FILE PHOTO/REUTERS
The Biden administration is forming expert working groups with Canada, Mexico, the European Union and the United Kingdom to determine how best to safely restart travel after 15 months of pandemic restrictions, a White House official said on Tuesday.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
EUROPE
* Portugal will allow vaccinated U.S. tourists into the country, which is trying to salvage its summer holiday season that has been badly affected by the pandemic.
* Team GB is on track to ensure all athletes and staff are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of next month's Tokyo Olympics, the British Olympic Association said.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Indian officials and health experts welcomed a federal government plan to give free COVID-19 shots to all adults, but urged that vaccinations be accelerated.
* The Tokyo 2020 organising committee may seek further vaccine donations ahead of the Olympic Games scheduled this summer, Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto said.
* Malaysia went mobile with its mass immunisation drive on Tuesday, with the rollout of the first of 40 vaccine trucks set to hit the highways in the coming months.
AMERICAS
* The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eased travel recommendations for more than 110 countries and territories, including Japan just ahead of the Olympics.
* U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cast doubt on the methodology of a report on the origins of COVID-19 cited by the Wall Street Journal that concluded the hypothesis of a virus leak from a Chinese lab was plausible.
* A top White House official urged state governers to work with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to extend the shelf life of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 shot as millions of doses nationwide sit unused and approach expiration.
* Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, under pressure to lift COVID-19-related restrictions along the U.S. border, said Ottawa would disclose in coming weeks how some measures could be relaxed for fully vaccinated people.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved $650 million in aid to Senegal to support the West African country's COVID-19 recovery.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Europe's drug regulator said it expects to give a verdict on the use of Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine in 12- to 17-year olds next month.
* Pfizer said it will begin testing its COVID-19 vaccine in a larger group of children under age 12 after selecting a lower dose of the shot in an earlier stage of the trial.
* The European Medicines Agency (EMA) does not expect to make a decision on the approval of German biotech group CureVac's vaccine before August, an official at Germany's health ministry told Reuters.
* Aspirin does not improve the chances of survival in severely ill COVID-19 patients, early results from one of Britain's biggest trials studying the commonly used painkiller and blood thinner showed.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* A global equity benchmark and two key European stock indexes touched new highs on Tuesday, while the dollar rose in anticipation of faster inflation as volatility eased to lows last seen before the coronavirus pandemic.
