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Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told a virtual World Health Assembly meeting Tuesday there needs to be a "transparent, science-based" follow-up investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The original investigation by a team of scientists assembled by the World Health Organization and China's government returned inconclusive findings in March and was criticized by top officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (Falconer, 5/25)

The U.S. and China staked out sharply opposing positions over how to trace the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, with Washington calling for a new round of studies to be conducted with independent, international experts. Beijing, meanwhile, told an annual gathering of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body Tuesday that it considered the investigation in its country to be complete and said attention should now turn to other countries. (Hinshaw, McKay and Page, 5/25)

President Joe Biden's team shut down a closely-held State Department effort launched late in the Trump administration to prove the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab over concerns about the quality of its work, according to three sources familiar with the decision. The existence of the State Department inquiry and its termination this spring by the Biden administration -- neither of which has been previously reported -- comes to light amid renewed interest in whether the virus could have leaked out of a Wuhan lab with links to the Chinese military. (Atwood, 5/25)

After weeks of facing fierce attacks from Republicans, top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci now has a new critic: Chinese state media. "US elites degenerate further in morality, and Fauci is one of them," was the headline of a blistering opinion piece penned by Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times this week. (Gan and Griffiths, 5/26)

Congressional Republicans are seizing on recent comments from health officials and top scientists about the origins of the coronavirus as vindication of their previous claims, and are demanding Democrats launch investigations. Top Republicans, including former President Trump, blamed China for the emergence of the virus in 2020, but early reports about the possibility that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan, China, lab were dismissed.  (Weixel, 5/26)