The United States has been charging visitors for electronic travel authorization since 2009, and now the United Kingdom and the European Union are rolling out entry fees, too.Visa waiver schemes have been around for a while. The United States has the $21 ESTA, valid for two years, and Europe will be introducing the 7 euro ETIAS (about $7.50 on exchange rates this week) in 2024. That one will last you three years.The United Kingdom, you may recall, rather famously fled the EU coop a couple of years back. Now it’s revealed the price tag for its own scheme, the ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation): £10 (about $12.50) for two years.Admittedly, that’s only about the price of a large fish and chips, but it does mean access to the nations that gave us the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle will be more expensive than a pass to the home countries of the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, the Sagrada Familia and the Acropolis combined.The plan is for the scheme to be rolled out for people who don’t require a visa to enter the United Kingdom – including U.S. and EU nationals – by the end of 2024, with the first nation to join the scheme being Qatar later this year.

The Biden administration is rolling out new international travel policies affecting Americans and noncitizens alike who want to fly into the U.S. The goal is to restore more normal air travel after 18 months of disruption caused by COVID-19.

The across-the-board rules, which will take effect in November, will replace a hodgepodge of confusing restrictions. Some details of the plan announced Monday are being worked out, but here are some questions and answers about what to expect:

What is the new policy in a nutshell?

All adult foreign nationals traveling to the U.S. will be required to be fully vaccinated before boarding their flight. This is in addition to the current requirement that travelers show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of departure to the U.S.

Once the vaccination requirement is put in place, the White House will ease all the country-specific restrictions on international travel that have prevented non-citizens who have been in the United Kingdom, European Union, China, India, Iran, Republic of Ireland, Brazil or South Africa in the prior 14 days from entering the U.S.

How does this affect Americans?

Fully vaccinated Americans will only need to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of departure to the U.S.

What about unvaccinated Americans?

U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are not fully vaccinated will still be able to fly to the U.S., but they will see tougher testing and contact tracing protocols. They will need to be tested within 24 hours of boarding a flight to the U.S., as well as undergo testing upon return to the country. It remains to be seen, though, how the federal government will enforce the testing requirement upon return.

How does this affect children?

The new U.S. policy only requires adult foreign nationals to be fully vaccinated in order to enter the U.S. The White House did not immediately say whether unvaccinated children will face different testing protocols when flying into the country.

Which vaccines are acceptable?

The CDC says the U.S. will accept full vaccination of travelers with any COVID-19 vaccine approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization, including those from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson used in the U.S. Other vaccines are also approved by the WHO and used widely around the world, including from AstraZeneca and China’s Sinovac, with varying degrees of effectiveness against COVID-19 and its more transmissible delta variant. The WHO is reviewing Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine but hasn’t approved it.

How will this affect air fare?

Adit Damodaran, economist for the travel-research firm Hopper, predicted that growing demand is likely to cause higher airfares on flights from Europe, although the rush to book flights could be slowed by the delta variant and high COVID-19 rates in the U.S. If fares rise, it would mark a turnaround in prices since the start of the pandemic.

Will airlines collect data on passengers?

The CDC will require airlines to collect information about passengers and provide it to the health agency if it needs to conduct contact tracing. The airlines had resisted a similar change last year when it was proposed by the CDC and eventually blocked by the Trump administration.

What about travel over land borders?

The administration's restrictions on crossing land borders from Mexico and Canada into the U.S. are to remain unchanged for now. That means that in some cases fully vaccinated people from the two American neighbors will soon be able fly to the U.S., but may not be able to make the same journey by car.

How will this affect the travel industry?

Analysts and industry officials think it will help. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said lifting the current restrictions on international travelers will contribute to a durable recovery for the U.S. economy. Before Monday, the U.S. was on pace to lose $175 billion in export income from international visitors this year, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

How have the current restrictions affected international travel?

They have made it easier for Americans to visit Europe than the other way around. U.S. international travel in August was down 54% compared with two years ago, and arrivals by non-U.S. citizens were off 74%, according to Airlines for America.

How will the changes affect business travel?

There is pent-up demand among business travelers from Europe. Foreign executives who have been vaccinated will no longer have to prove that their travel to the United States serves the U.S. "national interest" — a time-consuming process.

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Koenig reported from Dallas. Associated Press writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

Palestinians and Jewish settlers hurled stones, chairs and fireworks at each other overnight in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood where settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families, officials said Tuesday.

The threatened evictions fueled protests and clashes in the runup to last month's 11-day Gaza war and pose a test for Israel's new governing coalition, which includes three pro-settler parties but is hoping to sideline the Palestinian issue to avoid internal divisions.

Israeli police and border officials said they arrested four suspects in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. It was unclear who started the brawl. One woman was reportedly injured when she was hit in the back by a stone, police said.

Related video: Israel strikes Gaza in response to incendiary balloons

The Red Crescent emergency service said its crews treated 20 Palestinians, including 16 suffering from pepper spray and tear gas and others wounded by rubber-coated bullets. Two other people were wounded, including an elderly man who was hit in the head, it said.

The Red Crescent said settlers threw stones at one of its ambulances and Israeli forces sprayed skunk water on a second ambulance belonging to the service.

The eruption of violence is the latest friction in Sheikh Jarrah, where weeks of unrest captured international attention ahead of the 11-day Israel-Hamas war last month. The cease-fire took effect on May 21, but the long-running campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families continues.

And so the cycle of tension endures, in a stark early test for Israel's new coalition government, which is just over a week old.

At the helm under a rotation agreement is Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina party. In two years, he'll be replaced by Yair Lapid, leader of centrist Yesh Atid. And leading the opposition is Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, ousted from the premiership after holding the post for 12 years.

An intervention by Israel’s attorney general at the height of the unrest has put the most imminent evictions on hold. But rights groups say evictions could still proceed in the coming months as international attention wanes, potentially igniting another round of bloodshed.

The settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin just outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem.

Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

The settlers say the homes are built on land that was owned by Jews prior to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim such property, a right denied to Palestinians who lost lands and homes in the same conflict.

CHICAGO, Ill. — After a year of being disconnected from one another, live music is returning.

In a highly polarized time when even mask-wearing divides, an eclectic group of musicians is focused on unity. The Surabhi Ensemble is forging cross-cultural connections with each note they play.

“I'm a passionate practitioner of the southern Indian ancient acoustic instrument called ‘Sarasvati veena,’” said Saraswathi Ranganathan, who founded the Surabhi Ensemble ten years ago.

“'Surabhi' means an unending source of spiritual treasure. So, it's a Sanskrit word,” said Ranganathan.

The spiritual treasure of Surabhi melds together Indian, Middle Eastern, and Spanish flamenco influences.

“I play the instrument known as 'al oud.'”

With his Palestinian roots, Ronnie Malley says the sounds and instruments they play together are all interconnected as well.

“Today, anybody who makes a guitar or a violin or anything like that is called a luthier. Well, that European lute eventually becomes the guitar. And so, this instrument is ultimately the great, great grandfather of the guitar,” said Malley.

Carlo Basile plays Spanish guitar with the ensemble.

“Essentially on stage, let the music speak for itself. And we find commonalities in the music, and we find commonalities and the rhythms in it and in the melodies. And so, when we put them together, it just feels right,” said Basile.

“The idea is not to just lose ourselves completely, but also retain our originality, our tradition where we are from today and spread your wings,” said Ranganathan.

In a time of increased polarization and amplified division, the group hopes to represent unity and fellowship through their common language of music and art.

“We're very specific about the traditions that we present on the stage,” said Malley. “And we explain that to the audience so that they may have come to watch a flamenco show. But at the same time, they're going to walk away seeing something African, something Arab, something Indian, and learn about instruments and the journeys that they take to travel to create this dialog.”

In the wake of the pandemic and calls for social justice, they performed a song about breathing. It was one of their first for an indoor audience and incorporated both Indian and Spanish dance.

“We wrote 'Un Respiro Libre' about a free breath because of the masks, because of the George Floyd situation,” said Basile. “And the dances come together and they're almost like breathing as one. To watch it happen in real-time and to have an audience for the first time respond to it the way they did, the response was just amazing.”

The ensemble is now on a global peace tour to promote cross-cultural connections through their world music collective.

“In music, we try to find this dialog,” said Malley. “We try to represent something that we can get along and celebrate our differences.”

“I call it less fear. And then when there is less fear there is obviously less pain,” said Ranganathan. “So, those go hand in hand too, less fear, less hate, and hopefully more love.”

“We have to have to really do our best to realize that we're all in this together,” said Basile. “I mean, if this last year doesn't prove it, I don't know what does.”

Content warning: Video above may be considered distressing

The director of an Israeli ambulance service has confirmed that nearly 40 people died in a stampede at a religious festival in northern Israel.

Eli Beer, director of Hatzalah, said he was shocked by the size of the crowd at the Lag BaOmer celebrations at Mount Meron. Police were quoted as saying some 100,000 people were there.

He told Army Radio that there were four to five times the number of people that should have entered a location like this. “Close to 40 people died as a result of this tragedy,” he said.

The stampede broke out early Friday at a Jewish religious gathering attended by tens of thousands of people in northern Israel, leaving 150 hospitalized, authorities said. Israeli media reported that as many as 44 people were killed and published photos of rows of bodies.

The disaster occurred at Mount Meron at the main celebrations of Lag BaOmer, a holiday when tens of thousands of people, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, gather to honor Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a 2nd century sage and mystic who is buried there. Large crowds traditionally light bonfires, pray and dance as part of the celebrations.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “great tragedy,” and said everyone was praying for the victims.

The incident happened after midnight, and the cause of the stampede was not immediately clear. Videos circulating on social media showed large numbers of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed together in tight spaces.

A 24-year-old witness, identified only by his first name Dvir, told the Army Radio station that “masses of people were pushed into the same corner and a vortex was created.” He said a first row of people fell down, and then a second row, where he was standing, also began to fall down from the pressure of the stampede.

“I felt like I was about to die,” he said.

Zaki Heller, spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service, said 150 people had been hospitalized and confirmed there had been some deaths. Army Radio, citing anonymous medical officials, said the death toll had risen to 44.

Heller told the station “no one had ever dreamed” something like this could happen. “In one moment, we went from a happy event to an immense tragedy,” he said.

Photos from the scene showed rows of wrapped bodies.

The Israeli military said it had dispatched medics and search and rescue teams along with helicopters to assist with a “mass casualty incident" in the area. It did not provide details on the nature of the disaster.

It was the first huge religious gathering to be held legally since Israel lifted nearly all restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. The country has seen cases plummet since launching one of the world's most successful vaccination campaigns late last year.

Health authorities had nevertheless warned against holding such a large gathering.

But when the celebrations started, the Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, police chief Yaakov Shabtai and other top officials visited the event and met with police, who had deployed 5,000 extra forces to maintain order.

Ohana, a close ally of Netanyahu, thanked police for their hard work and dedication “for protecting the well-being and security for the many participants” as he wished the country a happy holiday.

Netanyahu is struggling to form a governing coalition ahead of a Tuesday deadline, and the national tragedy is sure to complicate those efforts.