13,000 people in the past 14 months, including pregnant women and children, stranding them without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under temperatures of up to 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit).

In Niger, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 15-kilometer (9-mile) no man’s land to Assamaka, less a town than a collection of unsteady buildings sinking into drifts of sand. Others, disoriented and dehydrated, wander for days before a U.N. rescue squad can find them. Untold numbers perish along the way; nearly all the more than two dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press told of people in their groups who simply could not go on and vanished into the Sahara.

“Women were lying dead, men….. Other people got missing in the desert because they didn’t know the way,” said Janet Kamara, who was pregnant at the time. “Everybody was just on their own.”

Her body still aches from the dead baby she gave birth to during the trek and left behind in the Sahara, buried in a shallow grave in the molten sand. Blood streaked her legs for days afterward, and weeks later, her ankles are still swollen. Now in Arlit, Niger, she is reeling from the time she…

Parliament approved plans to make Europe’s biggest airport even bigger, backing on Monday what the government described as the most important transportation decision in a generation.

The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly, 415-119, to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport after hours of debate on the 14 billion-pound ($18.6 billion) project. The decision follows decades of study and argument over how to expand airport capacity in southeastern England, and it is certain to be challenged in the courts.

Prime Minister Theresa May believes the project will boost economic growth while signaling the country’s commitment to expand international trade and transport links as it prepares to leave the European Union.

Neighbors and environmentalists object because of concerns about pollution, noise and the communities — some dating back hundreds of years — that will be destroyed.

Business groups strongly backed the government. They argued that increasing the capacity at Heathrow would be tantamount to putting out an “open for business” sign as Britain prepares to leave the European Union.

“This is a really important moment in the history of this House and the history of this country,” Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told the House of Commons as he appealed for lawmakers to “move on from decades of debate and set, to my mind, a clear path to our future as a global nation in the post-Brexit world.”

Opponents object to the third runway on environmental, noise and financial grounds. Friends of the Earth described it as a “morally reprehensible” move that would…

With hugs and kisses, family and friends of a Yemeni actor celebrated Monday after he and at least three other detainees were freed from prisons controlled by the United Arab Emirates in southern Yemen where they had been held without charges for nearly a year.

The actor, Nasser al-Anbari, a well-known comedian who appeared in TV shows and online videos, grinned and waved as he walked among the well-wishers in the southern city of Aden and motorists honked their car horns, a video filmed by his family shows.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was filming him while in disbelief,” said one of al-Anbari’s sons. When al-Anbari met with his wife, who has cancer, “the two wept,” the son said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.

The release on Monday came days after The Associated Press revealed that hundreds of Yemeni prisoners swept up in anti-terror raids by Emirati-backed forces have been subjected to torture and sexual abuse. In Aden’s Beir Ahmed prison, where al-Anbari was held, hundreds of inmates were forced to undress and Emirati officers searched their anal cavities March 10, claiming to be looking for contraband cellphones.

At least three others were also freed from various Emirati-linked facilities. One was an elder called Mahmoud al-Baydani, who used to work for the International Committee of the Red Cross to help mediate releases of hostages held by al-Qaida. He had been held at Beir Ahmed and another UAE-controlled prison in Buriqa. One of the others was held in a lockup in the house of Aden’s Emirati-backed security chief Shalal…

Electricians are extending a power line into a flooded cave in northern Thailand to help the search and rescue efforts for 12 boys and their soccer coach stranded three nights in the sprawling caverns and cut off by rising water.

Rescuers led by elite navy divers were forced to suspend their search Monday night due to flooding but were to resume Tuesday.

The boys, aged 11-15, and their 25-year-old coach were believed to have entered the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai province late Saturday afternoon. A mother reported that her son did not return from soccer practice that day, setting off the search.

The rising water frustrated efforts by the rescuers, including navy SEALs, to search farther in the cave, which is thought to be about 6-8 kilometers (4-5 miles) long and contain some large chambers. By Monday evening, officials decided to pull out temporarily.

Around midnight, Chiang Rai Gov. Narongsak Osottanakorn was with rescue teams and electricians working on extending a power line 1 kilometer (.6 miles) into the cave.

“We hope this would provide lights for work and fans for ventilation for the SEAL team,” Narongsak said. “Also, it means we can use electric engines to pump water out from the cave as well.”

Parents waited overnight in tents outside the cave entrance as rain continued to pour. Medics sat in a nearby tent as a few floodlights burned in the front chambers of the cave. The boys’ bicycles, backpacks and soccer cleats remained at the entrance.

“We went in a few kilometers and were able to enter a second chamber behind the entrance. In that chamber,…