diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 34600c1b..8bcde1e0 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,16 @@
+49.alpha.0
+==========
+* windowsNavigator: Fix handling keyboard shortcuts [Daniel; !395]
+* build: Allow disabling the X11 session [Neal; !396, !400]
+* Disable X11 session by default [Jordan; !399]
+* Misc. bug fixes and cleanups [Florian; !398, !406]
+
+Contributors:
+  Daniel Buch Hansen, Neal Gompa, Florian Müllner, Jordan Petridis
+
+Translators:
+  Emilio Sepúlveda [ia]
+
 48.1
 ====
 
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 4505377c..a7b6a548 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 project(
   'gnome-shell-extensions',
-  version: '48.1',
+  version: '49.alpha.0',
   meson_version: '>= 1.1.0',
   license: 'GPL-2.0-or-later',
 )