McConnell voices support for bipartisan gun reform bill

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his support Tuesday for an emerging bipartisan gun agreement, boosting momentum for modest but notable election-year action by Congress on an issue that’s deadlocked lawmakers for three decades.

The Kentucky Republican said he hoped an outline of the accord, released Sunday, would be translated into legislation and enacted. Mr. McConnell’s backing indicates that gun massacres in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, had reconfigured political calculations for some in the GOP.

“If this framework becomes the actual piece of legislation, it’s a step forward, a step forward on a bipartisan basis,” Mr. McConnell said.

U.K. flight with asylum seekers axed

A dramatic legal showdown concluded Tuesday night with the British government canceling its first planned flight to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Just hours before the flight was scrubbed, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was defending the plan as a way to deter desperate immigrants from crossing the English Channel in rubber rafts — and to break the “business case” of smugglers who help them.

But the number of people on the flight had diminished as individual challenges made their way through the British court system in recent days. The European Court of Human Rights then granted an “urgent interim measure,” suggesting that people should not be removed before a U.K. judicial review of the policy scheduled to take place in July.

Panel OKs Moderna vaccine for kids 6-17

A government advisory panel Tuesday endorsed a second brand of COVID-19 vaccine for school-age children and teens.

The Food and Drug Administration’s outside experts voted unanimously that Moderna’s vaccine is safe and effective enough to give kids ages 6 to 17. If the FDA agrees, it would become the second option for those children, joining Pfizer’s vaccine.

The same FDA expert panel will meet Wednesday to consider shots from Moderna and Pfizer for the children under 5.

Brazilian report on missing journalist false

Brazilian authorities inaccurately informed the family of a British journalist missing in the Amazon rainforest that two bodies had been found, according to an apology the Brazilian ambassador to the United Kingdom sent to family members Tuesday.

The family of Dom Phillips received a message from Brazilian Embassy officials early Monday, saying that two bodies had been found tied to a tree. Officials suspected — but had not yet confirmed — that the bodies belonged to Mr. Phillips and his traveling companion, a longtime official with Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs agency.

“We are deeply sorry the Embassy passed on to the family yesterday information that did not prove correct,” Ambassador Fred Arruda wrote.