Tag Archives: California

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Where to Find the Best Negronis in L.A.

The Negroni is a classic Italian cocktail known for its vibrant, spirit-forward nature. This timeless tipple was reportedly created in 1919 at Florence’s Caffè Casoni, and is typically served as an apéritif before a comforting Italian meal. Though the traditional recipe for a classic Negroni calls for only three ingredients (equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, garnished with an orange slice or orange peel), several Los Angeles bars and restaurants have put their own spin on the Negroni. Mezcal, in particular, is a popular substitute for gin, while the Negroni Sbagliato, which had its viral moment thanks to House of the Dragon star Emma D’Arcy, boasts a bubbly Prosecco profile.

Places like Capri Club in Eagle Rock serve a few different renditions of the Negroni, including a frozen version. Though a standard gin Negroni is the most popular, mezcal Negronis are a close second. Renowned DTLA bar Death and Co. and Koreatown’s The Normandie Club both use rum in theirs, proving that the Negroni is just as versatile as it is classic. Whether you want to get a balanced buzz at one of West Hollywood’s hottest new Italian eateries or sip on a rooftop in Beverly Hills, we’ve got you covered on where to get the best Negronis in Los Angeles.



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Northern California’s commercial crab season under threat from migrating whales

San Francisco — San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, known to many as a tourist attraction, harbors a small fleet of fishing boats that might otherwise be catching crabs this time of year.

However, migrating endangered humpback whales are now swimming in the same waters outside the Golden Gate strait where crabs are, and long lines of rope that fishermen traditionally use to pull up crab cages have entangled too many humpbacks. 

Since 2007, at least 922 humpback whales have been maimed or killed by these ropes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Fisherman Brand Little is able to keep bringing up his catch from the ocean floor because he is using a high-tech system that involves a remote-controlled pop-up balloon-like device that signals the crab cage to head to the ocean’s surface. Little is given permission by the state to fish when some others cannot because of his use of the experimental device, which limits the amount of rope needed.

The U.S. military developed this technology in order to deploy weapons and sensors from the ocean floor. But for fishermen, spending another $50 a cage for the pop-up system in an already cash-strapped industry is a hard sell.

“What you have to remember about fishermen is, these guys have just loss after loss after loss after loss,” Little told CBS News. “So, there’s very little opportunity left.”

The pop-up gear has critics among some fishermen who say it shouldn’t be used. That criticism is rooted in tradition and finance. Many fishermen inherited their trade and don’t want change or government intervention into their fishing practices. Financially, it will cost them money to use the new devices, and they claim that their margins are already too thin.

“I was one of the biggest critics of it,” Little said. “So, I set out to prove that it wouldn’t work. And I kind of had to eat a little bit of crow because after I did it, I said, wait a minute, you know, this might work.”

For about three years now, Little heads out at midnight under the Golden Gate Bridge to retrieve his catch while using the pop-up technology. He says he has not injured a single humpback whale while using it.

The technology is an experiment sponsored by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is tasked with regulating the crab fishing season. It does so through a variety of mechanisms, including requiring licenses and validations, setting fishing seasons, limiting the number of crab that can be taken, and implementing trap restrictions to protect whales and other marine life. 

“This year, we shortened it (the season) given the heightened risk of migrating whales coming back up the coast,” CDFW director Chuck Bonham told CBS News.  

The commercial Dungeness crab season traditionally starts in November and runs through about May. However, Bonham cut the season short by two months this year, delaying the start until January.

Little was not affected, however, because of his use of the experimental device. He can keep fishing and hopes his investment of $25,000 will pay off by catching more crabs without injuring whales. 

“The thing the whales eat for food, small little fish called krill, those krill moved more inshore, and the whales followed them, right where our fishing men and women put their gear,” Bonham said. “That has meant, every year, we’ve been entangling whales.”

Elizabeth Cook

Less than a month after arriving at KPIX 5 as the 5pm co-anchor and night-side reporter, Elizabeth Cook was in San Francisco’s Mission District covering a chaotic Occupy march when a protester shoved her and her cameraman. With only moments to spare, the team got to safety and filed their report for the 11 pm news.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes pausing immigrant health care coverage expansion

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed a pause to the enrollment of more low-income immigrants without legal status for state-funded health care benefits in 2026 as the state faces economic uncertainty. 

Newsom outlined his nearly $332 billion state spending plan on Wednesday, revealing that California is facing a $12 billion budget deficit. 

“California is under assault,” Newsom said. “We have a president that’s been reckless in terms of assaulting those growth engines.”

The Democratic governor noted that the freeze does not mean California is backing away from its support for immigrants.

“No state has done more than the state of California, no state will continue to do more than the state of California by a long shot. And that’s a point of pride,” Newsom said.

The decision, the details for which were revealed before Wednesday’s budget revision presentation, is driven by a higher-than-expected price tag on the program and economic uncertainty from federal tariff policies, Newsom said. It also comes as Newsom faces his final years in the governor’s office, with speculation continuing to mount about his future political prospects. 

California’s push to offer free health care benefits to all low-income adults, regardless of their immigration status, was announced in late 2023. Newsom touted the planned expansion as “a transformative step towards strengthening the health care system for all Californians.”

However, the cost has exceeded the state’s initial $6.4 billion estimate by more than $2 billion.

Still, as late as March of this year, Newsom suggested to reporters he was not considering rolling back health benefits for low-income people living in the country illegally — even with California grappling with a $6.2 billion Medicaid shortfall. He also repeatedly defended the expansion, saying it saves the state money in the long run. The program is state-funded and does not use federal dollars.

Under Newsom’s plan, low-income adults without legal status will no longer be eligible to apply for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, starting in 2026. Those who are already enrolled won’t be kicked off their plans because of the enrollment freeze, and the changes won’t impact children. Newsom’s office didn’t say how long the freeze would last.

Starting in 2027, adults with “unsatisfactory immigration status” on Medi-Cal, including those without legal status and those who have legal status but aren’t eligible for federally funded Medicaid, will also have to pay a $100 monthly premium. The governor’s office said that is in line with the average cost paid by those who are on subsidized heath plans through California’s own marketplace. There’s no premium for most people currently on Medi-Cal.

“We believe that people should have some skin in the game as it relates to contributions,” Newsom said.

In total, Newsom’s office estimated the changes will save the state $5.4 billion by 2028-2029.

The Medi-Cal expansion, combined with other factors such as rising pharmacy costs and larger enrollment by older people, has forced California to borrow and authorize new funding to plug the multibillion-dollar hole earlier this year. California provides free health care to more than a third of its 39 million people.

The proposals come ahead of Newsom’s scheduled presentation on the updated budget. Recovery from the Los Angeles wildfires, changing federal tariff policies, and the expensive health care expansion are putting a strain on California’s massive state budget. Lawmakers are expecting a multibillion-dollar shortfall this year, and more deficits are projected for several years ahead.

Newsom blamed President Donald Trump’s tariff policies for the shortfalls, estimating that the polices have cost the state $16 billion in tax revenues. California is also bracing for major budget hits if Republicans in Congress follow through with a plan to slash billions of dollars in Medicaid and penalize states for providing health care to immigrants without legal status.

Newsom now opens budget negotiations with lawmakers and it’s unclear how Democrats who control the Legislature will react to his plan to freeze new Medi-Cal enrollment for some immigrants. A final budget proposal must be signed by June. California’s budget is by far the largest among states.

“This is going to be a very challenging budget,” Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, who chairs the budget committee, said before Newsom’s proposals were announced. “We’re going to have to make some tough decisions.”

The budget proposals presented this week will build on some of the impacts of federal policies, but many unknowns remain.

The governor already said he’s planning to scale back on baseline spending this year. Analysts and economists also warn that California will face bigger deficits in the tens of billions of dollars in the coming years due to economic sluggishness and stock market volatility brought on by the tariff war.

The budget Newsom first proposed in January included little new spending. But it allows the state to fully implement the country’s first universal transitional kindergarten program and increase the state’s film and TV tax credit to $750 million annually to bring back Hollywood jobs that have gone to New York and Georgia. He recently called on Trump to pass a $7.5 billion film tax credit at the federal level.

Last year, Newsom and the Legislature agreed to dip into the state’s rainy day fund, slash spending — including a nearly 10% cut for nearly all state departments — and temporarily raise taxes on some businesses to close an estimated $46.8 billion budget deficit.

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Fresh & Ready Foods recalls products after listeria sickens 10 people in California, Nevada

Fresh & Ready Foods is voluntarily recalling numerous products, after at least 10 people in the U.S. have been sickened in a listeria outbreak linked to its ready-to-eat food products, federal officials said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Saturday that federal, state and local officials are investigating the outbreak linked to foods produced by the San Fernando, California-based food producer. 

The FDA says the 10 people who fell ill were in California and Nevada, and required hospitalization.

This voluntary recall is being initiated due to possible contamination with listeria monocytogenes, an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems, according to the FDA. 

Healthy individuals may experience short-term symptoms including high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, the recall notice states. Pregnant women infected by the organism can experience miscarriages and stillbirths.

Affected products

The voluntary recall is limited to products with “Use By” dates from 4/22/2025 to 05/19/2025. The FDA says the products were sold in Arizona, California, Nevada and Washington at locations including retailers and food service points of sale, including hospitals, hotels, convenience stores, airports and by airlines. 

You can see the full list of products, including size, item numbers, packaging and used-by dates here.

Packaging label of one of more than 60 products Fresh & Ready Foods is voluntarily recalling, after at least 10 people in the U.S. have been sickened in a listeria outbreak

FDA


Listeria symptoms usually start within two weeks of eating contaminated food. Mild cases can include muscle aches, tiredness and vomiting and diarrhea, while more severe symptoms may include stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions.

Federal officials said they started investigating the recent outbreak last year but didn’t have enough evidence to identify a source of the infections. They said the investigation was reopened in April when FDA investigators found listeria in samples collected from Fresh & Ready Foods that matched the strain from the outbreak.

Fresh & Ready Foods said in a news release that it took immediate corrective actions including removing equipment to address the issue.

The FDA found that six of the 10 people who got sick had been hospitalized before becoming ill with listeria. The FDA found that items made by Fresh & Ready Foods had been served in at least three of the health care facilities where the patients had been previously treated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the test samples from sick patients were collected from December 2023 to September 2024.

Fresh & Ready voluntarily recalled several products, which can be identified by “use by” dates ranging from April 22 to May 19 of this year under the brand names Fresh & Ready Foods, City Point Market Fresh Food to Go and Fresh Take Crave Away.

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After promising universal health care, California Gov. Gavin Newsom must reconsider immigrant coverage

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t expect to be reckoning with another health care crisis.

In March, as President Trump and congressional Republicans escalated a nationwide debate over whether to slash health care for poor and disabled Americans, the Democratic governor had to tell state lawmakers that California’s health care costs had spiraled out of control due to major Medicaid initiatives he backed — including the nation’s largest expansion of taxpayer-financed health care for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

His top officials at the state Department of Finance quietly disclosed to California lawmakers in a letter that the state had borrowed $3.4 billion to pay health insurers, doctors, and hospitals caring for patients enrolled in California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal. Facing rising health care costs amid a deepening state budget crisis, Newsom now must contemplate rolling back coverage and benefits.

The second-term governor faces a tough political decision: renege on his promise to achieve universal health care and strip coverage from millions of immigrants who lack legal status or look elsewhere for budget cuts. With nearly 15 million low-income or disabled residents enrolled in Medi-Cal, California has more to lose on health care than any other state. Yet even as Newsom has condemned Mr. Trump’s approach to tariffs and environmental policies, he has been tight-lipped on health policy.

Complicating his political tightrope: Polling shows that providing health care coverage for immigrants without legal status has tepid support. And any resulting budget trouble could harm his political legacy should he run for president in 2028.

“We all know that the cuts are definitely coming,” said Carlos Alarcon, a health and public benefits analyst with the California Immigrant Policy Center, which has helped spearhead a decadelong campaign in California to expand Medicaid to eligible immigrants without legal status. “The governor should keep his commitment — we’ll be very disappointed if we see cuts and rollbacks. When times get hard, it’s always our marginalized and underserved communities that lose out.”

California allows any low-income adults to enroll in Medi-Cal if they earn 138% of the federal poverty level, or $21,597 a year or less, regardless of immigration status. But the costs have been dramatically higher than expected.

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown first expanded Medi-Cal to people age 19 and younger without legal status, but he expressed reluctance to go further because of potential costs. Newsom signed bills into law adding people age 20 and older. An estimated 1.6 million immigrants without legal status are now covered, and costs have soared to $9.5 billion per year, up from $6.4 billion estimated in November. The federal government chips in roughly $1.1 billion of that total for pregnancy and emergency care.

“We can expand out of the graciousness of our heart to everywhere and anywhere, but the moment these resources run out, now everybody loses. We’re hitting that breaking point,” said California Assembly member David Tangipa (R-Fresno). “Either we get fiscally responsible, or there’s not going to be services for anybody — and that includes the Californian and the undocumented immigrant.”

Democratic leaders responsible for approving the state budget declined interviews. In a statement, state Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), who championed the expansion in the legislature, said, “Rolling back this progress would be a harmful and shortsighted decision.”

Lawmakers are considering freezing enrollment for immigrants without legal status, imposing cost-sharing measures such as drug copays or premiums, or restricting benefits, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified to protect relationships at the state Capitol.

However, it’s unlikely Newsom will slash funding in his budget revision set for release on May 14. Instead, cuts would follow if congressional Republicans approve a budget deal with major reductions in federal spending on Medicaid.

“This is going to be very problematic for the governor. Budget cuts will disrupt the lives of millions of immigrants who just got health care, but the governor has got to do something, because this is not sustainable,” said Mark Peterson, an expert on health care and national politics at UCLA. “The prospect of cutting other places in order to support immigrants living in the country illegally would be a hard political sale; I don’t see that happening.”

Should Newsom, along with the Democratic-controlled legislature, be forced to make cuts, he could argue he had no choice. Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans have threatened states like California with the latest U.S. House proposal cutting Medicaid funding by 10 percentage points for states that provide coverage for immigrants without legal status. For Newsom, political analysts say, Mr. Trump could make an easy scapegoat.

“He can blame Trump — there’s only so much money to go around,” said Mike Madrid, an anti-Trump Republican political analyst in California who specializes in Latino issues. “It’s making people look at the health care that they can’t afford and ask, ‘Why the hell are we giving it for free to people who are here illegally?'”

The exorbitant cost has come as somewhat of a surprise.

In Newsom’s first budget proposal as governor — in which he called for expanding Medi-Cal to young adults without legal status — his administration estimated it would cost roughly $2.4 billion annually to extend benefits to all eligible people regardless of status. But the latest figure reported to legislators was nearly four times as much.

Newsom declined to respond to questions from KFF Health News, instead referencing previous comments that leave the door open to scaling back Medi-Cal. The governor noted “sober” discussions with lawmakers and said cutting Medi-Cal is “an open-ended question” that the president will heavily influence.

“What’s the impact of Donald Trump on a lot of these things? What’s the impact of federal vandalism to a lot of these programs?” Newsom asked rhetorically in December, suggesting it’s unclear whether he’ll be able to sustain the expansion to immigrants without legal status in future years.

Newsom expanded Medi-Cal in three phases, starting with immigrants ages 19 to 25, who became eligible in 2020, resisting pressure from health care advocates for one big, costly expansion. He argued doing it incrementally would ultimately save California money.

“It is the right thing morally and ethically,” Newsom said in 2020. “It is also the financially responsible thing to do.”

Record budget surpluses in recent years allowed Democrats to continue. Older adults ages 50 to 64 became eligible in 2022, and Newsom closed the gap the following year, approving coverage starting in 2024 for the biggest group, those ages 26 to 49.

But the costs have grown tremendously while the budget picture has soured, according to a KFF analysis of the most recent 2023 records available from the state Department of Health Care Services, which administers Medi-Cal.

Aside from children, it was more expensive to provide Medicaid coverage to immigrants without legal status than to legal residents. For instance, Medi-Cal paid L.A. Care, a major health insurer in Los Angeles, an average of $495.32 monthly to provide care for a childless adult without legal status and $266.77 for a legal resident without kids.

Not only were immigrants without legal status more expensive, California footed most of the cost. The state paid roughly between 60% and 70% of health care costs for a childless adult immigrant covered by L.A. Care, and about 10% for a legal resident without kids. Those costs don’t encapsulate the entire cost of providing care, which can vary depending on where Medi-Cal patients live, and grow higher when filling prescriptions, going to the dentist, or seeking mental health care.

These payments also differ by insurer, but the trend holds across the state’s Medi-Cal health insurance plans. Patients in most of the state can choose from more than one health plan.

Children without legal status in many cases were cheaper to cover than children who were legal residents. Generally, kids are healthier and require less care.

Mike Genest, who served as finance director under former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, argued that the state should have planned for the immense price tag.

“The idea that we’d be able to afford in the long run paying for health care for all these undocumented people — it’s beyond unsustainable,” Genest said.

While costs are high now, the expansion of Medi-Cal will result in long-term savings to taxpayers and the health care system, said Anthony Wright, who previously lobbied for the expansion as the head of the nonprofit Health Access and is now fighting Medicaid cuts as the executive director of Families USA, based in Washington, D.C.

“They’re going to be showing up in our health care system regardless,” Wright said. “Leaving them without health insurance is just going to end in more crowded emergency rooms, and it’s going to cost even more. It doesn’t make any sense economically for them to be uninsured; that takes critical revenue from clinics and hospitals, just causing more problems.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. KFF Health News is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

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SoCal Teacher Plummets from Teacher of the Year to Incarcerated Child Sex Offender

In just two years, a former Southern California educator has taken a steep fall from “teacher of the year” to a 30-years-to-life prison term for sexually abusing two of her sixth-grade students.

A Chula Vista Superior Court Judge in San Diego County Friday sentenced Jacqueline Ma, 36, to the prison term after she pleaded guilty in February to two counts of forcible lewd acts on a child, one count of lewd acts on a child, and one count of possessing child sexual abuse material.

Only two years ago, Ma was being featured on local television explaining “how she connects with distracted students.”

On Friday, she was on TV again, this time addressing the Court.

“I abused my authority, I exerted my power and control over them, and I deceived them,” Ma said while handcuffed and crying. “Boys this age should be playing outside, feeling carefree … I ripped away their childhood.”

Her sentencing statement, carried in part by Fox 5 in San Diego, also included an apology to the victims and their families. She called her crimes “selfish” and that she had “disgraced the teaching profession.”

According to police and the district attorney’s office, Ma had groomed young boys with “gifts, food and special attention and even completed their homework for them.”

Prosecutors said Ma groomed one boy for over a year before she sexually assaulted him in her classroom over a period of three months while his parents believed he was in an after-school basketball program.

Further investigation into Ma revealed that she had targeted and sexually assaulted a second victim, an 11-year-old boy in 2020, according to the district attorney’s office.

The assault was well before Ma was named San Diego County “Teacher of the Year” for the 2022-2023 school year. She had been a teacher with the National School District since 2013.

Ma will not be eligible for parole until 2055, one of her prosecutors said. District Attorney Summer Stephan said the sentence was a just one, adding:

This defendant violated the trust she had with her students in the most extreme and traumatic way possible and her actions are despicable. Her victims will have to deal with a lifetime of negative effects and her 30-year sentence is appropriate.

Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times bestseller “House of Secrets,” which documents one of the worst sexual child abuse cases in U.S. history, as well as four other nonfiction crime books. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.

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Homeland Security subpoenas California’s immigrant assistance program in latest crackdown on illegal immigration

In its latest legal challenge, the Department of Homeland Security has subpoenaed California’s cash assistance program for immigrants. It is demanding a slew of records from Los Angeles County to determine if individuals in the United States illegally received payments stemming from the Social Security Administration, dating back to 2021.

The legal action centers on California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, or CAPI, providing cash assistance to “certain aged, blind, and disabled legal immigrants” ineligible for social security payments due to their immigration status. 

The pending investigation led by Los Angeles’ Homeland Security Investigations – an investigative arm of DHS – has sought the following records: 

  • Applicant’s Name and Date of Birth
  • Copies of Applications
  • Immigration Status
  • Proof of Ineligibility for SSI from the Social Security Administration
  • Affidavits in Support of the Application

Recipients of Los Angeles County’s CAPI program must be non-citizens who have been lawfully admitted into the U.S., paroled, granted conditional entry, or whose removal has been withheld. Candidates include Afghan and Ukrainian humanitarian parolees. According to Los Angeles County’s website, the payments are designed for recipients who are ages 65 or over, blind, or disabled. 

According to the Department of Homeland Security, “more than 2 million ineligible illegal aliens received a Social Security Number in fiscal year 2024 alone.” 

The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that about 1.1 million people receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or State Supplementary Payment (SSP) monthly grants, with just over half of all payments granted to those 65 years and older. That number includes about 15,000 legal residents who do not meet additional non-citizen criteria for social security payments. 

Last month, President Trump issued an executive order aimed at curbing incentives for individuals living illegally in the United States. The memo directs the secretary of Homeland Security to work with the secretaries of Labor and Health and Human Services, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, and the U.S. attorney general, “to ensure ineligible illegal aliens do not receive funds from Social Security programs and prioritize civil or criminal enforcement against states or localities for potential violations” of federal law. 

In a statement, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accused “radical left politicians in California” of prioritizing migrants in the U.S. over American citizens by “giving illegal aliens access to cash benefits.” Noem vowed that the Trump Administration is working to “identify abuse and exploitation of public benefits and make sure those in this country illegally are not receiving federal benefits or other financial incentives to stay illegally.” 

“If you are an illegal immigrant, you should leave now,” Noem said. “The gravy train is over. While this subpoena focuses only on Los Angeles County – it is just the beginning.”

Nicole Sganga


Nicole Sganga is CBS News’ homeland security and justice correspondent. She is based in Washington, D.C. and reports for all shows and platforms.

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Trump considers taxing the rich as his agenda hits new roadblock



Trump considers taxing the rich as his agenda hits new roadblock – CBS News










































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A California judge paused the Trump administration’s efforts to drastically downsize the government. President Trump is now suggesting taxing the rich as a way to pay for his plans. Willie James Inman has more.

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California offering $25 gift cards to encourage bird flu testing

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now working with California on a project that is offering gift cards to encourage people to get tested or vaccinated near farms with bird flu, the state says.

Some clinics in the state are giving $25 in gift cards to people in the community to get swabbed for a potential bird flu infection or to get a shot of the regular seasonal influenza vaccine. 

California is providing the gift cards at the clinics, which are run by the state’s vendor. The CDC also has a testing van from the agency’s Avian Flu Influenza Area Surveillance Testing, or AFAST project, offering testing at some of the sites.

“Funding for the gift cards comes out of California’s bird flu state emergency declaration funds. CDC does testing only and offers no incentives of any kind,” a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health said in an email.

The effort runs contrary to rumors on social media that states have stopped testing symptomatic farmworkers for bird flu, at the behest of the CDC under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

“There has been no change to our guidance for testing suspect cases, we are not aware of any symptomatic workers not being referred or tested for H5N1, and it is very unlikely that testing would be declined if H5N1 was suspected,” the California spokesperson said.

A CDC spokesperson also said their guidance had not changed. The agency continues to recommend people with symptoms seek testing from their doctor or local health department.

Authorities in neighboring Nevada told CBS News they are also continuing to offer testing and treatment to farm workers exposed to bird flu infections in their animals. In Idaho, another state that had seen bird flu infections in farms, authorities said they had not heard of symptomatic workers being discouraged from getting tested.

“We have no knowledge of this happening and have not heard any recent reports of symptomatic workers,” AJ McWhorter, a spokesperson for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said in an email.

Labs run by state and local health departments are usually the first to conduct initial testing for bird flu, before forwarding the samples on to the CDC for confirmation. Health departments typically announce those “presumptive” detections, even if they turn out later not to be confirmed.

In addition to testing people exposed to the virus on farms, California said it is also continuing to check whether other flu cases elsewhere in the state are being caused by bird flu.

“To date, all samples tested have been confirmed as seasonal subtypes H1 or H3, which rules out infection with H5N1 [bird flu]. The fact that no other human cases of H5N1 have been identified via subtyping efforts is reassuring,” the California spokesperson said.

Alexander Tin

Alexander Tin is a digital reporter for CBS News based in the Washington, D.C. bureau. He covers federal public health agencies.

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