Good afternoon.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the pandemic-era US chief medical adviser, has described a book by News Corp investigative journalist Sharri Markson backing the “lab leak” theory of Covid-19’s origins as a “bunch of nonsense” in his newly released diaries.
This week, Fauci, 85, was subpoenaed by the Republican senator Rand Paul to appear at a Senate hearing on the origins of Covid-19, where he refused to answer questions, invoking the fifth amendment and accusing Paul of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.
Ahead of Fauci’s appearance, Paul published 1,141 pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era journal entries, Caitlin Cassidy reports. In the entries, Fauci criticised reporting in The Australian newspaper and a book by Markson that claimed a facility in Wuhan was “immersed in genetically manipulating bat-coronaviruses in perilous experiments”.
Fauci, who served under seven US presidents but became a household name in 2020, wrote in his private diary that Markson’s reporting “does not make any sense”.
But Markson backed her work, saying she “led the way internationally exposing the role of Anthony Fauci’s agency funding 65 projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, funnelling the money through EcoHealth Alliance”.
Top news
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Federal Labor MP Luke Gosling charged with assaulting NT administrator
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Death toll in Japan earthquake rises to 23 as aftershock and heat complicate rescue efforts
In pictures
A deer walks through a smouldering forest after a wildfires near Saumos, in southwestern France.
France and Spain are on high alert as the fourth heatwave of the summer complicates ongoing efforts to tackle devastating wildfires in both countries.
What they said …
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“I hope he is given the space and time he needs.” – Brendan Blomeley
The mayor of the Tasmanian council area where Neil the seal regularly visits has wished the elephant seal well after revealing his 15-day stay at Seven Mile beach cost the local Clarence city council a total of $31,540.53.
Podcast
Guardian Essential report: the Labor health check
This month’s Guardian Essential poll shows signs that One Nation’s primary vote continues to plateau. But Labor can’t breathe a big sigh of relief just yet.
Guardian Australia political reporter Josh Butler speaks with Guardian columnist and executive director of Essential, Peter Lewis, about the health of the government at the halfway point of Anthony Albanese’s second term as prime minister
Before bed read
In Sarah Wilson’s new book, one page is mostly blank. It’s intended as a reprieve, a neutral space “for you to stare at for a minute while your feelings catch up”.
You will need it. In I Eat the Stars, Wilson argues that the world as we know it is in collapse – and that we are too late to avoid the worst.
But the book also delivers clarity, writes Elle Hunt. Yes, things are that bad, but there is still plenty to fight for and much we can shape – if we are willing to confront reality.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: VERD. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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