The White House has launched a new website championing the theory that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was a human-made pathogen that leaked from an infectious disease laboratory in Wuhan, China.

The page revives a long debate about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic that has seen investigations by federal agencies, global health organisations and congressional committees.

In January, the CIA issued a report concluding that a lab leak was likely, but with "low confidence" in that judgement, paralleling similar conclusions from the Energy and State departments.

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The CIA had previously said it did not have enough information to make a determination about where the virus originated.

The World Health Organisation has said it remains open to all hypotheses, including that the virus spread from animals to people in a Wuhan market.

Yet the Trump administration's new website takes the lab leak theory even further than most of those reports, stating that the virus "possesses a biological characteristic that is "not found in nature" and "if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have "already surfaced. But it hasn't."

The federal website Covid.gov, which previously linked to information about vaccines, testing and treatment, now redirects to the White House's lab leak website.

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While US intelligence agencies have remained open to the possibility the virus was naturally transmitted during lab research, they nearly all previously agreed it was not genetically engineered. Many scientists believe, based on analyses of the virus and early cases, that the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans in an outbreak at the Wuhan market. They've also said that the origin of the virus may never be proved.

US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary appeared to defend the website change during a Fox News interview Friday afternoon.

"I think people want some closure. The entire nightmare of Covid for three-plus years was likely entirely avoidable, had we not [been] messing with Mother Nature in a way that they should not have," Makary said. He added that people also want answers on prolonged school closures and vaccine requirements.

In several ways, the new White House page echoes a final report issued last year by the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, linked on the site. Republican members of the committee concluded last fall that the virus originated in a lab; Democrats issued a separate report that did not draw a definitive conclusion about the virus' origins but also pressed for more transparency.

READ MORE: Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 assassination records released on Trump's order

The new White House site also details perceived failures of the Covid-19 response, including "lockdowns," mask mandates, infectious disease research funding and HHS "obstruction" of those congressional probes.

Some of those officials are named. A section of the page is dedicated to President Joe Biden's pre-emptive pardon of retired National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Multiple Trump administration officials, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have railed against the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Biden administration's response in particular. The website could tee up further action from the health agency, as Kennedy has criticised broad coronavirus vaccine requirements and controversial infectious disease studies know as gain-of-function research.

Many congressional Republicans have also called for the administration to reinstitute a ban on this type of research, which can involve making a virus more transmissible or changing other traits to study its spread. A moratorium on gain-of-function studies was lifted during the first Trump administration.

Biden officials last year issued policy guidance that would have put more stringent oversight on gain-of-function research, but not broadly ban those studies. The guidance is set to go into effect this May.

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A man is in a critical condition after he was shot during a hunting trip in the NSW Central Tablelands.

The 70-year-old man was shot on a rural property on Campbells River Road in Black Springs, about 20km south of Oberon.

Paramedics treated the man for a gunshot wound to his right shoulder. He was airlifted to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition.

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Police have been told that the man and his son, aged 47, were securing their guns on the back of a ute when a round discharged from the 47-year-old's gun.

They had been hunting game on the property.

An investigation is underway.

About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were released on Friday, continuing the disclosure of national secrets ordered by US President Donald Trump.

Kennedy was fatally shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after giving a speech celebrating his victory in California's Democratic presidential primary.

His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison.

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The files included pictures of handwritten notes by the gunman.

"RFK must be disposed of like his brother was," was written on the outside of an empty envelope with the return address from the district director of the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles.

The National Archives and Records Administration posted 229 files containing the pages to its public website.

Many files related to the assassination had been previously released, but others had not been digitised and sat for decades in federal government storage facilities.

Nearly 60 years after the assassination, "the American people will, for the first time, have the opportunity to review the federal government's investigation thanks to the leadership of President Trump," Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement.

The release of the files shines "a long-overdue light on the truth," Gabbard added.

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The release comes a month after unredacted files related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy were disclosed.

Those documents gave curious readers more details about Cold War-era covert US operations in other nations but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK.

Trump, a Republican, has championed in the name of transparency the release of documents related to high-profile assassinations and investigations.

But he's also been deeply suspicious for years of the government's intelligence agencies, and his administration's release of once-hidden files opens the door for additional public scrutiny and questioning about the conclusions and operations of institutions such as the CIA and the FBI.

Trump signed an executive order in January calling for the release of governmental documents related to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., who were killed within two months of each other.

Lawyers for Kennedy's killer have said for decades that he is unlikely to reoffend or pose a danger to society, and in 2021, a parole board deemed Sirhan suitable for release. But Gov. Gavin Newson rejected the decision in 2022, keeping him in state prison.

In 2023, a different panel denied him release, saying he still lacks insight into what caused him to shoot Kennedy.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a son of the New York senator who now serves as health and human services secretary, commended Trump and Gabbard for their "courage" and "dogged efforts" to release the files.

"Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government," the health secretary said in a statement.

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Three tourists were among four people who were killed when a cable car crashed south of Naples, an Italian official said on Friday.

A British woman and an Israeli woman were among the three foreign victims identified since the accident on Thursday (Friday AEST), said Marco De Rosa, the spokesperson for the mayor of Vico Equense.

The fourth victim was the Italian driver of the cable car.

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According to initial information, a traction cable snapped and one car crashed after both the upward and a downward-going cable cars came to a halt as they traversed Monte Faito, in the town of Castellammare di Stabia.

A fifth person, who is also believed to be a foreign tourist, was seriously injured and is being treated in hospital in Naples, officials said.

Sixteen passengers were helped out of the other cable car that was stuck mid-air near the foot of the mountain following the incident.

The accident happened just a week after the cable car, popular for its views of Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, reopened for the season.

Local prosecutors have opened an investigation into possible manslaughter, which will involve an inspection of the cable stations, the pylons, the two cabins and the cable, local officials said Friday.

The emergency services, including Italy's alpine rescue, more than 50 firefighters, police and civil protection personnel, worked into the evening in severe weather conditions, which made the rescue operations difficult.

"The traction cable broke. The emergency brake downstream worked, but evidently not the one on the cabin that was entering the station," Luigi Vicinanza, the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, said on Thursday (Friday AEST).

He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line, which runs three kilometres from the town to the top of the mountain.

The company running the service, the EAV public transport firm, stressed that the seasonal cable car had reopened with all the required safety conditions.

"The reopening had taken place a week ago after three months of tests every day, day and night," said EAV President Umberto De Gregorio. "This is something inexplicable."

De Gregorio said technical experts believed there was no connection between the severe weather and the cause of the crash.

"There is an automatic system. When the wind exceeds a certain level, the cable car stops automatically," he said.

The Monte Faito cable car opened in 1952. Four people died in 1960 when a pylon broke.

Italy has recorded two similar fatal accidents involving cable cars in recent years.

A cable car crash in May 2021 in northern Italy killed 14 people, including six Israelis, among them a family of four.

In 1998, a low-flying US military jet cut through the cable of a ski lift in Cavalese, in the Dolomites, killing 20 people.

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A woman has drowned and her husband is missing after a group was washed off rocks at a beach in a popular holiday destination in Victoria's south.

In NSW, three people have drowned and a fourth person is missing in a devastating start to the Easter long weekend across both states.

Emergency services were called to a beach off Punch Bowl Road in San Remo, near Phillip Island, about 8.30am to reports two women and a man had been swept from the rocks and were in the water.

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The three people were among of group of seven who were walking along the rocks.

One of the women managed to make her way back to shore but the other woman and the man were unable to, according to police.

The other woman was found unresponsive in the water during a search led by a police helicopter.

She was brought back to shore but could not be revived.

Police are still searching for the 41-year-old man.

The woman who managed to return to shore has been taken to Wonthaggi Hospital by ambulance.

The group has been identified as Chinese nationals, all on a working visa, aged in their 30s and 40s.

The search operation will continue until sunset, and if the man hasn't been found by then, it will resume at first light tomorrow morning.

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Continued heavy rainfall is expected overnight and may lead to localised flash flooding.

A protester has pitched a tent outside of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's home on the NSW Central Coast to draw attention to the national housing crisis.

Morgan Cox says he was forced to move out of Sydney with his family due to soaring rent costs.

The father of a one-year-old now lives in Gosford, which is about half an hour from the $4.3 million clifftop mansion the prime minister purchased late last year and has rented out.

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Cox gained national attention on ABC's Q&A program in March when he told the panel his rent in Sydney had increased by $180 a week, which equated to almost $10,000 a year and was unaffordable for his family despite working two jobs.

"I tried to find a cheaper place and there just aren't any," he told the studio audience.

"What little is available, there's dozens of people lined up."

https://omny.fm/shows/ben-fordham-full-show/albo-s-new-neighbour-protestor-camping-outside-pm-s-mansion/embed?style=Cover

Cox fears that rental prices will continue to rise and tenants will be "in a world of pain" without urgent reform.

He told 2GB this morning he wanted to stage a protest on behalf of everyone affected by the rental crisis.

"I'm just trying to send a message to the government that they really need to listen to us," he said.

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"If rents really go up anymore, we're going to be in a world of pain."

Among the solutions, he suggested Australia follows Canada's lead to reduce immigration to address the housing supply numbers.

"I'd like them to manage immigration to a level we can sustain that's not forcing people out of homes," he said.

"I'm not against immigration, my partner is an immigrant but that'd be a great one.

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"That'd give us some breathing room to talk about other things."

He also suggested tax reform and greater investment by universities into student housing.

Cox said he would welcome a conversation with any politician to discuss solutions to the problem.

"I'm really hoping politicians of any stripe will reach out to me," he said.

"I don't particularly favour one or the other, I just want them to listen to us, I want us to be heard."

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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the US may "move on" from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.

He spoke in Paris on Friday after landmark talks among US, Ukrainian and European officials produced outlines for steps toward peace and appeared to make some long-awaited progress. A new meeting is expected next week in London, and Rubio suggested that could be decisive in determining whether the Trump administration continues its involvement.

"We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not," Rubio told reporters upon departure. "Because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on."

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"It's not our war," Rubio said.

"We have other priorities to focus on."

He said the US administration wants to decide "in a matter of days".

His comments came as the US and Ukraine are nearing a long-delayed deal granting the US access to Ukraine's vast mineral resources, which has been intertwined with President Donald Trump's peace push. Trump said on Thursday, "We have a minerals deal,'' and Ukraine's economy minister said Friday that the two countries signed a memorandum of intent ahead of a possible fuller agreement later.

The framework of the mineral deal had stalled in February following a contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump, US Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Negotiations have since resumed.

Despite apparent growing US impatience with the peace efforts, Rubio called Thursday's Paris talks constructive.

"Nobody rejected anything, nobody got up from the table or walked away."

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Rubio didn't single out Russia or Ukraine as blocking peace efforts. He said he informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about the outlines that emerged when they spoke after the Paris talks, but wouldn't say how Lavrov reacted.

After weeks of tensions with European allies, Rubio said the European negotiators proved helpful. "The UK and France and Germany can help us move the ball on this."

The talks came as European concerns grow about Trump's readiness to draw closer to Russia. They marked the first time since Trump's inauguration that top American, Ukrainian and European officials met to discuss an end to the war, which has posed the biggest security challenge to Europe since World War II.

The meetings addressed security guarantees for Ukraine in the future, but Rubio wouldn't discuss any possible US role in that. Some kind of US support for Ukraine is seen as crucial to ensuring that Russia would not attack again after a peace deal is reached.

Rubio and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff have helped lead US efforts to seek peace, and Witkoff has met three times with Putin, Rubio said. Several rounds of negotiations have been held in Saudi Arabia.

Moscow has effectively refused to accept a comprehensive ceasefire that Trump has pushed and Ukraine has endorsed. Russia has made it conditional on a halt in Ukraine's mobilisation efforts and Western arms supplies, which are demands rejected by Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia kept up a series of deadly strikes on Ukrainian cities, according to officials there, wounding scores of civilians days after missiles killed at least 34 during Palm Sunday celebrations in the northern city of Sumy.

One person died and more than 60 others were hurt as Russia hit Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, early in the day, Ukraine's Emergency Service reported. Mayor Ihor Terekhov said cluster munitions struck a "densely populated" neighbourhood four times.

Russian drones also targeted a bakery in Sumy, less than a week after the deadly Palm Sunday strike there, killing a customer and wounding an employee, the regional prosecutor's office said. Photos released by the agency showed rows of Easter cakes stacked inside a devastated building, covered in thick dust, as a huge hole gaped in the wall behind them and rubble piled up on the floor.

Last Sunday's strike on Sumy, resulting in mass casualties, was the second large-scale missile attack to claim civilian lives in just over a week. Some 20 people, including nine children, died on April 4 as missiles struck Zelenskyy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih.

The US-Ukraine minerals agreement, which Ukrainian Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said she signed with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, is expected to pave the way for significant investments, infrastructure modernization, and long-term cooperation.

Three weeks after almost dying in a stunt plane crash at Avalon, veteran pilot Glenn Collins has "beaten the odds" and is on the road to recovery.

His team is now preparing for more airshows and a special aerobatic gesture to honour their mate.

Friend Paul Bennet is getting ready for an extra special performance next Sunday in the NSW Central West.

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The skies above Mudgee will be filled with love to send a message 900 kilometres away to their mate in Melbourne. 

"We'll do a love heart in the middle and dedicate it to Glenn Collins and his family," Bennet said.

Collins was left in a critical condition when his stunt plane crashed at the Avalon Airshow three weeks ago. 

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Bennet was in the sky with Collins at the time.

"I still didn't realise, I don't think the other guys did either," Bennet said.

"We obviously had to get back together, so check one, check two, check three, check four.

"I got two and three and I didn't get four." 

Collins was in an induced coma for a week with horrific injuries to his spine and legs, but he has pulled through.

"He's beaten the odds at the moment and we're stoked about it," Bennet said.

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Collins remains in hospital where he continues his recovery.

While it is a long road ahead, there is hope one day the veteran pilot will take to the skies again.

"Hopefully he gets back in a plane," Bennet said.

"It's been amazing and the support has been sensational for everyone and especially Glenn and his family."

The cause of the crash remains under investigation. 

The focus for Collins' team is to put on a spectacular show. 

"He doesn't want us to stop, he wants us to get going and almost pretend nothing ever happened," Bennet said.

"He's really pulled through a miracle, hasn't he?"

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Amid a cost-of-living crisis, Australians are still predicted to spend big this Easter.

Shoppers are expected to part with $4.8 billion on food, travel and entertainment over the long weekend.

Almost half of Australians plan to indulge in Easter chocolate, spending about $68 each or a national total of more than $700 million on confectionery alone, according to Australian Retailers Association and Roy Morgan research.

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Easter eggs and bunnies have not been budget friendly after cocoa prices recently reached an all-time high, although the cost has dipped slightly in recent months.

Fresh fish, scallops, oysters and salmon will also be on the menu for some households.

About 36 per cent of grocery buyers said they have regularly bought seafood in the previous four weeks but over Easter that jumps to 42 per cent or an extra 500,000 buyers.

Australians with lamb on their shopping lists can expect to pay more with prices up 20 per cent since last year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Demand for last-minute chocolate eggs will be high this weekend, with Orthodox Easter falling on the same Sunday this year.

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