By MIKE STOBBE and JONEL ALECCIA

Health officials are making a renewed call for vigilance against bird flu, but some experts are puzzling over why reports of new human cases have stopped.

Has the search for cases been weakened by government cuts? Are immigrant farm workers, who have accounted for many of the U.S. cases, more afraid to come forward for testing amid the Trump administration’s deportation push? Is it just a natural ebb in infections?

“We just don’t know why there haven’t been cases,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University. “I think we should assume there are infections that are occurring in farmworkers that just aren’t being detected.”

The H5N1 bird flu has been spreading widely among wild birds, poultry and other animals around the world for several years, and starting early last year became a problem in people and cows in the U.S.

In the last 14 months, infections have been reported in 70 people in the U.S. — most of them workers on dairy and poultry farms. One person died, but most of the infected people had mild illnesses.

The most recent infections confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were in early February in Nevada, Ohio and Wyoming.

California had been a hotspot, with three-quarters of the nation’s infections in dairy cattle. But testing and cases among people have fallen off. At least 50 people were tested each month in late 2024, but just three people were tested in March, one in April and none in May so far, state records show. Overall, the state has confirmed H5N1 infections in 38 people, none after Jan. 14.

The possible natural reason bird flu cases are down

During a call with U.S. doctors this month, one CDC official noted that there is a seasonality to bird flu: Cases peak in the fall and early winter, possibly due to the migration patterns of wild birds that are primary spreaders of the virus.

That could mean the U.S. is experiencing a natural — maybe temporary — decline in cases.

This undated electron microscopic image provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows two Influenza A (H5N1) virions, a type of bird flu virus. (Cynthia Goldsmith, Jackie Katz/CDC via AP)

It’s unlikely that a severe human infection, requiring hospitalization, would go unnoticed, said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases.

What’s more, a patchwork system that monitors viruses in sewage and wastewater has suggested limited activity recently.

New infections are still being detected in birds and cattle, but not as frequently as several months ago.

“Given the fact that the number of animal detections has fallen according to USDA data, it’s not surprising that human cases have declined as well,” the CDC said in a statement.

Are government cuts affecting bird flu monitoring?

Dr. Gregory Gray said he wasn’t concerned about the CDC not identifying new cases in months.

“I don’t think that anybody’s hiding anything,” said Gray, an infectious disease speicialist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

But Osterholm and some other experts think it’s likely that at least some milder infections are going undetected. And they worry that the effort to find them has been eroding.

Resignations at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine could slow the government’s bird flu monitoring, said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

Three of 14 experts accepted deferred resignation offers at the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, which responds to disease outbreaks with crucial diagnostic information, he said. They are among more than 15,000 USDA staff to accept the offers, an agency spokesperson said.

And dozens of staff were fired at the FDA’s Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network, which investigates animal diseases caused by problems including contaminated pet food. Cats in several states have been sickened and died after eating raw pet food found to contain poultry infected with H5N1.

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, said “targeted surveillance has really dropped off precipitously since Trump took office.”

She wonders if immigrant farmworkers are too scared to come forward.

“I can’t argue with anyone who would be risking getting shipped to a Salvadoran gulag for reporting an exposure or seeking testing,” she said.

CDC says the risk to the general public remains low

The CDC characterizes the risk to the general public as low, although it is higher for people who work with cattle and poultry or who are in contact with wild birds.

Earlier this month, an agency assessment said there is a “moderate risk” that currently circulating strains of bird flu could cause a future pandemic, but the CDC stressed that other emerging forms of bird flu has been similarly labeled in the past.

Still, research is continuing.

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Texas A&M University scientists have collected blood samples from dairy workers in multiple states to test for signs of past H5N1 exposure, said David Douphrate, a workplace health and safety expert leading the project. The yearlong study is funded by a nearly $4 million grant from the CDC and is expected to conclude in July.

Douphrate said he leveraged two decades of relationships with dairy producers and workers to gain access to the farms.

“We have had very good participation,” Douphrate said. “They have been very willing.”

Similar surveillance is “urgently needed” among domestic cats, said Kristen Coleman, a researcher at the University of Maryland at College Park who studies emerging animal diseases. She recently released a paper reviewing bird flu in infections in cats between 2004 and 2024.

Barn cats that died after drinking raw milk were one of the first signs that dairy cows were becoming infected with bird flu in 2024. Since then, the Agriculture Department has confirmed more than 120 domestic cats infected with the virus across the U.S.

Infections have mostly been found in cats that died. Less is known about milder infections, whether cats can recover from bird flu — or whether the virus can spill over into people.

Coleman has been collecting blood samples from cats across the U.S. to see if they have evidence of previous exposure to the virus. But the process is slow and research funding is uncertain.

“It’s easy to downplay something because that’s usually what humans do,” she said. “But what we really need to be doing is ramping up.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — An appeals court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ending collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees while a lawsuit plays out.

The Friday ruling came after the Trump administration asked for an emergency pause on a judge’s order blocking enforcement at roughly three dozen agencies and departments.

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A split three-judge panel in the nation’s capital sided with government lawyers in a lawsuit filed by unions representing federal employees. The majority ruled on technical grounds, finding that the unions don’t have the legal right to sue because the Trump administration has said it won’t end any collective bargaining agreements while the case is being litigated.

Judge Karen Henderson, appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Justin Walker, appointed by Trump, sided with the government, while Judge Michelle Childs, appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, dissented.

The government says Trump needs the executive order so his administration can cut the federal workforce to ensure strong national security. The law requiring collective bargaining creates exemptions for work related to national security, as in agencies like the FBI.

Union leaders argue the order is designed to facilitate mass firings and exact “political vengeance” against federal unions opposed to Trump’s efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government.

His order seeks to expand that exemption to exclude more workers than any other president has before. That’s according to the National Treasury Employees Union, which is suing to block the order.

The administration has filed in a Kentucky court to terminate the collective bargaining agreement for the International Revenue Service, where many workers are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union. They say their IRS members aren’t doing national security work.

Other union employees affected by the order include the Health and Human Services Department, the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communications Commission.

Nine murals by eight artists will take over walls around South St. Anthony Park this summer as part of this year’s Chroma Zone Mural and Art Festival.

The festival, now in its sixth year, has brought 62 murals by 72 artists to buildings around the Creative Enterprise Zone district since 2019, organizers say.

The monthslong mural festival begins next week when Mariela Ajras, who painted the mother-and-child portrait mural on The Wycliff building during the inaugural 2019 event, will paint two additional related murals at the same site to form a triptych. Other artists will paint on staggered time frames throughout the summer, culminating in a finale weekend in September.

Here are this year’s muralists. The specific dates and locations they’ll be painting are yet to be announced.

This year’s artists

Marlela Ajras: From Argentina — and with a psychology background — her work focuses on gender and memory.

Biafra Inc: This muralist and screen printer from the Twin Cities has been creating personal, political and punk-inspired art since the mid-2000s.

Mike Davis: The co-owner of local studio Burlesque of North America, he helped launch first a mural festival in St. Louis and then, in 2019, the Chroma Zone Mural & Art Festival. (Ever heard of it?)

Xena Goldman: A Minneapolis-based muralist who spent a decade as an educator, she channels experiences with neurodivergence and sensory processing difficulties into murals inspired by comic-art styles.

Cadex Herrera: Originally from Belize and now a fine-art teacher at Creative Arts Secondary School in St. Paul, he teaches a variety of media and himself works on large-scale public art.

Pablo Kalaka: Born in Chile but now based in Minneapolis — by way of Venezuela and Spain — he’s painted murals in nearly a dozen countries over the past two decades, including about 20 in the Twin Cities.

Christina Vang: A Hmong-American illustrator and painter, she pivoted in 2016 from a decade-long career in advertising to focus on creating accessible, cultural public art with a social justice focus.

Anna Charney: Based in her hometown of Denver, she creates contemporary, abstract and colorful paintings and murals inspired by mathematical patterns found in nature.

Event schedule:

• Monday, June 2: Artist talk with Mariela Ajras, focusing on Latin American women muralists. 7 to 8 p.m. at NewStudio Gallery (2303 Wycliff St.). Free; refreshments provided.

• Thursday, Sept. 18: Panel discussion and Q&A with select 2025 muralists. 7 to 8 p.m. at Bang Brewing (2320 Capp Road). Free; food and beverage available for purchase.

• Friday, Sept. 19: Outdoor Art Block Party, with a makers’ market, community meal and a Lego mural activity with Brian Kelley of Young Builders & Designers. 6 to 8 p.m. at the parking lot at 2370 Territorial Road.

• Saturday, Sept. 20: Guided bike and bus tours of the murals. Hourlong bike tour (bring your own bike) begins at 10 a.m. at Raymond and University avenues, but the exact location is TBD. Hourlong bus tours run periodically between 1 and 4 p.m. in both English and Spanish, with pickup/dropoffs at The Dubliner (2162 W. University Ave.), Dual Citizen Brewing Co. (725 Raymond Ave.) & The Wycliff (2327 Wycliff St.); exact timing is TBD.

Find more details online at chromazone.net.

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By PAUL WISEMAN, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, Associated Press Business Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — For months, American consumers and businesses have been hearing that President Trump’s massive import taxes – tariffs – would drive up prices and hurt the U.S. economy. But the latest economic reports don’t match the doom and gloom: Inflation actually eased last month, and hiring was solid in April.

For now, the disconnect has businesses and consumers struggling to reconcile what they were told to expect, what the numbers say and what they are seeing on the ground. Trump and his supporters are quick to point out that the trade wars of his first term didn’t translate into higher overall inflation across the economy.

So is it time to breathe easy?

Not yet, economists say. Trump’s tariffs are still huge – the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s. They’re unpredictable: The president frequently announces tariffs only to suspend them days later and to conjure up new ones. And they are still working their way through the system.

“We had a good jobs report. We had a cool inflation report, and that’s great,” said Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at Yale University’s Budget Lab. “But that should not give us comfort about what next month will be, particularly on inflation.’’

FILE – Trader Daniel Kryger works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on May 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Walmart, for example, warned its customers last week that prices will be going up for everything from clothing to car seats. Prices for some items like bananas have already increased.

True, the truce with China last Monday dramatically reduced the risks to the U.S. economy, and U.S. and global stock markets rallied last week in relief. The United States dropped the import tax that Trump angrily imposed on China – America’s third-biggest source of imports – from an eye-watering 145% to 30%; Beijing cut its retaliatory tariffs from 125% to 10%. Economists at JPMorgan Chase, who had forecast last month that the China tariffs made a recession likely, don’t expect one now.

Trump’s tariffs are the highest since the Great Depression

But even with the lower levies on China, the Yale Budget Lab reported that the cost of Trump’s trade war will be high. Climbing prices will reduce the purchasing power of the average household by $2,800. Shoe prices will rise 15% and clothing 14%. The tariffs will shave 0.7 percentage points off U.S. economic growth this year and increase the unemployment rate — now a low 4.2% — by nearly 0.4 percentage points.

Trump has plastered 10% taxes on imports from almost every country on earth. He’s also imposed 25% duties on cars, aluminum, steel, and many imports from Canada and Mexico.

The Yale Budget Lab estimates that Trump policies will push the average U.S. tariff rate to 17.8%, highest since 1934 and up from around 2.5% when Trump took office. (Other economists put his tariff rate at 14% to 15%.) During Trump’s first term, the average tariff rose just 1 percentage point despite all the headlines generated by trade policies. Now, according to the budget lab, they are rising 15 percentage points.

And the tariffs have only begun to bite. In April, the import tax revenues collected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection came to a tariff rate of just 4.5%, a fraction of what’s coming, Tedeschi said. That’s partly because of delays in rolling out the tariffs, including technical glitches that prevented customs agents from collecting them for a couple of weeks.

The full impact has also been delayed because companies beat the clock by bringing in foreign goods before Trump’s tariffs took effect. Retailers and importers had also largely halted shipments of shoes, clothes, toys, and other items due to new tariffs, but many are resuming imports from China.

Shown are shipping containers at the port of the port of New York & New Jersey in Elizabeth, N.J., Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Tedeschi, who was chief economist at President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, also notes that it just takes time for tariffs to translate into higher prices. During Trump’s first term, his January 2018 levies on foreign washing machines didn’t yield more expensive appliances until April that year. Still, a Federal Reserve study this month found that duties Trump imposed in 2018 and 2019 meant higher prices as soon as two months later, suggesting consumers could start paying more in June.

Consumers are less willing to accept higher prices

Things have changed from the first time Trump was in the White House, when companies essentially passed along the entire cost of his tariffs. Now American consumers, still scarred by the burst of inflation that followed the COVID-19 pandemic, may be more reluctant to accept higher prices.

FILE – People shop at a party supply store in the Toy District of Los Angeles on April 9, 2025, where the majority of items are imported from China. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

“Consumers weren’t inflation exhausted in 2018 the way that they are now,’’ Tedeschi said. Surveys by Federal Reserve banks in Atlanta and Dallas have found that most companies would eat at least some of the tariff costs this time around. And one reason that the Labor Department’s producer price index fell in April was that retailers and wholesalers reported lower profit margins, a sign that they may have been absorbing some of the tariff cost.

Trump, who has long insisted that foreign countries and not U.S. companies or consumers pay his tariffs, on Saturday lashed out at Walmart for saying it would raise prices. On social media, he demanded that the giant retailer “ EAT THE TARIFFS, and do not charge valued customers anything. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!’’

The economic damage doesn’t just come from the cost of tariffs, but from the erratic way the president imposes them. For instance, the 145% China tariffs were just suspended for 90 days. Likewise, Trump has paused high taxes he slapped last month on imports from countries with which the United States runs trade deficits. Could those levies come back?

Consumers are clearly fearful that the duties will boost prices, as consumer confidence surveys have plummeted since Trump began ramping up his tariff threats in February. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index has fallen for five straight months to its lowest level since the depths of the pandemic in May 2020.

Costlier coffee and Christmas wreathes are coming

Snowy Owl Coffee Roasters in Sandwich, Massachusetts, which imports beans from Brazil, Nicaragua, Burundi and other countries, is only now planning to raise its prices this week to cover the cost of the 10% tariffs. It plans to add 25 cents to 35 cents to the price for each cup.

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“Tariffs are increasing costs and they’re adding to a lot of uncertainty around the potential for a downturn,” said Shayna Ferullo, 44, co-owner of Snowy Owl. “We are looking closely at the year ahead with the goal of consolidating and operating really, really tightly.”

Ferullo will also have to pay much more than she budgeted to renovate her shop in Brewster, Massachusetts — one of her three retail locations — because the contractor has raised his estimate, partly due to tariffs on building supplies. She has already elected to not fill one job after an employee left and is looking at ways automation could help reduce her labor costs, though she hasn’t laid off any of her 35 employees.

Jared Hendricks, CEO of Village Lighting Co., last month halted shipments of supplies he gets from China – holiday storage bags, wreathes, holiday lights and garlands. Now that the U.S. and China have reached a truce, he’s trying to get the products to the United States in time for the holidays.

He estimates that it will take 10 to 20 days from China to the West Coast ports via ship and another 20 days to 40 days for the goods to go through U.S. Customs, then travel via Union Pacific Railways to his company in Utah. Given all the expected delays, Hendricks said he’s worried that his holiday décor won’t arrive by Sept. 1 when it should start appearing in stores.

Meanwhile, he’s figuring out how to foot a $1 million bill for the tariffs. He’s hoping he can cover the cost by raising prices 10% to 15%.

In the meantime, he’s trying to secure a loan against his house to pay for the levies.

“We are moving forward,’’ he said, “but at great cost, personal risk, and weariness.”

D’Innocenzio reported from New York.