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BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Pops traditional Fourth of July live show is returning this year but with some significant changes, the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced Friday.

Instead of holding the show on the banks of the Charles River in Boston, the Pops will play in front of a limited audience at Tanglewood, a show that will be livestreamed and broadcast live on television and radio, according to the announcement.

There will be no fireworks at Tanglewood, but the show will be followed by a live fireworks display from the Boston Common.

Last year’s live show and fireworks were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, replaced with a virtual show to honor frontline health care workers.

Although the pandemic appears to be under control in Massachusetts, there just was not enough time to plan a live show in Boston this year, the BSO statement said.

The organization said that “after careful consideration … the Boston Pops determined that in order to best ensure the health and safety of everyone involved, it was prudent to postpone its return to the Esplanade until 2022, when there would be adequate time to plan and execute the complex event.”

Guests at Tanglewood this year include Jon Batiste, bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; gospel singer and civil rights leader Mavis Staples; the Six-String Soldiers of the U.S. Army Field Band; and U.S. Air Force Band’s Singing Sergeants.

“All of us at the Boston Pops are putting our hearts and souls into planning our Fourth-of-July live concert stream for the many wonderful fans of the Boston Pops and the July 4 holiday,” Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart said in a statement.

Attendance at Tanglewood will be limited to 9,000 people in accordance with local guidelines.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations elected five countries to join the powerful U.N. Security Council on Friday with no suspense because all were unopposed — Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Albania, Ghana and Gabon.

Winning a seat on the 15-member Security Council is considered a pinnacle of achievement for many countries because it gives them a strong voice on issues of international peace and security ranging from conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Mali and Myanmar to the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran, and attacks by extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida.

It will be Albania’s first time serving on the council and Brazil’s 11th time, which will tie Japan as the country elected to the council for the most two-year terms. There had been a three-way race for two African seats but Congo dropped out on Monday.

General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir announced the results of the secret-ballot vote and congratulated the winner.

The five new council members will start their terms on Jan. 1, replacing five countries whose two-year terms end on Dec. 31 — Estonia, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia and Vietnam.

They will join the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council — the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France — and the five countries elected last year: India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway.

Before COVID-19, countries running for Security Council seats often invited ambassadors for lavish visits to their nations, put on dinners and held receptions with entertainments, and sent senior government officials around the globe lobbying for votes. But the pandemic has curtailed all of that since March 2020.

Last year, the election for new council members was held under dramatically different voting procedures because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of having ambassadors from the 193 U.N. member nations in the General Assembly chamber together for elections, a new procedure was adopted. A few ambassadors arrived at the assembly during spaced-out time slots to avoid a large gathering and ensure social distancing, and deposited ballots in a large box not only for new Security Council members but for other positions.

In recent months, the assembly has been meeting in person, with just two diplomats allowed from each country. So on Friday ambassadors were able to deposit their ballots one-by-one in a large box.

Even if a country is running unopposed, it must obtain the votes of two-thirds of the member states that voted in order to win a seat on the council.

In Friday’s ballot, Ghana received 185 votes, Gabon 183 votes, Brazil 181 votes, UAE 179 votes and Albania 175 votes.

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The Latest on the Group of Seven nations meeting being held in England:

FALMOUTH, England — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that the Group of Seven wealthy democracies must learn lessons from the pandemic, and not repeat errors made over the past 18 months and during the recovery from the 2008 global financial crisis.

Opening three days of talks with fellow G-7 leaders in Cornwall, southwest England on Friday, Johnson said there was a risk the pandemic could leave a “lasting scar” as “inequalities may be entrenched.”

He said it’s vital that governments and international institutions don’t make the same mistakes they did after the financial crisis, “when the recovery was not uniform across all parts of society.”

The British leader said the goal should be to “level up across our societies” and “build back better.”

Leaders of the G-7, which include Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan, are expected to commit to sharing at least 1 billion vaccine doses with countries that are struggling to secure enough shots.

The pledge includes commitments from U.S. President Joe Biden to share 500 million doses and from Johnson for another 100 million shots.

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CARBIS BAY, England — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson greeted leaders from the Group of Seven nations and the European Union on a wooden boardwalk on the freshly raked sand of Carbis Bay to open the G-7 summit on Friday.

Johnson wore a charcoal gray suit and light blue tie. The prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, was in a hot pink mid-length dress.

The couple greeted leaders with elbow bumps and small talk about social distancing and the weather, under typically moody English skies.

Johnson, who wed the former Carrie Symonds last month, later joked it was like walking down the aisle.

Reporters asked U.S. President Joe Biden what his message was for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom Biden is scheduled to meet with next week. The president replied, “I’ll tell you after I’ve delivered it.”

The G-7 leaders posed for a group photo. As the group walked away, led by Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron threw his arm around Biden’s shoulder and began an animated discussion.

Macron’s office said the French leader and Biden discussed China, agreeing there should be no confrontation but Western democracies must defend their values and interests. The two men, who were meeting for the first time, talked for several minutes while heading to a meeting room.

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PARIS — Leaders of European Union nations who are attending the Group of Seven summit in England gathered before the official start of the event with top EU officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Premier Mario Draghi, EU Council President Charles Michel and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen talked about relations with China. They plan to discuss the topic later with U.S. President Biden, who also is at the summit.

“The European position is clear: China is a systemic rival, a partner on global issues and a competitor,” Macron’s office said in a statement.

The European leaders also discussed ways to finance and donate COVID-19 vaccines, with the aim of getting 60% of the people living in the world’s poorest countries vaccinated by March 2022, according to Macron’s office.

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FALMOUTH, England — Hundreds of people have gathered for climate change protests near the site of the Group of Seven leaders’ summit in southwest England.

Ahead of the official start of the three-day talks, some activists sent a barge carrying inflatable caricatures of U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson floating off the coast of Cornwall on Friday. The figures had messages written on their hands reading “Wave of Hope” and “Crack the Crises.”

Later, around 500 people joined a rally in St. Ives organized by the Extinction Rebellion climate activism group. Protesters wore blue and green gowns and headdresses while holding flags that read “G7 drowning in promises” and “Action not words.”

Climate change is a top issue on the G-7 summit agenda, along with recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Dozens of young people also joined a protest on behalf of Fridays for Future, a youth climate movement kicked off in 2018 by activist Greta Thunberg.

“I’m inspired by the youth who are leading Fridays for Future. I think they are amazing, and if we have any hope, the hope is with them and not with our rich, greedy, lying leaders of the world meeting for the G-7,” said Jill Eastland, 56, who joined the protest.

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CARBIS BAY, England — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she hopes Group of Seven leaders achieve “very good results” on coronavirus vaccines and show the world “we’re not just thinking of ourselves.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said ahead of a leaders’ summit starting Friday that he expected the G-7 to commit to sharing 1 billion doses with countries around the world.

Germany has said it plans to donate 30 million of its vaccine doses by the end of the year, part of a commitment of 100 million by the European Union. Merkel’s government has noted that Germany has been a major donor to the U.N.-backed COVAX facility, which is supplying doses to poorer countries, and that the EU has been a major exporter of vaccines.

Merkel said after arriving at the summit: “I hope that we will achieve very good results to show that we’re not just thinking of ourselves, but we’re also thinking of those who don’t yet have the opportunity to get vaccinated — above all, African countries, but others, too.”

She didn’t elaborate on what those results would be.

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CARBIS BAY, England — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she expects the Group of Seven to send a strong signal for “values-based multilateralism,” but she cautioned that problems such as climate change won’t be solved without China.

Merkel said after arriving at a G-7 leaders’ summit in southwest England on Friday that U.S. President Joe Biden “represents the commitment to multilateralism that we have been missing in recent years.”

The chancellor added: “We will put in a strong word here for multilateralism here, and for values-based multilateralism.” She said that puts the G-7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – at odds with Russia and also “in some aspects” with China.

Merkel is attending what’s expected to be her last G-7 summit after nearly 16 years in power.

“We need everyone in the world — we want to work together, particularly in the areas of climate protection and biodiversity. We will never achieve solutions there without China,” she said.

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FALMOUTH, England — British police say seven people were arrested after officers found two vehicles carrying paint, smoke grenades and loudspeakers close to the Group of Seven summit venue in southwest England .

Police said Friday that officers searched a car and a van about seven miles (11 kilometers) from the Carbis Bay Hotel on Thursday afternoon and found the items inside.

Four men and three women were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit public nuisance and possessing an article with intent to commit criminal damage. All seven remain in police custody.

Police said they support safe and legal protests but criminal activity and public disorder are not tolerated.

Security is tight around the G-7 venues near St. Ives, England, where leaders of the world’s wealthy nations are gathering for three days of talks. Armed soldiers guarding the main sites and some 5,000 extra police officers from around the U.K. deployed to the area.

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HAYLE, England — U.S. first lady Jill Biden and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, are touring a preschool in southwestern England and learning how the children care for some rabbits.

The women also plan to take part in a talk about early childhood education. The White House says it’s the first time they’ve met.

Biden and the former Kate Middleton are visiting with 4- and 5-year-olds at Connor Downs Academy in Hayle, England. Biden carried a bowl of carrots when they went outside to see the bunnies.

Biden is a longtime English teacher who focuses on education, as does Kate, a mother of three young children.

The first lady is traveling with her husband, President Joe Biden, who is attending a Group of Seven summit of the world’s largest economies opening Friday in Carbis Bay.

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CARBIS BAY, England — Workers are carefully raking the sand on the beach where British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will greet Group of Seven leaders at the start of their summit in southwestern England.

The backdrop for the greetings and family photo on Friday is an idyllic view of Carbis Bay, with the event’s huge security operation just out of sight.

A Royal Navy destroyer is moored in the bay, and armed police and snipers are ringing the seaside resort where leaders of seven wealthy nations are meeting for the first time in two years.

The G-7 nations are f Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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PLYMOUTH, England — U.S. President Joe Biden is going to be hosting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House next month.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced Friday that Merkel, who is leaving office later this year, will visit Washington on July 15.

Psaki, in a statement, said the meeting will affirm ties between the two nations and the leaders will discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and international security.

Merkel will be the first European leader to visit the White House.

She and Biden were set to meet later Friday at the Group of Seven summit, a gathering of some of the world’s wealthiest nations, taking place in England.

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FALMOUTH, England — The mother of a British teenager killed in a road accident involving a U.S. diplomat’s wife says she is hopeful of progress in the stalled case after Prime Minister Boris Johnson raised the case with President Joe Biden at the G-7.

Harry Dunn, 19, died in 2019 when his motorcycle collided with a car driven by Anne Sacoolas near a military base in England used by the U.S. Sacoolas claimed diplomatic immunity and returned to the United States after the crash. She has been charged in England with causing death by dangerous driving but is refusing to come back to Britain.

The U.K. government said Johnson discussed the issue with Biden when they met Thursday, “and reiterated that the U.K. wants to see justice done for the family.” Johnson said the president was “extremely sympathetic” to the family’s plight.

Dunn’s mother, Caroline Charles, said she hoped Biden’s personal experience of similar tragic loss would help U.S. authorities take a “different view” of the case.

Biden’s first wife and their 1-year-old daughter died in a car accident in 1972.

“It is almost two years since we lost Harry in August 2019 and it would be lovely to think that all parties can now come together to help bring this living nightmare to an end so that we can try to rebuild our shattered lives,” Charles said.

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BERLIN — The German government says a member of the country’s advance team to the G-7 summit has gone into precautionary quarantine after a coronavirus case was reported in their hotel in the Cornish town of St. Ives.

The government said in a statement Friday that the incident would have no impact on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her delegation’s trip to the summit in Carbis Bay.

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BERLIN (AP) — Germany on Thursday started rolling out a digital vaccination pass that can be used across Europe as the continent gets ready for the key summer travel season.

The country’s health minister said starting this week vaccination centers, doctors practices and pharmacies will gradually start giving out digital passes to fully vaccinated people. The CovPass will let users download proof of their coronavirus vaccination status onto a smartphone app, allowing them easy access to restaurants, museums or other venues that require proof of immunization.

The vaccination passport should be available to everyone in Germany who is fully vaccinated by the end of this month, Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

“The goal is that this certificate can also be used in Helsinki, Amsterdam or Mallorca,” Spahn told reporters in Berlin.

People who have been fully vaccinated will either get a letter with a QR-code they can scan with their phones or they can contact their doctors or pharmacies to retroactively get the digital pass.

“By doing so, we in the European Union are setting a cross-border standard that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the world yet,” Spahn said, adding that the digital vaccination pass is an important step for the revival of international tourism.

The country’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, reported Thursday that 47% of the population, or about 39.1 million people, have gotten one shot. Almost 24%, or 19.9 million people, are fully vaccinated.

On Wednesday, almost 1.3 million people received a vaccine jab, the second highest daily number ever.

Also Thursday, Germany’s committee on vaccinations, known as Stiko, recommended that children aged 12 to 15 only receive the shot if they have certain illnesses such as obesity, chronic lung or heart diseases, dpa reported. Healthy teenagers can, however, also be vaccinated if they, their parents and doctors decide to do so.

The German panel’s opinion differs from the European Medicines Agency, which last month recommended expanding the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to children 12 to 15, a decision that offers younger and less at-risk populations across the continent access to a COVID-19 shot for the first time.

The head of Stiko, Thomas Mertens, said while youths are very well protected by the vaccine, only few children and teenagers had participated in medical studies and possible severe side effects could therefore not be excluded.

Mertens said the recommendation was also based on the fact that very few children fall severely ill with COVID-19 as opposed to older people.

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Follow all AP stories on the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic.

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CARBIS BAY, England (AP) — Striking a warm tone, President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson used their first meeting Thursday to highlight a commitment to strengthening their nations’ historic ties while setting aside, at least publicly, their political and personal differences.

Beginning a week of diplomacy across the Atlantic, Biden hopes to use his first overseas trip as president to reassure European allies that the United States had shed the transactional tendencies of Donald Trump’s term and is a reliable partner again. Long a believer in alliances, Biden stressed the deep bonds with the United Kingdom as a lynchpin of his call for Western democracies to compete against rising authoritarian states.

“We affirmed the special relationship — it’s not said lightly — the special relationship between our people,” Biden said after the meeting. “We renewed our pledge to defend the enduring democratic values that both of our nations share that are the strong foundation of our partnership.”

Though thorny issues like Brexit and the future of Northern Ireland shadowed the meeting, Biden and Johnson began their sit-down by immediately striking a tone of conviviality as the news media watched.

“I told the prime minister we have something in common. We both married way above our station,” Biden joked after a highly choreographed walk with their spouses.

Johnson laughed and said he was “not going to dissent from that one.” But then he seemed to hint that he would be looking to only improve relations with his American counterpart.

“I’m not going to disagree with you on that,” said Johnson, “or indeed on anything else.”

But there are areas of friction. The president staunchly opposed Brexit, Britain’s exit from the European Union that Johnson championed, and has expressed great concern over the future of Northern Ireland. Biden once called Johnson a “physical and emotional clone” of Trump.

The British government has worked hard to overcome that impression, stressing Johnson’s common ground with Biden on climate change, support for international institutions and other issues. But Johnson, host for the Group of Seven summit opening Friday, has been frustrated by the lack of a new trade deal with the United States.

Johnson on Thursday, however, described the new U.S. administration as “a breath of fresh air.”

Speaking after his first face-to-face meeting with Biden, Johnson said “it was a long, long huge session. We covered a good range of topics.” He added that protecting the Northern Ireland peace agreement was “absolutely common ground” among Britain, the U.S. and the EU.

Before their formal discussions, the two men looked back on illustrious wartime predecessors, inspecting documents related to the Atlantic Charter. The declaration signed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in August 1941 set out common goals for the post-World War II world, including freer trade, disarmament and the right to self-determination of all people.

Reaffirming their nations’ longstanding ties, the two men authorized an updated version of the charter, one that looks to the challenge posed by countries like China and Russia with its promises to promote free trade, human rights and a rules-based international order, and to counter “those who seek to undermine our alliances and institutions.”

The new charter also took aim at “interference through disinformation” in elections and murky economic practices, charges that the West has levelled at Beijing and Moscow. The leaders also promised to build stronger global defenses against health threats on the eve of a summit where discussion of the coronavirus pandemic is expected to take center stage.

The leaders had planned to visit the spectacular island of St. Michael’s Mount but the trip was scrapped because of bad weather. Instead, they met above the beach at the G-7 site in Carbis Bay, staring out at the ocean while trading pleasantries.

Both couples — Johnson is newly married — held hands as they walked. First lady Jill Biden’s black jacket had “LOVE” embroidered on the upper back — a fashion move that recalled her predecessor Melania Trump’s decision to wear a jacket with “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” written on the back during a 2018 trip to a Texas border town.

The leaders also announced a new U.S.-U.K. task force to work on resuming travel between their countries. Most such travel has been banned since March 2020.

Both sides have stressed publicly that the meeting would be about strengthening ties between longtime allies in a week in which Biden will look to rally the West to rebuff Russian meddling and publicly demonstrate it can compete economically with China.

Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish roots, has warned that nothing should undermine Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday peace accord. Some on the British side have viewed Biden warily because of his heritage. White House officials have said the United States does not plan to be involved in the negotiations.

After Brexit, a new arrangement was needed for the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, because the European Union requires certain goods to be inspected and others not to be admitted at all. Ahead of a June 30 deadline, ongoing negotiations over goods — including sausages — have been contentious and have attracted the attention of the White House.

One-on-one talks between Biden and Johnson lasted about 10 minutes before advisers joined for a larger meeting that lasted about an hour, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. The leaders also discussed climate change, the pandemic, creating an infrastructure financing program for developing countries and Afghanistan, and launch a bilateral commission to research and defeat cancer.

But Trump’s presence was still felt on Thursday. Johnson and Trump, for a time, appeared to be kindred spirits, both riding a wave of populism that in 2016 delivered Brexit and upended the American political landscape.

Biden, for his part, has expressed a mistrust of Johnson, who once unspooled a Trump-like insult of President Barack Obama, saying that Biden’s former boss was “half-Kenyan” and had an ancestral dislike of Britain.

Since World War II, the trans-Atlantic “special relationship” has been sustained by a common language, shared interests, military cooperation and cultural affection.

Brexit has tested those bonds. But Biden has made clear that he intends to rebuild bridges with the EU, a frequent target of Trump’s ire. That suggests Berlin, Brussels and Paris, rather than London, will be uppermost in his thoughts.

Britain hoped to secure a quick trade agreement with the U.S. after its official departure from the EU in January. The change in administration in Washington leaves prospects of a deal uncertain.

And there may be one more, though admittedly small, obstacle to nurturing the “special relationship” — the very phrase itself.

Johnson has said he did not appreciate “special relationship,” used by the U.S. president, because to the prime minister it seemed needy and weak. Johnson’s spokesperson said this week: “The prime minister is on the record previously saying he prefers not to use the phrase, but that in no way detracts from the importance with which we regard our relationship with the U.S., our closest ally.”

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Lawless reported from London. Madhani reported from Mildenhall, England. Associated Press writers Josh Boak in Baltimore and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

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