Science
Gov. Newsom declares emergency in California after CDC confirms severe case of bird flu in Louisiana
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Wednesday as the H5N1 bird flu virus moved from the Central Valley to Southern California dairy herds, while federal officials confirmed the first U.S. case of severe illness in a hospitalized Louisiana patient — a concerning development as the virus continues to spread throughout the nation via migrating birds.
The declaration by Newsom will allow for a more streamlined approach among state and local agencies to tackle the virus, providing “flexibility around staffing, contracting, and other rules to support California’s evolving response,” according to a statement.
“Building on California’s testing and monitoring system — the largest in the nation — we are committed to further protecting public health, supporting our agriculture industry, and ensuring that Californians have access to accurate, up-to-date information,” Newsom said in the statement. “While the risk to the public remains low, we will continue to take all necessary steps to prevent the spread of this virus.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 645 dairy herds in California have reportedly been infected with the H5N1 virus since August. Nationwide, the number is 865 and stretches back to March, when the virus was first detected in Texas herds.
There have also been a number of infections identified in pet cats in California, including three announced on Wednesday.
According to the CDC, 61 people have acquired the virus since March — the vast majority at dairies or commercial poultry operations. Most suffered from mild illness, including conjunctivitis, or pink eye, and upper respiratory irritation.
In California, 34 people have become infected with H5N1, with all but one contracting the virus from infected dairy. The outlier was a child in Alameda County; the source of that infection has not been determined. There was also a suspected case in a child from Marin County who drank raw milk known to be infected with the virus. The CDC was unable to confirm illness in that child.
The case in Louisiana is concerning to public health officials because of its severity. Federal officials would not provide details about the patient’s symptoms, deferring all inquiries to Louisiana’s Department of Public Health.
Emails and calls to that agency went unanswered.
According to CDC officials, the patient was reportedly in close contact with sick and dead birds from a backyard flock on the patient’s property. The virus was a version of the H5N1 bird flu that researchers have labeled D1.1 and is circulating in wild birds.
The strain circulating in dairy cows is known as B3.13.
It was the D1.1 version that was detected in a Canadian teenager hospitalized with severe illness in November. The source for that patient’s infection remains unknown.
According to Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Louisiana health officials and the CDC are investigating the patient’s contacts and performing further genetic analysis of the patient’s virus to determine what, if any, changes may have have occurred.
“These additional laboratory investigations help us to identify concerning changes in the virus, including changes that would signal an increased ability to infect humans, increased ability to be transmitted from person to person, or changes that would indicate that currently available diagnostics, antiviral treatments or candidate vaccine viruses may be less effective,” said Daskalakis in a news conference Wednesday morning.
He said analyses so far have not indicated changes in the virus that would make it “better adapted to infect or spread among humans.”
Analyses of the Canadian teen’s virus showed mutational changes that would make it easier for that version of H5N1 to infect people. However, it is unclear if those changes came prior to the infection — in the wild — or during the course of the child’s infection.
None of the child’s family members or contacts were infected, suggesting the changes occurred in the teenager during the infection and therefore the virus reached a dead end when it was unable to spread beyond the child.
These cases are akin to those recorded historically in Asia and the Middle East, where the H5N1 virus had resulted in a mortality rate of roughly 50%. Since the virus was first identified in 1997, there have been 948 cases reported worldwide leading to 464 deaths.
The cases associated with the B3.13 strain circulating in the nation’s dairy herds have so far resulted in only mild symptoms.
Still, research indicates that changes in at least one viral isolate taken from a dairy worker in Texas had acquired mutational changes that allowed for airborne transmission between mammals, and was 100% lethal in laboratory ferrets.
However, as in the case of the Canadian teen, it is believed that version was unique to the dairy worker and did not spread beyond.
Other research shows that only one mutational change is required for the B3.13 version to pass efficiently between people.
The D1.1 version of the virus “worries me a bit,” said Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds. “Not necessarily because I know it will evolve differently, but it does have a different combination of H5 and N1 which theoretically could help support a different set of mutations” than what researchers have seen in experiments with the B3.13 version.
Daskalakis said the CDC still considers the risk to the general population to be low, and the agency is working to expedite influenza and bird flu testing in clinical and public health laboratories “to help accelerate identification of such cases through its routine influenza surveillance.”
According to Newsom’s office, “California has already established the largest testing and monitoring system in the nation to respond to the outbreak.”
Our universe might be chock-full of cosmic wonder, but you can observe only a fraction of astronomical phenomena with the naked eye. Meteor showers, natural fireworks that streak brightly across the night sky, are one of them.
The latest observable meteor shower will be the Lyrids, which has been active since April 14 and is forecast to continue through April 30. The shower reaches its peak April 21 to 22, or Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
According to NASA, the Lyrids are one of the oldest known meteor showers, and have been enjoyed by stargazers for nearly 3,000 years. Their bright, speedy streaks are caused by the dusty debris from a comet named Thatcher. They appear to spring from the constellation Lyra, which right now can be seen in the eastern sky at night in the Northern Hemisphere.
The moon will be about 27 percent full tonight, appearing as a thick crescent in the sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
To get a hint at when to best watch for the Lyrids, you can use this tool, which relies on data from the Global Meteor Network. It shows fireball activity levels in real time.
And while you gaze at the heavens, keep an eye out for other stray meteors streaking across the night sky. Skywatchers are reporting that the amount of fireballs is double what is usually seen by this point in the year.
Where meteor showers come from
There is a chance you might see a meteor on any given night, but you are most likely to catch one during a shower. Meteor showers are caused by Earth passing through the rubble trailing a comet or asteroid as it swings around the sun. This debris, which can be as small as a grain of sand, leaves behind a glowing stream of light as it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Meteor showers occur around the same time every year and can last for days or weeks. But there is only a small window when each shower is at its peak, which happens when Earth reaches the densest part of the cosmic debris. The peak is the best time to look for a shower. From our point of view on Earth, the meteors will appear to come from the same point in the sky.
The Perseid meteor shower, for example, peaks in mid-August from the constellation Perseus. The Geminids, which occur every December, radiate from the constellation Gemini.
How to watch a meteor shower
Michelle Nichols, the director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, recommends forgoing the use of telescopes or binoculars while watching a meteor shower.
“You just need your eyes and, ideally, a dark sky,” she said.
That’s because meteors can shoot across large swaths of the sky, so observing equipment can limit your field of view.
Some showers are strong enough to produce up to 100 streaks an hour, according to the American Meteor Society, though you probably won’t see that many.
“Almost everybody is under a light-polluted sky,” Ms. Nichols said. “You may think you’re under a dark sky, but in reality, even in a small town, you can have bright lights nearby.”
Planetariums, local astronomy clubs or even maps like this one can help you figure out where to go to escape excessive light. The best conditions for catching a meteor shower are a clear sky with no moon or cloud cover, sometime between midnight and sunrise. (Moonlight affects visibility in the same way as light pollution, washing out fainter sources of light in the sky.) Make sure to give your eyes at least 30 minutes to adjust to seeing in the dark.
Ms. Nichols also recommends wearing layers, even during the summer. “You’re going to be sitting there for quite a while, watching,” she said. “It’s going to get chilly, even in August.”
Bring a cup of cocoa or tea for even more warmth. Then lie back, scan the sky and enjoy the show.
Where weather is least likely to affect your view
Storm systems sweep across the country in early spring, and some will be obscuring skies tonight. But there will still be plenty of areas with clear skies, particularly in parts of the central United States.
“The best spot is going to be in the Upper Midwest,” said Rich Bann, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa will offer especially good sky-viewing weather and a beach on the Great Lakes could be a nice spot to look up at the stars.
But don’t expect to view the show from Chicago, as Illinois could see some thunderstorms. The weather will be better in the Northern and Central Plains, particularly the eastern Dakotas.
High, wispy clouds are expected over the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic. But, Mr. Bann said, “you may be able to see some shooting stars through thin clouds.”
Clouds will be draped across much of the Southeast and the Northeast, though there could be some clearing in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. Remember, the meteors could be visible all night long. If you look outside and see clouds, try again later.
Catching the spectacle will be challenging across much of the West, particularly from Washington into Northern California, where a storm system is bringing rain and snow. That system will move east overnight.
There are likely to be some pockets of clear skies at times across southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southwest Utah, Mr. Bann said.
Amy Graff contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Amid growing national security concerns, the FBI said Tuesday that it has launched a broad investigation in the deaths or disappearances of at least 10 scientists and staff connected to highly sensitive research, including four from the Los Angeles area.
“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI’s announcement comes after the House Oversight Committee announced that it would investigate reports of the disappearance and deaths of the scientists, sending letters seeking information from the agencies involved in the federal inquiry as well as NASA, which owns the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where three of the missing or dead scientists worked.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets,” Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) wrote in the letters.
President Trump told reporters last week that he had been briefed on the missing and dead scientists, which he described as “pretty serious stuff.” He said at the time that he expected answers on whether the deaths were connected “in the next week and a half.”
Michael David Hicks, who studied comets and asteroids at JPL, was the first of the scientists who disappeared or died. He died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 59. No cause of death was disclosed.
A year later, JPL physicist Frank Maiwald died at 61, with no cause of death disclosed.
Two other Los Angeles scientists are part of the string of deaths and disappearances.
On June 22, 2025, Monica Jacinto Reza, a materials scientist at JPL, disappeared while on a hike near Mt. Waterman in the San Gabriel Mountains.
On Feb. 16, Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair was fatally shot on the porch of his Llano home. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department arrested Freddy Snyder, 29, in connection with the shooting. Snyder had been arrested in December on suspicion of trespassing on Grillmair’s property.
Snyder has been charged with murder.
There is no evidence at this point that the deaths and disappearances, which occurred over a span of four years, are connected.
A spokesperson for NASA, which owns JPL, said in a statement on X that the agency is “coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists.
“At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” agency spokesperson Bethany Stevens wrote. “The agency is committed to transparency and will provide more information as able.”
Representatives from Caltech, which manages JPL, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The sun had barely risen over the Pacific Ocean when a small motorboat carrying a team of Indigenous artisans and Mexican biologists dropped anchor in a rocky cove near Bahías de Huatulco.
Mauro Habacuc Avendaño Luis, one of the craftsmen, was the first to wade to shore. With an agility belying his age, he struck out over the boulders exposed by low tide. Crouching on a slippery ledge pounded by surf, he reached inside a crevice between two rocks. There, lodged among the urchins, was a snail with a knobby gray shell the size of a walnut. The sight might not dazzle tourists who travel here to see humpback whales, but for Mr. Avendaño, 85, these drab little mollusks represent a way of life.
Marine snails in the genus Plicopurpura are sacred to the Mixtec people of Pinotepa de Don Luis, a small town in southwestern Oaxaca. Men like Mr. Avendaño have been sustainably “milking” them for radiant purple dye for at least 1,500 years. The color suffuses Mixtec textiles and spiritual beliefs. Called tixinda, it symbolizes fertility and death, as well as mythic ties between lunar cycles, women and the sea.
The future of these traditions — and the fate of the snails — are uncertain. The mollusks are subject to intense poaching pressure despite federal protections intended to protect them. Fishermen break them (and the other mollusks they eat) open and sell the meat to local restaurants. Tourists who comb the beaches pluck snails off the rocks and toss them aside.
A severe earthquake in 2020 thrust formerly submerged parts of their habitat above sea level, fatally tossing other mollusks in the snail’s food web to the air, and making once inaccessible places more available to poachers.
Decades ago, dense clusters of snails the size of doorknobs were easy to find, according to Mr. Avendaño. “Full of snails,” he said, sweeping a calloused, violet-stained hand across the coves. Now, most of the snails he finds are small, just over an inch, and yield only a few milliliters of dye.
-
Washington, D.C12 seconds ago11 hurt after work vehicle collides with Silver Line train at Metro Center
-
Cleveland, OH6 minutes agoHouston Astros at Cleveland Guardians prediction, pick for Tuesday 4/21/26
-
Austin, TX12 minutes agoAppeals court rules Texas can require public schools to display Ten Commandments in class
-
Alabama18 minutes agoAlabama Defeated By Birmingham
-
Alaska24 minutes agoHawaiian, Alaska reservation systems merge: Big changes for travelers start April 22
-
Arizona30 minutes agoMichigan defenseman Hunter Hady transfers to Arizona State
-
Arkansas36 minutes ago
#24 Arkansas Explodes for Eight Runs in Eighth to Race past Missouri State in Midweek Rematch
-
California42 minutes agoCalifornia Islamic calligraphy artist preserves ancient tradition during Arab American Heritage Month
