A White House plan to donate hundreds of millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines has been hampered in many developing countries by a lack of infrastructure to handle storage and distribution, leaving poorer nations far behind the developed world in vaccination rates.

After a delayed start-the U.S. missed its first donation target-the Biden administration has been ramping up overseas donations, shipping around 137 million doses, most of them Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. It expects to send 500 million doses of a shot developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE by the end of June 2022, the largest donation total of any country.

U.S. Covid-19 Death Toll Surpasses 1918 Flu Fatalities

The number of known Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. has surpassed the country's fatalities from the 1918-19 flu pandemic.

The U.S. on Monday crossed the threshold of 675,000 reported Covid-19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, which tracks data from state health authorities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the influenza pandemic killed about that many people in the U.S. a century ago, in 1918 and 1919. Both figures are likely undercounts, epidemiologists and historians say.

Canada's Justin Trudeau Headed for Victory in National Vote

OTTAWA-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was headed toward a third straight electoral victory Tuesday morning, although his bet that a snap vote would help him secure a majority government failed to materialize.

Both Canada's CTV Network and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. projected the incumbent Liberal Party was set to win enough seats in parliament to form a minority government.

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This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

09-21-21 0622ET