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Oct. 9, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Evan BushIt was a quiet summer for bird flu: Egg prices fell a bit, fewer sick poultry flocks were culled on farms, and officials took a breath. “It was lovely,” said Shauna Voss, the assistant director of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health. But it didn’t last. Bird flu is spreading again, now that wild water fowl — geese, ducks and cranes — have begun their seasonal migrations. As the birds travel, they mingle at lakes and ponds and share viruses.In poultry, bird flu cases are spiking earlier than expected. More than 4 million poultry birds have been culled in the last month, in states including Minnesota and Iowa, after members of their flock tested positive for the virus, called H5N1. The trend corresponds to a spike in infections detected among wild birds in northern states. Some state officials are bracing for a challenging autumn, which is when cases have typically spiked in past years. “Last week, we had our first confirmed positive,” Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig said. The case was on a turkey farm in Calhoun County. “The question for us then is how extensive will it be and what kind of fall will we have.” It’s too early to say what effect the outbreaks will have on egg prices, he added.“The only honest answer to that is we will have to see. I wish I could give you more than that,” Naig said.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}})}(); This is the fourth fall in which bird flu infections have risen, a sign the virus is becoming endemic in wild birds and could be a continual threat to poultry. “It’s not going away. It seems pretty embedded,” Voss said. The more the virus circulates, there is a risk that it will unlock a way to readily infect humans. If that becomes a problem, some experts fear that the Trump administration’s cuts to mRNA research could hamper scientists’ ability to rapidly develop a new vaccine. For now, though, the health risk to people remains low. As fall progresses, officials, wildlife experts and virologists are in a watch-and-wait mode.“It’s an interesting time,” said Declan Schroeder, an associate professor of virology at the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “Everyone is waiting with bated breath to see what’s going to happen.” Avian influenza was first detected in a U.S. commercial flock in February 2022, after circulating in wild birds before then. The virus is almost always deadly for poultry birds, and as of this summer, more than 175 million birds had been culled or killed. Two years ago, researchers were surprised to discover that bird flu had spread to dairy cows and was found in raw, unpasteurized milk, prompting a slew of changes to farm practices and milk testing. At least 70 people — mostly farmworkers with close contact to birds or cows — have been infected. One person died. !function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}})}(); Wild birds tend to spread the disease to poultry farms in a few ways, scientists think: through direct contact, by contaminating feed or when workers bring contaminated materials into barns. That’s why migration season can be such a catalyst.“If you got one sick bird that moves over an area, infects some others, the math suggests it’s going to spread really fast,” said Michael Ward, a professor of natural resources and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois, who studies migration. Ward added that habitat limitations are pushing birds to congregate and share space, which makes viral spread more likely. In Illinois, wetland habitat has shrunk as the state deals with drought. “It’s a perfect combination for disease to pop up,” Ward said.In response to an inquiry about the rise in bird flu detections and how the federal government plans to deal with it, the U.S. Department of Agriculture pointed to a five-prong strategy it released in February, which included $100 million for research into new biosecurity measures and vaccine development for poultry. Countries like France are already vaccinating poultry birds, but the USDA said it continues to evaluate whether the U.S. should do so. The agency has not approved such a vaccine, and rolling one out would affect U.S. exports. “We really do believe that an effective vaccine strategy would be very helpful for the egg and turkey producers, but we understand that has to be carefully done to ensure there’s not an impact to other markets,” Naig, in Iowa, said. “USDA has put some focus on this and now we’re awaiting what that vaccine strategy could look like.” Scientists have long been concerned that the bird flu virus might eventually develop the ability to spread effectively between people. Even given the low risk to humans at the moment, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies infectious diseases, advised people to take basic steps to prevent infection with H5N1 as well as the seasonal flu.“Get your flu shot. Don’t drink raw milk, don’t eat unpasteurized cheese, particularly when cases are circulating. Don’t let your cats feed outside when it’s migratory bird season,” Chin-Hong said.A scenario in which a person gets infected with both H5N1 and seasonal flu at the same time could be problematic because it would enable the bird flu virus to more easily rearrange its genetic code to suit humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped holding coordination calls on H5N1 with health providers this spring — a change Chin-Hong laments. He hopes the agency will resume the calls, and he disagrees with the Trump administration’s termination of mRNA vaccine research funding. The biotech company Moderna was developing a bird flu vaccine that used the mRNA platform, but the Department of Health and Human Services canceled its grant.The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.Evan BushEvan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News.

- Latest News - October 9, 2025

Bird flu cases are rising earlier than expected as wild birds migrate. That could make for a challenging autumn, but it’s too early to say whether egg prices will go.

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Oct. 9, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Jarrod BarryThere has rarely been a more confusing time to be a holiday shopper.Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration mean many imports are more expensive today than they were just a few months ago.The government shutdown and fresh warning signals in the labor market are contributing to anxiety about the economy.One way to relieve some of the uncertainty ahead of the holidays could be to buy your gifts early this year. And there are plenty of ways to do that as retailers kick off deals season.Amazon Prime’s Big Deal Days, Target’s Circle Week, Best Buy’s Techtober Sale and Walmart Deals are just some of the national shopping events underway in October for the pre-pre-holiday shopper. “I think the retailers are acknowledging that there is consumer demand to alleviate that stress and anxiety and shop earlier by launching events like Prime Big Deal Days in early October,” said Jack O’Leary, director of e-commerce strategic insights at NielsenIQ. To get a better sense of how prices are changing week by week, NBC News has teamed up with web data infrastructure firm Bright Data to track the online retail prices of around 600 items across Amazon, Best Buy, Home Depot, Walmart and Target.According to the latest data set, certain sectors are raising prices on more of their items than others. Shopping for gifts in October could mean significant savings over buying the same things in two months.It’s not all bad news. In a few departments, prices are rising less than you might expect, making these good options for last-minute shopping in December.ChocolateHigh cocoa prices forced candy makers like Hershey’s to charge more for nearly all of their chocolate this year.In July, the company announced that it would raise prices for retail customers by the “low double digits” percentages. “The increase we announced in July due to sustained, record high cocoa prices is it,” said a spokesperson for Hershey’s. “Implementation is about 90 days out from the announcement, so you’re likely seeing some of this starting to flow through. As a reminder, this does not impact Halloween seasonal candy.”Hershey’s also told analysts it expects that costs for raw cocoa, which have subsided a bit in recent weeks, will nonetheless remain relatively high into next year.In that environment, special deal days like the ones happening now could be a very good time to stock up on enough chocolate to get through to January. Clothes It would be reasonable to assume that apparel prices have soared this year. After all, the majority of clothes sold at U.S. retailers are manufactured overseas, many in countries that are caught up in a trade war with Washington.But that’s not what the data shows. NBC News’ tracker has picked up only a modest increase in retail prices since May. At Walmart, for example, less than 5% of the clothes we’re tracking are more expensive today than they were five months ago.If current trends hold, most T-shirts at Walmart won’t cost a lot more in December than they did in October.ToysFew places have been affected more by tariffs than the toy aisle. Last year, as many as 3 out of every 4 toys sold in the United States were manufactured in China. Since then, President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China have soared as high as 145% at the height of the trade war, before they settled at around 30%. The CEOs of rival toy giants Mattel and Hasbro both said this spring that their companies were working to diversify global manufacturing so that less than 40% of their toys come from China by the end of the year.But potentially not in time for the 2025 holiday season. Among the more than 11,000 products for sale on Amazon that Bright Data monitors, prices have increased for 37% of the sample’s Mattel toys, and 41% of its toys from Hasbro. Spokespeople for Amazon, Mattel and Hasbro didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.Jarrod BarryJarrod Barry is an intern with the NBC News Business Unit.Steve Kopack contributed.

- Latest News - October 9, 2025

There has rarely been a more confusing time to be a holiday shopper

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Oct. 9, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Dareh GregorianPresident Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy National Guard troops in states that don’t want them will be tested in two different courts Thursday.Lawyers for Chicago and Illinois will go before a federal judge to try to block troops from being deployed in the country’s third most populous city, while attorneys for Portland and Oregon will urge a federal appeals court to leave in place a restraining order against troop deployments there.The hearings — in Chicago and San Francisco — are set to begin at noon ET in courthouses about 2,000 miles apart.“We’re looking for the courts to do the right thing,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, told reporters Wednesday.Trump defended his actions in both states. “Everything we’re doing is very lawful. What they’re doing is not lawful,” he said at the White House later Wednesday.Illinois sued Monday seeking to block the administration from deploying federalized National Guard troops on the streets of Chicago, contending it’s illegal, unconstitutional and unnecessary.Trump ordered the deployment over the weekend. U.S. Northern Command said that 500 National Guard members have been mobilized — 300 from Illinois and 200 from Texas — and that some of the troops from Texas were on duty “in the greater Chicago area” as of Wednesday night.“These forces will protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other U.S. Government personnel who are performing federal functions, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property,” Northern Command said in a statement.The lawsuit argues that there’s no emergency in Chicago and that the administration has been trying to provoke unrest by increasing the presence of federal law agents who are using “unprecedented, brute force tactics for civil immigration enforcement.”Those tactics include shooting “chemical munitions at groups that included media and legal observers” at an ICE facility outside Chicago and staging a dramatically produced raid at an apartment building in which agents rappelled down from Black Hawk helicopters.“The community’s horror at these tactics and their significant consequences have resulted in entirely foreseeable protests,” the suit said.“The deployment of federalized National Guard, including from another state, infringes on Illinois’s sovereignty and right to self-governance” and “will cause only more unrest,” it added.The White House has maintained that Trump is trying to keep American cities and federal personnel safe. Trump said this week that if the courts wind up derailing his efforts to use the National Guard, he could invoke the Insurrection Act, which would empower him to use the U.S. military domestically.Trump floats invoking Insurrection Act amid showdown with Democratic-led cities12:07″The Trump administration is committed to restoring law and order in American cities that are plagued by violence due to Democrat mismanagement. And President Trump will not stand by while violent rioters attack federal law enforcement officers,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement Wednesday.The administration is expected to make similar arguments to a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco, which it’s asking to pause a federal judge’s order in Oregon over the weekend blocking the state’s National Guard from being federalized and deployed.The “extraordinary” order by U.S. District Judge Karen Immergut “improperly impinges on the Commander in Chief’s supervision of military operations, countermands a military directive to officers in the field, and endangers federal personnel and property,” Justice Department attorneys contended in their court filing.They also noted that the 9th Circuit blocked a similar restraining order this year involving National Guard troops in Los Angeles and held then that the president’s judgment about whether troops are needed should get “a great level of deference.”White House expects it will win lawsuit challenging deployment of National Guard to Portland12:06Immergut, a Trump appointee, said in her order that the Portland case is different from the California one, in part because it appears Trump was acting in bad faith with his exaggerated claims of violence in the city, including that it was “war ravaged” with “ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa” and “crazy people” who “try to burn down buildings, including federal buildings” every night.While there had been some violent protests in June, demonstrations “were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days — or even weeks — leading up to the President’s directive on September 27,” Immergut wrote, describing the protests as mostly “small and uneventful.””On September 26, the eve of the President’s directive, law enforcement ‘observed approximately 8-15 people at any given time out front of ICE. Mostly sitting in lawn chairs and walking around. Energy was low, minimal activity,’” her order said.Dareh GregorianDareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

- Latest News - October 9, 2025

President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy National Guard troops in states that don’t want them will be tested in two different courts Thursday

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