Axios

Hamas on Wednesday released more than a dozen hostages, including an American, as negotiators worked to extend the pause in the fighting in Gaza for a second time.

Driving the news: Israeli American Liat Beinin Atzili, 49, was among the hostages Hamas released on Wednesday — the second U.S. citizen to be freed by the militant group since the pause in fighting began late last week.

Life expectancy in the U.S. rose by more than a year in 2022 — the first increase since the pandemic began, according to CDC data released Wednesday.

The big picture: Life expectancy — which ticked up across every racial and ethnic group — remains over a year lower than it was in 2019.

President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Sunday that he is concerned about a possible Israeli military operation in southern Gaza after the current pause in fighting ends, two U.S. officials told Axios.

Driving the news: The Biden administration is extremely worried that an Israeli operation in the southern Gaza Strip — where 2 million Palestinians are concentrated — would lead to significantly more civilian casualties and deepen the humanitarian crisis in the enclave, the officials said.

An Indian national was charged on Wednesday over an alleged plot directed by an Indian government employee to assassinate a U.S. citizen in New York, the Department of Justice announced.

Why it matters: The foiled plot targeted an attorney who advocated for a secession state for Sikhs in India. The allegations follow similar claims made by the Canadian government earlier this year in the killing of a prominent Sikh community leader on Canadian soil.

Salt Lake City has been selected as the preferred host for the 2034 Winter Games, the International Olympic Committee executive board announced Wednesday.

Driving the news: Local officials broadcasted the IOC announcement in real-time outside the Salt Lake City & County Building, prompting cheers from the crowd. The announcement comes as the IOC convenes in Paris this week.

This story is part of a series supported by the Pulitzer Center.

POHNPEI, Federated States of Micronesia — Beijing is persistently courting one of America's closest partners in the Pacific, giving Micronesia the benefit of two superpower benefactors but prompting fears among local leaders that the island nation could be caught up in a brawl between them.

Why it matters: As U.S.-China competition grows on several fronts and tensions intensify over Taiwan, China is pulling new partners into its Pacific orbit. Beijing's focus on a country with deep ties to the U.S. comes as Washington urgently seeks to upgrade its military footprint in the region and remain the preeminent power.

Spanish infrastructure firm Ferrovial has agreed to sell its 25% stake in London's Heathrow Airport for £2.37 billion to private equity firm Ardian and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

Why it matters: Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports, with passenger volume recently surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

A U.S. military Osprey aircraft crashed on Wednesday off the coast of Japan's southern Yakushima island, killing at least one person who was aboard, multiple outlets reported.

Driving the news: The aircraft was carrying eight passengers. The status of the others aboard it at the time of the incident is not yet known, per AP.

The U.S. provided Israel with over 70,000 weapons — aircraft, ground vehicles, missiles and bombs — via military aid between 1950 and 2022, according to an Axios analysis of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Arms Transfers Database.

The big picture: Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign military financing, with most of that aid coming in the form of weapons grants. "I think it's a safe assumption to say that U.S. weapons are being used extensively in the current Israeli operations in Gaza," Elias Yousif, a U.S. arms transfer expert at the Stimson Center, told Time earlier this month.

Arab American and Muslim American anger over President Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war could be endangering his re-election in the majority of 2024 swing states.

Driving the news: Michigan, Virginia, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania all have notable pockets of these populations. There aren't reliable statistics on how many are registered voters — but even tiny shifts of support in any of these super-tight states that Biden won in 2020 could make a difference.

Environmental groups criticized the Biden administration's $3.4 million auction of oil and gas drilling rights in Wyoming on Tuesday as world leaders prepare to meet in Dubai for the COP28 climate summit.

The big picture: The 37 parcels of land covering some 35,000 acres was the first of 63 drilling parcels the Interior Department's U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) planned to sell across 44,000 acres in six Western states over the next two weeks.

Pope Francis won't attend the COP28 climate summit in Dubai this week as planned due to ill health, the Vatican announced Wednesday.

Why it matters: Francis would have been the first pontiff to attend a formal UN "conference of the parties" and his planned speech and meetings would have lent weight to the talks, per Axios' Ben Geman.