The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has detected H5N1 bird flu in rats for the first time, in a southern California county where two recent poultry outbreaks were reported. The discovery comes as the USDA is seeking to rehire bird flu experts recently fired by DOGE. Meanwhile, a newly published CDC study finds two dairy workers in Michigan may have infected their pet cats with bird flu — and that one of the infected cats likely passed the virus on to other people. The results of the study were supposed to have been published in January but were delayed by a blanket pause on CDC communications ordered by President Trump.