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Hi, this is Melinda in Salem, Oregon, where I am listening to my four-year-old in her bedroom singing very loudly to Frozen, when she's supposed to be getting ready for bed.

This podcast was recorded at 104pm on Monday, July 12th.

Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will still be enjoying this concert from outside her room.

Hiya!

Yay!

Yay!

Ah, I know that song well.

In my house, it's Hamilton, and the nine-year-old says all the bad words too, but very quickly, and I don't think he knows what he's saying bad words.

Hey there, it's the mpr politics podcast, I'm Susan Davis, I cover Congress. I'm Tamer Keep, I cover the White House. And the great ping-pong is here from MPR Science Desk to join us once again.

Hey, Sue, hi, Tam.

Hello, hello.

So Americans are traveling again, but there's still a big piece of business missing here, because restrictions on international travel still remain in place.

So, Tam, let's start with you. This is something that the White House has been working on a lot.

They certainly have, and they've been getting a lot of questions on it, including from me.

So Americans now can travel overseas to a lot of countries, including in Europe. Yes, there are requirements, but vaccinated Americans can travel.

It is not working the other way around, and so vaccinated travelers from the EU or the UK or Brazil. There's any number of countries where President Trump did it first, China, put in a travel ban or restrictions on travel for people who are non-citizens.

When President Biden came into office, he kept those travel restrictions in place. And it turns out that international travel is really important for US businesses, both tourism as well as other types of businesses.

And so there's a big chunk of money that the US is losing because people aren't coming here, aren't able to come here. In addition to that, there are a lot of families or people who've been dating someone in another country, and they haven't been able to see each other in 18 months.

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