diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 9e5918db7..959e45c45 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,5 +1,16 @@
+Overview of changes leading to 0.9.16
+Friday, April 19, 2013
+=====================================
+
+- Major speedup in OpenType lookup processing.  With the Amiri
+  Arabic font, this release is over 3x faster than previous
+  release.  All scripts / languages should see this speedup.
+
+- New --num-iterations option for hb-shape / hb-view; useful for
+  profiling.
+
 Overview of changes leading to 0.9.15
-Thursday, April 05, 2013
+Friday, April 05, 2013
 =====================================
 
 - Build fixes.
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index fcae6a292..588744e33 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 AC_PREREQ([2.64])
 AC_INIT([HarfBuzz],
-        [0.9.15],
+        [0.9.16],
         [http://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=harfbuzz],
         [harfbuzz],
         [http://harfbuzz.org/])