By MIKE STOBBE and JONEL ALECCIA (Associated Press)

Milk from dairy cows in Texas and Kansas has tested positive for bird flu, U.S. officials said Monday.

The illness has been reported in older dairy cows in those states and in New Mexico. The symptoms included decreased lactation and low appetite.

It comes a week after officials in Minnesota announced that goats on a farm where there had been an outbreak of bird flu among poultry were diagnosed with the virus. It’s believed to be the first time bird flu — also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza — was found in U.S. livestock.

The commercial milk supply is safe, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dairies are required to only allow milk from healthy animals to enter the food supply, and milk from the sick animals is being diverted or destroyed. Pasteurization also kills viruses and other bacteria, and the process is required for milk sold through interstate commerce, they said.

“At this stage, there is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health,” the USDA said in a statement.

Experts say livestock will recover on their own. That’s different than bird flu outbreaks in poultry, which necessitate killing flocks to get rid of the virus. Since 2022, outbreaks in have led to the loss of about 80 million birds in U.S. commercial flocks.

Based on findings from Texas, officials think the cows got the virus from infected wild birds, the USDA said.

So far, the virus appears to be infecting about 10% of lactating dairy cows in the affected herds, said Michael Payne, a food animal veterinarian and and biosecurity expert with the University of California-Davis Western Institute for Food Safety and Security.

“This doesn’t look anything like the high-path influenza in bird flocks,” he said.

The federal government also said that testing did not detect any changes to the virus that would make it spread more easily to people.

Bird flu was detected in unpasteurized, clinical samples of milk from sick cattle collected from two dairy farms in Kansas and one in Texas. The virus was also found in a nose and throat swab from another dairy in Texas. Symptoms including decreased lactation and low appetite. Officials also reported a detection in New Mexico.

Officials called it a rapidly evolving situation. The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also involved, along with officials in the three states. Another dairy-heavy state, Iowa, said it is monitoring the situation.

Dairy industry officials said that producers have begun enhanced biosecurity efforts on U.S. farms, including limiting the amount of traffic into and out of properties and restricting visits to employees and essential personnel.

Bird flu previously has been reported in 48 different mammal species, Payne noted, adding: “It was probably only a matter of time before avian influenza made its way to ruminants.”

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

A man who lives less than a mile from where authorities say he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 25-year-old woman was charged in the decade-old case this week based on DNA evidence.

Gregory Alan Trepanier, 55, was charged this week in Ramsey County District Court with one felony count of kidnapping and one felony count of attempted first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He was 45 at the time of the assault.

Gregory Alan Trepanier (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

The criminal complaint gave the following details:

On Nov. 23, 2014, a 25-year-old woman went to a Maplewood bar with friends. After the bar closed, the women left and the 25-year-old got into her own vehicle alone. When she began backing out of her parking spot, a man wearing a black ski mask with a red stripe, a black hooded sweatshirt and blue sweatpants opened her passenger side door and got inside her vehicle.

The man ordered her to drive south on White Bear Avenue and directed her to a senior living facility on the 2700 block of Hazelwood Street in Maplewood, where he told her to park. He put a gun on his lap facing the woman and threatened to hurt her if she didn’t comply with his demands.

He told her, “I didn’t pick you for any reason at all,” and apologized several times. At one point, he got out of her vehicle and left on foot.

Detectives were able to gather DNA evidence from the woman’s vehicle.

At the time, the BCA was unable to connect the DNA evidence to a suspect. Recently, however, BCA scientists found a match after running the sample through their database as they routinely do because new DNA profiles are often added to the database. On Feb. 5, the DNA from the kidnapping and assault returned a match to Trepanier, whose DNA had been submitted in a separate case.

A search warrant on Feb. 29, 2024 allowed authorities to collect a  DNA sample from Trepanier. After that, on March 13, the BCA said the match would not occur “more than once among unrelated individuals in the world population.”

Trepanier was convicted of stalking and indecent exposure in October of 2018. In addition he is under investigation in connection with two unsolved kidnappings in the area that also involve the use of a firearm and threats of sexual assault.

He denied being involved in the kidnapping and assault, the complaint stated. Authorities say they consider him a high risk to public safety.

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When the Green Line first rolled into downtown St. Paul in 2014, officials called Metro Transit’s light rail service a harbinger of future economic development. The reality has been complicated at best, with new housing and major public developments like CHS Field and Allianz Field constructed by commercial spaces that remain near-vacant or heavily underused.

Case in point: Nearly two acres of public land surrounds the downtown St. Paul light rail stop at Central Station, and most of it sits empty. Eager to see the location redeveloped, the city of St. Paul’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority and the Metropolitan Council have issued a joint request for proposals for the site, which is bounded by Fourth and Fifth streets, as well as Cedar and Minnesota streets.

The city and Met Council, the metro’s regional planning agency, solicited recommendations, or “letters of interest,” from developers in January, and they’re now moving on to a formal RFP for a high-density, mixed-use development that would increase public transit ridership and add vitality downtown. The 1.66-acre site hosts a vertical circulation tower from the light rail train platform to a skyway bridge.

“We got a lot of interest, and one formal response from a developer, Flaherty & Collins, in Indianapolis, who has been tracking the site for years,” said St. Paul City Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who chairs the St. Paul HRA.

“Part of the reason we did a request for letters of interest was to see if it would adjust what we were looking for in a request for proposals. It didn’t. We’re still looking for high density, street level activation. There aren’t many prime development sites in the middle of a downtown center like this. It’s literally the central station for St. Paul.”

St. Paul, Met Council will work with Greater MSP

To market the opportunity, Noecker said the city and Met Council will work with the Greater MSP economic development group, which is based in downtown St. Paul.

Responses will be accepted through July 25 from developers interested in construction on “prime, undeveloped property in the heart of downtown St. Paul,” according to the joint announcement.

The Met Council and St. Paul HRA own separate parcels on the Central Station redevelopment site and are offering them, along with air rights above the Green Line track, as one development opportunity.

That could include restructuring the adjacent stairway-elevator tower, skyway and bus stop and incorporating a new building or buildings, plural.

Public dollars

Would public dollars be available for a project?

That’s a definite possibility, if a development supports a strong public purpose, according to the joint announcement, which notes the potential for a “public-private partnership.”

The downtown Central Station and the skyway bridge above it have not been immune to crime, litter and loitering, but officials also see plenty of potential. Land near high-frequency transit accounts for just 2% of the region’s taxable parcels but generates more than 25% of the region’s property tax revenue, according to figures compiled by the Met Council. Overall, the site has potential for 578,000 square feet of buildable space.

A vacant building on the site was demolished to make way for the Green Line over a decade ago. As part of the light rail construction project, an environmental cleanup effort also occurred on the site.

Questions are due to the Met Council by April 5. More information is online at metrotransit.org/central-station-block.

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