The bird flu outbreak among dairy cows continues to generate alarm, despite reassuring news that pasteurized milk is unlikely to infect anyone with H5N1. Scientists can’t stop worrying about a nightmare scenario: that the virus will get into pigs and, from there, spark a human pandemic.

Pigs “are the perfect vessels through which an even more virulent strain could emerge,” said Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a May 2 briefing by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Pigs are capable of harboring both human flu and bird flu, allowing the viruses to mix and match parts of their genetic material. A 2009 flu pandemic started with a pig-to-human transmission. That strain, called H1N1, wasn’t deadlier than seasonal flu, but that was just a lucky break.

Now is the time to get ahead of 2024’s H5N1 virus with systematic testing of both sick and healthy-looking animals — including pigs. Scientists agree such testing is essential to understanding the situation, and they have the test kits. What they’re missing is a nimble change in policy that would ensure the cooperation of farmers who fear economic ruin if their animals test positive.

Thousands of chickens and turkeys are already monitored — thanks to agreements that reassure farmers they won’t be financially ruined by positive tests. Government compensation for “culling” birds has brought on its own set of controversies, but right now there’s no system to compensate farmers for H5N1 infected cows or pigs, which means they have no incentive to let public health officials do enough testing. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently required testing of dairy cows only if they were being transferred to other states. It’s up to our political leaders to make further policy changes so that farmers are encouraged to work with scientists — and scientists can do the research they need to do.

This must extend to testing of healthy-looking animals. A recent analysis of the genetic material of the virus suggests it may have been spreading stealthily in cows since last December, long before the first case was detected in late March. Failing to test asymptomatic animals would be a mistake akin to the insufficient testing for Covid-19 in early 2020. That was one of the most egregious public health mistakes of that pandemic — people who didn’t meet very specific criteria (like having recently traveled to China) were unable to get a test, allowing the disease to spread further.

Scientists agree that keeping H5N1 from sparking a human pandemic requires careful monitoring of cows, pigs and farm workers. Shah called the risk of an H5N1 pandemic “not insignificant,” and yet there’s currently no coordinated effort to test asymptomatic farm animals.

And pigs have been silent carriers before. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said that in 2014 scientists found a flu called H3N2 was being transmitted back and forth between pigs and people, many of them kids, at Ohio state fairs.

Flu likes to bind to a sugar on the surface of cells, and the reason bird influenzas usually doesn’t spread among humans is that our sugars are very different, explained Richard Webby, a specialist in influenza at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

The cells in a pig’s respiratory tract have both kinds of sugars, so both kinds of virus can get in and swap pieces. The infamous 1918 influenza virus, thought to have originated from a bird flu, was transmitted from humans to pigs in the 1920s, where it continued to evolve. It re-emerged in humans in 1957, 1968 and 2009. In recent years, as bird flu surged through domestic flocks, it’s gained the power to infect dozens of mammal species, including minks, racoons, foxes, seals and porpoises. We really don’t want pigs to be next.

Yet the wider the cow infections spread, the more chances the virus has to jump to pigs. They might get infected through contaminated equipment, or if milk from infected cows gets into their feed. Although pasteurization kills the virus in commercial milk, the raw milk remains highly infectious — it’s the lead suspect in deaths of several farm cats infected with H5N1.

“What’s a bit unclear to me is exactly what’s happening to all this contaminated milk,” said Webby. Could some be getting dumped, raw, where other animals could ingest it?

Osterholm said more surveillance on farms is critical. This virus has already traveled from infected cows to poultry on one farm in Michigan. Scientists need more data to understand how the disease is spreading among cows, which would mean adopting policies modeled on those that allow monitoring poultry.

But right now, farmers who raise pigs and cows see nothing in it for them except lost money and stigma. CDC’s Shah said farmers are often deeply skeptical of the federal government. Farm workers are often fearful of missing work, since they have no paid sick leave, which is hampering the parallel need for farm worker testing.

“Everyone is coming off Covid-19 so fatigued and tired they don’t want to hear about another pandemic,” said Osterholm. But just imagine how we’ll feel if we have to live through another deadly outbreak — and another series of public health mistakes.

F.D. Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering science. She is host of the “Follow the Science” podcast.

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By ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is concerned that foreign adversaries could deploy artificial intelligence as a means to interfere in American elections and spread disinformation, a senior official said Thursday, describing the technology as an area “that’s probably going to see growth over the coming years.”

The threat is more than theoretical given the prevalence of AI deepfakes and robocalls and the way such technology has already surfaced in politics.

The official noted an episode in Slovakia early this year in which audio clips resembling the voice of the liberal party chief — purportedly capturing him talking about hiking beer prices and rigging the vote — were shared widely on social media just days before parliamentary elections. The clips were deepfakes.

An incident in the U.S. involved robocalls impersonating President Joe Biden that urged voters in New Hampshire to abstain from voting in January’s primary election. The robocalls were later traced to a political consultant who said he was trying to publicize the dangers of AI deepfakes.

AI technology is a challenge to law enforcement not only because it lowers the barrier of entry for people looking to make mischief but also because it adds to the arsenal of more sophisticated foreign governments that want to interfere in elections, said the official, who was one of several FBI officials to brief reporters on the topic of election security on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the FBI.

The three countries of most concern to the FBI in the current election year are Russia, Iran and China. Officials in the past have ascribed different motives and ambitions to the countries in terms of what they hope to achieve by influencing American elections.

In the case of Russia, intelligence officials in 2016 and 2020 have said Moscow had a clear preference for Republican Donald Trump and took steps designed to get him elected, including a sophisticated hack-and-leak operation of Democratic emails before he was elected eight years ago.

A recent intelligence community report assessed that, in the 2022 midterm election, Russia tried to denigrate the Democratic Party, with a goal of weakening U.S. support for Ukraine, and undermine confidence in the elections.

The report said China sought to influence a handful of races featuring candidates from both major political parties, focusing on those with anti-China views and covertly denigrating a U.S. senator. And it said that Iran conducted covert operations aimed at exploiting perceived social divisions.

In 2024, FBI officials said, China will likely continue its efforts to sow divisions, and the FBI is watching whether the Ukraine war will motivate Russia’s behavior.

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered a new trial for the man convicted of raping and killing an Iron Range woman nearly 40 years ago.

Michael Allan Carbo Jr., 56, has been serving a life sentence after a Hibbing jury in August 2022 found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the 1986 slaying of Nancy Daugherty, a 38-year-old Chisholm mother of two.

Michael Allan Carbo

Carbo was first connected to the case in 2020 by DNA evidence, but he denied responsibility for her killing.

He sought, but was not allowed, to argue at trial that another man, Brian Evenson, was the true perpetrator — a ruling that a majority of the court found to be erroneous.

“We cannot say beyond a reasonable doubt that a reasonable jury would have reached the same verdict,” Justice Barry Anderson wrote, saying the exclusion of the evidence was “not harmless.”

The reversal does not exonerate Carbo, but it sets him up for a new trial in which he may be able to introduce evidence and argument that the defense considered critical to the case.

Evenson, a friend and one-time lover of Daugherty, was the last known person to see her alive and was a key witness at the trial. Visiting from out of town when she was killed, he was also joined by police officers in discovering her body the next morning.

“We are pleased that the Supreme Court ordered a new trial,” said public defender J.D. Schmid, who represented Carbo at trial. “It is still very hard to say that justice is being served when Mr. Carbo has been locked up for almost four years for a crime he did not commit.

“Based on the ruling, we hope that the County Attorney’s Office will take a much closer look at the evidence showing that someone else killed Nancy Dougherty and decide for themselves that it is not just to continue to prosecute Mr. Carbo. We also hope that the district court will have the humility to recognize its error and give Mr. Carbo a full presumption of innocence if we have another trial.”

Deputy St. Louis County Attorney Jon Holets, who helped prosecute the case, said his office was “disappointed” in the decision.

“We remain committed to prosecuting Mr. Carbo for the murder of Ms. Daugherty based on the facts establishing his guilt as outlined in the complaint,” Holets said. “We cannot comment further on a pending case. We ask that the requests for privacy of Ms. Daugherty’s family be respected.”

Defense cited Evenson’s letters, hair

Daugherty was found dead in her bed July 16, 1986, apparently having been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

Authorities obtained DNA from semen as well as scrapings under the victim’s fingernails, but testing of more than 100 possible suspects failed to turn up any matches in the ensuing years.

It was only in 2020 that the Chisholm Police Department contracted with a private company, Parabon NanoLabs, to conduct a genetic investigation. Using samples maintained by private databases, the company identified Carbo as a possible suspect for the first time.

Carbo was 18 at the time of Daugherty’s death and lived about a mile away, attending school with her children. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension obtained DNA samples from Carbo’s garbage and him directly, concluding he was a match for the crime scene evidence.

The defense did not dispute that Carbo had sex with Daugherty on the night of her murder, but they claimed he was blackout drunk and had no memory of it, leaving before the killer arrived.

Undated courtesy photo of Nancy Daugherty. (Forum News Service)

Evenson testified that he had spent time that night with Daugherty, a friend he had volunteered with on the local ambulance service. He said he last saw her around midnight and planned to help her move the next morning to the Twin Cities, where she would attend school for a paramedic career.

The defense, however, aimed to argue that Evenson committed the killing out of jealousy. Attorneys cited evidence that he had written Daugherty numerous letters, including one in which he said: “There are times that I think about you that I get so mad I could wring your neck.”

Evenson, according to the defense, also acknowledged having a temper and stated in a 1998 interview with law enforcement: “I’ve often wondered, ‘Jeez, did I wake up in the middle of the night, drive over here and kill her, go back to bed and not know it?’ ”

His hair was also found in Daugherty’s bedroom and a neighbor saw a vehicle in the victim’s driveway that may have matched Evenson’s, according to the defense motion.

But Judge Robert Friday would not allow the alternative-perpetrator theory. He called it “mere speculation and bare suspicion” and affirmed that decision when he denied a new trial after the conviction.

Court divided on alternative suspect

The Supreme Court was divided in its analysis, but four of seven justices said Carbo was entitled to a new trial due to the error.

Anderson, writing for the majority in the 57-page opinion, noted Evenson was the case’s lead suspect from the early days of the investigation.

There was never sufficient evidence to arrest or charge him, the justice noted, but he reasonably fell under suspicion due to a number of factors.

“It does not require a ‘significant speculative leap’ to take one look at the facts here and conclude that those facts had an inherent tendency to connect (Evenson) to the actual commission of the crime,” Anderson wrote. “If the alternative-perpetrator evidence here is not sufficient … it is reasonable to ask whether any alternative-perpetrator evidence is ever admissible” under established precedent.

Justice Anne McKeig dissented, saying Daugherty’s house wasn’t a “crime scene” until after Evenson left and that his allegedly threatening remarks were taken out of context.

Joined by Justice Gordon Moore, she said the decision breaks down “safeguards” built into the analysis for alternative perpetrator defenses.

“Now district courts will be forced to make speculative inferences and consider evidence that has no inherent tendency to connect a third party to the actual commission of a crime,” McKeig wrote.

Justice Margaret Chutich agreed with the majority that Carbo should have been allowed to present the defense. But she sided with McKeig and Gordon in holding that a new trial was not warranted because the “strength of evidence” against Carbo would have resulted in a conviction regardless.

DNA profile not a privacy violation

The court separately ruled that authorities did not violate Carbo’s rights by analyzing DNA evidence he “abandoned” at the crime scene or by obtaining a sample from his discarded garbage without a warrant.

“By Carbo’s own account, he got so drunk that he blacked out, had unprotected sex with Daugherty in her yard, then cleaned up in her bathroom and left,” Anderson wrote. “These actions do not lead to an inference that Carbo intended to keep his genetic information — which he knew his semen contained — private.”

Therefore, the majority wrote, there was no violation when authorities sent a sample to Parabon for analysis.

Likewise, the court ruled, Carbo voluntarily provided a DNA sample to investigators when approached in 2020 — unaware that his garbage had already been tested and that he was under investigation for the killing.

The case was believed to be the first of its kind in Minnesota to be built through genetic genealogy — using methods similar to the high-profile investigation that caught the “Golden State Killer” in California.

But the use of decades-old DNA to stitch together family trees and identify potential suspects hasn’t been without controversy from privacy advocates. The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed an amicus brief in Carbo’s favor on the issue.

Justices Karl Procaccini and Paul Thissen wrote that a warrant should have been required to develop a profile from the DNA left at the crime scene. Only Thissen, though, said he would have suppressed the evidence, as Procaccini cited a “good-faith exception” to allow it.

Carbo is incarcerated at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Rush City and is likely to remain in custody under pretrial conditions. The case will be sent back to Judge Friday for further trial court proceedings in Hibbing.

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With 20 points through 10 matches, Minnesota United is off to its best start since it joined MLS eight seasons ago.

And two months from now, the Loons will have a prime chance to upgrade their roster via the summer transfer window (July 18-Aug. 14).

This will be the first full opportunity for new Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad and new head coach Eric Ramsay to bring in players who fit their mission.

With still-absent midfielder Emanuel Reynoso potentially being offloaded in a trade or transfer this summer, the Loons could use another high-end attacker capable of being an “X” factor and pushing the club on to the MLS Cup Playoffs. The Loons’ current 2.0 points per game mark is tops in the Western Conference.

MNUFC also will be looking to gradually get younger this summer and next offseason, but will still work to maintain the strong and veteran-led team chemistry that has aided their 6-2-2 start.

Ramsay told the Pioneer Press last week he will “definitely feed into the (transfer) process,” but he will be more of a “cog in that wheel” — not a driver on the club’s decisions.

“It’s always the conditions on which I wanted to be here,” Ramsay said on May 1. “Whereby that is largely taken care of by Khaled and the recruitment department we have in place here. So I’m in full trust of the fact that the work bubbling away behind the scenes will bear fruit in this window coming and the windows beyond that.”

Ramsay said his current role in the organization is the “most healthy balance a club can strike.” Over the past few years, former manager Adrian Heath had consolidated roles as both coach and chief decision-maker on the roster until he was fired last October.

These separated job responsibilities give Ramsay the chance to focus on what he wants most.

“That sort of allows me to crack on with what I do day-to-day and work with the group,” Ramsay continued. “And ultimately, that’s how I see myself. That’s what I’ve always been — a coach. I want to be on the grass with players. I want to develop the group that we’ve got. I want to work with young players and move them on.”

Praise and a slight

Ramsay’s team has climbed the MLS standings due, in part, to formational and tactical wrinkles in each game. In the 2-1 win over Atlanta on Saturday, MNUFC used a 5-4-1 defensive set-up, which saw center back Kervin Arriaga leave the back line and join the midfield when starting possessions.

MLSsoccer.com commentator Matt Doyle said in the Extra Time podcast this week: “It’s a weird and fun and difficult-to-track formation that allows (Minnesota) to do some stuff tactically that we are not seeing from anybody else in the league.”

Loons goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair on Thursday contrasted it to previous seasons under Heath.

“Eric is … putting us in the best situation to excel against that particular opponent,” St. Clair shared. “I think that is the beauty of things because it’s kind of like years past where it’s hard to scout us when we don’t know what we are doing.”

Briefly

Without a game this weekend, MNUFC players had time off through Wednesday, and striker Teemu Pukki was given a little extra time to spend with his family in Finland. … Hassani Dotson (leg) was running on the side during Thursday’s training session. “He’s getting there probably not as quickly as we would have thought nor liked,” Ramsay said. “I think his return to training is right around the corner. We’ll see how that leaves him for next weekend.” That appears to rule him out for next Wednesday’s home game vs. L.A. Galaxy. The Loons host Portland on May 18. … Wil Trapp has had a “routine injection” and used the off weekend to do it now. Ramsay anticipated Trapp would be back in training sessions over the next few days. … Robin Lod returned to training Thursday after being subbed out for precaution at halftime of the Atlanta win Saturday.

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