By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Dr. Anthony Fauci and his tumultuous experience during the COVID-19 pandemic are the focus of a PBS "American Masters" documentary.
The film follows Fauci at home and at work during a 14-month period starting from President Joe Biden's inauguration in January 2021, PBS announced Wednesday.
"Tony – A Year in the Life of Dr. Anthony Fauci" is set to debut on the PBS "American Masters" showcase in spring 2023, following a planned release in movie theaters.
It will show "a rarely seen side of the scientist, husband, father and public servant," Paula Kerger, PBS president and CEO, told a TV critics' meeting.
Fauci, 81, the government's top infectious disease expert, said recently that he plans to retire by the end of Biden's term in January 2025. He has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and advised seven presidents.
The pandemic represented an unprecedented challenge for Fauci, his work and his reputation despite his years of widely respected public health service. He's led research in HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, Ebola, Zika and the coronavirus.
The film follows Fauci "at home, in his office and in the corridors of power as he battles the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the political onslaught that upends his life and calls into question" his long career as the nation's leading public health advocate, according to the announcement.
Mark Mannucci, who directed the 2019 "American Masters" documentary on the Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson, directed and is a producer for the Fauci film.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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