The U.S. Department of Agriculture reportedly has cut more than $1 billion in federal spending by ending two Biden executive-ordered programs by which schools and food banks bought food from local farms and ranchers.

Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS) and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) are the two programs affected, Politico reported.

Thousands of fired workers at the Department of Agriculture must get their jobs back for at least the next month and a half, the chair of a federal civil service board ruled Wednesday.

The ruling said the recent dismissals of more than 5,600 probationary employees may have violated federal laws and procedures for carrying out layoffs.

Organic farmers and environmental groups sued the Agriculture Department on Monday over its scrubbing of references to climate change from its website.

The department had ordered staff to take down pages focused on climate change on Jan. 30, according to the suit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Within hours, it said, information started disappearing.

New test results released by the US Food and Drug Administration on Friday found that bird flu virus is making its way from dairy farms and into milk processing plants but also confirmed that the commonly used flash pasteurization method fully neutralizes the virus.

The FDA collected and tested 275 bulk samples of raw milk collected from farms in four states where herds had tested positive for H5N1, or bird flu. The samples were collected between April 18 and 27.

Scientists tracking the spread of bird flu are increasingly concerned that gaps in surveillance may keep them several steps behind a new pandemic, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen leading disease experts.

Many of them have been monitoring the new subtype of H5N1 avian flu in migratory birds since 2020. But the spread of the virus to 129 dairy herds in 12 U.S. states, opens new tab signals a change that could bring it closer to becoming transmissible between humans. Infections also have been found in other mammals, from alpacas to house cats.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday that the strain of bird flu currently circulating among dairy cattle appears to be only transmissible via mammary glands, or udders, rather than respiratory droplets, a finding that gives officials greater optimism about managing the risks facing dairy workers.