Trump's 2024 grocery photo op now haunts Republicans in the midterms

By Nathan Layne
Sat, August 15, 2026 

AP

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he attends a press conference at Trump National Golf Club, in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., August 15, 2024. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a press conference at Trump National Golf Club, in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., August 15, 2024. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Food products are displayed on a table ahead of a press conference of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump, at Trump National Golf Club, in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., August 15, 2024. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo

By Nathan Layne

BEDMINSTER, New Jersey, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Two years after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump staged a New Jersey press conference flanked by grocery staples to spotlight inflation under Democrats, food prices are still rising despite his pledge to bring them down. The gap between promise and reality now looms as a vulnerability for Republicans ahead of November's midterm elections.

Standing between tables piled high with fruit, beef, cereal, milk and other household staples at his Bedminster golf club on August 15, 2024, Trump blamed ‌the Biden administration for sharp increases in groceries. The spectacle, complete with charts showing higher prices, was aimed at undercutting the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, and highlighted Trump's central promise: he alone could tame inflation and lower the cost of living.

Two years on, higher gasoline ‌and grocery prices are squeezing household budgets and turning the cost of living into the top issue for American voters. Voters now give Democrats a slight edge over Republicans in who they view as better stewards of the economy for the first time in nearly a decade, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

Sheila Carney, a 68-year-old Trump voter, punctuated her frustration with an expletive as she ​unloaded $70 worth of groceries into her car outside a supermarket not far from Trump's Bedminster club. The haul was modest: some meat, detergent and a 12-pack of iced tea.

For Carney, the receipt was evidence that the affordability concerns Trump has sometimes dismissed as a Democratic "hoax" remain a daily burden for many Americans.

"This is real. He can say it's not, but it is," said Carney, a hospital administration assistant who has delayed retirement while helping pay off her son's student loans. "He hasn't brought anything down."

A Reuters analysis of 26 grocery categories tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and featured in Trump's Bedminster display found prices have risen 3.4% in the first 19 months of his second term.

That's less than a quarter of the pace recorded at the same point in former President Joe Biden's term, but still falls short of Trump's pledge to lower prices, as surges in coffee, beef and apples have more than offset declines in items including eggs and butter.

A White ‌House official pointed to data on Wednesday that showed U.S. consumer prices barely increased in July from the ⁠month before as evidence that inflation is under control.

"The July CPI report is further proof that President Trump's long-term agenda is delivering: prescription drug and auto insurance costs continue to fall, real wages are rising, and beef prices have cooled while other household essentials like eggs, poultry, and dairy remain low," the official said.

LACK OF ENTHUSIASM

A registered Republican, Carney said high grocery and gasoline prices due to the Iran war were among the reasons she had grown disillusioned enough to ⁠consider sitting out the midterms, underscoring recent polling suggesting Republicans are less enthusiastic about voting than Democrats.

Carney was one of 17 Republicans and independents Reuters interviewed in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, a battleground that includes Bedminster and where swing voters and turnout could prove decisive. The race pits Republican incumbent Tom Kean against Democrat Rebecca Bennett, who has sought to capitalize on voters' frustration over the cost of living.

More than half of those interviewed said they were either undecided or leaning toward Bennett. While grocery prices weighed heavily on many voters, complaints about Kean more often centered on his months-long disappearance from public view earlier this year, which he later attributed to depression.

Their views on ​the ​economy mirror those of other Trump supporters Reuters has interviewed in recent months who, despite standing by the president, say financial pressures have dampened their enthusiasm for voting in ​November. That ambivalence presents another potential challenge for Republicans and raises the stakes for the party's get-out-the-vote operation.

Francesco Trebbi, ‌a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, recently co-authored research finding that Trump drew stronger support in the 2024 election in counties where inflation outpaced income growth, eroding households' purchasing power.

With real wages rising only marginally and lagging the pace of broader economic growth, Trebbi said it is likely that pattern will reverse in November.

"I expect the same anti-incumbent shift to happen in 2026, this time possibly weakening Republicans," he said, describing grocery shopping as a "psychologically salient" reminder of the squeeze on household finances. "Each time one does it, it is the equivalent of a campaign ad against the incumbent."

TRUMP SUPPORT

To be sure, presidents have limited influence over inflation, which is driven by a range of factors and more directly addressed by the Federal Reserve. And many Republicans appear willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, even as his tariffs and the Iran war have contributed to rising prices.

Bonnie Chandler, 64, plans to vote for Kean, saying she believed some companies were keeping prices elevated to make Trump look bad and that the growing influence of the Democratic Party's progressive faction left her unwilling to consider its candidates.

"I'm going to vote Republican. I'm not a woke person. I'm not a communist. I'm not a socialist," ‌she said.

Lauren DeGirolamo, a 34-year-old Trump voter, said issues such as education and border security mattered more to her than grocery prices, which she believes have stabilized under Trump ​following steep increases during the Biden administration.

"I feel grocery prices are pretty much at level with where they were during Biden. I know some of the key things that I ​look for - eggs - have gone down," she said, adding that she intended to vote for Republican candidates in November.

According to BLS data, egg prices ​have fallen nearly 40% under Trump, reflecting a market correction after avian flu-driven shortages triggered a surge that began during Biden's presidency. Eggs are among six of the 26 categories showing falls since 2025, along with butter, bacon, and cooking fats ‌and oils.

Yet most of the items Trump displayed at Bedminster are now pricier, some by a lot. Uncooked ​beef has jumped 19.2%, fresh fish and seafood 8.6%, apples 14%, and coffee nearly ​23%.

HITTING CLOSE TO HOME

A Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded earlier this month found Trump's net approval rating on his handling of the cost of living was at -47%, down from -6% at the start of his term. It is his weakest issue by a wide margin, trailing his ratings on the economy (-35%) and immigration (-16%).

Bennett told Reuters that if elected she would seek to undo Trump's tariffs, rein in the Iran war, and restore food stamp benefits to help families struggling to afford groceries.

The issue hits close to home, said Bennett, a military veteran and married mother ​of two daughters. "This is not an abstract concept to me," she said. "For example, beef is very expensive, so we ‌don't buy beef anymore."

Whether Kean, whose campaign did not respond to requests for comment, can hold on to his seat may depend on voters like Margaret Derkach, who typically votes Republican but is now considering switching her vote if economic conditions don't improve.

"The ​cost of living, as far as homes, apartments and food - the necessities - they have gone up. It's shocking, shocking," said Derkach, 84, after shopping at discount grocer Aldi.

Though she said Trump "inherited a mess" from Biden, Derkach added, "I am undecided right now. I have ​to see."

(Reporting By Nathan Layne in Bedmnister, New Jersey, Dan Burns in New York, and Jason Lange in Washington; editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

FOIS GRAS IS ABUSE

China's rising foie gras industry has France looking over its shoulder

China has risen rapidly to become the world's second-largest producer of foie gras, but producers in France say they are not yet worried about losing their long-held dominance of one of the country's best-known delicacies.


Issued on: 12/07/2026 - RFI

Geese are raised at a farm for foie gras production, in Huoqiu county, Anhui province, China. © Reuters/Tingshu Wang

By: Zeenat Hansrod


"At the moment, we are not worried that China is going to topple France as the world's leading foie gras producer," said Fabien Chevalier, chairman of the French foie gras industry group CIFOG.

Chevalier told RFI he was nevertheless surprised by the speed of China's expansion over the last two years.

"We think the Chinese produced around 12,000 tonnes of foie gras in 2024 and it increased in 2025. Knowing that the French production was around 15,000 tonnes in 2025, the Chinese output is quite significant," he said.

A mix of government subsidies and large-scale farming has helped fuel that growth. But China's foie gras industry has developed very differently from France's, from the birds it raises to the products it sells.

Foie gras alternatives on the rise in France for those fed up with force-feeding

Different products

Unlike producers in France and the rest of Europe, who mostly use ducks, Chinese producers mainly breed geese.

"That's really surprising because it is much more difficult to make foie gras from geese than from ducks," Chevalier told RFI.

Chinese producers mostly use Landes geese, native to southwestern France, which were introduced to Linqu county in 1988. The birds have adapted well to the local climate, which shares the same latitude as the Landes.

Most Chinese foie gras is produced for the domestic market of more than a billion potential consumers, with very little exported.

Restaurant owner Song Huailan eats foie gras hotpot in Huoqiu county, Anhui province, China. © Reuters/Tingshu Wang

Chinese producers have also developed a wide range of foie gras products, Chevalier said.

"You can find products made from foie gras which are destined for students, sold as a boost for brain power, or marketed to elderly people as a way to enhance cognitive performance," he added.

Goose livers in China can weigh up to two kilos. In France, where most foie gras comes from ducks, goose livers usually weigh around 700 grams and duck livers around 500 grams.

"We recently saw pictures of a Chinese foie gras producer holding a liver, nearly three kilos.

Such big size suits the end products they make from foie gras which uses emulsion, that is the foie gras is beaten up like a mayonnaise and is the basis for mousses, creams and other products.

"In France, we do not work like this at all. The French foie gras is best consumed whole, what we call 'foie gras entier'. That requires much smaller duck and goose livers," Chevalier said.

French farmer battles to market 'natural' foie gras made without force-feeding

Exports

France exports 20 percent of its foie gras production, including to other European countries. Japan was its biggest export market before Tokyo imposed an embargo in 2023 because of avian flu vaccination.

France exported around 10 tonnes of foie gras to China in 2025. After a pause since 2021 because of bird flu, exports resumed last year. Before 2021, exports to China were three to four times higher.

Only two French producers – Lafitte and Rougié – are authorised to export foie gras to China. Chevalier, who also heads Lafitte, said it took eight years to meet China's legal requirements. "It was a very difficult process before France obtained authorisation to export foie gras in 2019."

Rougié invested in duck farms in China and began producing foie gras there in 2007 because it was unable to export to the country at the time. Its China-made foie gras is mainly supplied to restaurants. Chevalier said around 66 million people in China are able to eat in a good restaurant every day.

France is the country of foie gras. It is a hallmark of French cuisine and strongly associated with its image. © CIFOG/Megalowfood/Adocom-RP

Looking ahead

A recent Reuters report said less than five percent of Chinese foie gras production was exported in 2025, based on customs data and analysts' estimates.

Reuters said exports to Southeast Asia and Europe are expected this year. It quoted Min Wei, general manager of Jilin Zhengfang Agriculture & Animal Husbandry, China's biggest producer of duck foie gras, which makes 1,500 tonnes a year.

A 2024 report by People’s Daily Online, China's state-controlled media, quoted Gao Yuanliang, head of Shandong Zunrun Shengluoje Food, as saying the company invested 210 million yuan in production facilities built to European standards.

Chevalier said he does not believe exports are China's main priority.

"For the time being, they sell extensively locally. Furthermore, the protocol they use for bird flu vaccination does not meet international standards that would allow exports."

He said he was not worried but remained watchful.

"From what I know of the Chinese, as I work with them, they could perfectly start focusing on exporting foie gras should they want to do so. After all, this is a major global powerhouse."

Wu Deli from Changhao Biotechnology company, holding a frozen goose liver weighing 2.9 kg, at their farm in Huoqiu county, Anhui province, China. © Reuters/Tingshu Wang

Even so, Chevalier believes China's rise could benefit the industry.

"I am quite happy that such a big country like China is involved in making foie gras. There will be more of us to defend that product – bearing in mind that China and France make different end products out of foie gras, ours being destined for gastronomy," he said.

France has strict rules governing the quality of foie gras produced and sold in the country, including imports.

"France is the country of foie gras and this is not likely to change soon. It is a hallmark of French cuisine and strongly associated with our image. An American or an Asian tourist visiting Paris will want to visit the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysées and eat foie gras," Chevalier said.

Cuba: Blockades and Capitulation…or Canny Compromises?

Eve Ottenberg

 June 30, 2026

FacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail

Pete Hegseth meets with on board the guided-missile destroyer USS Hudner during his visit to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Feb. 25, 2025. Photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander C. Kubitza, Department of Defense.

Events in Cuba have flown under the radar lately, but big changes are afoot. Noted by PBS June 19 but only belatedly by anybody else, Cuba’s new free-market reforms include 176 measures “to further decentralize Cuba’s state-run economy…[with] more space for private businesses, imports and exports without state intermediation, free hiring of personnel, authorization for private banks and investment by Cubans abroad.” There will even be fast-food chains on the island. If this echoes to you the so-called opening up of Eastern Europe after the Soviet collapse, you’re onto something – namely the corporate blueprint for privatizing a state-run, aka communist, economy. This was not inevitable for Cuba before Donald “Nail the Commies” Trump quite repulsively blockaded the island, but once he did, it arguably became so.

Cuba’s state monopoly on foreign trade and centralized production are now kaput, PBS reports. However, in a happy sign of governmental sanity, “Cuban authorities cautioned that…measures will not be viable if the U.S. does not lift the energy and financial embargo on the island.” So, Mr. Trump: no end to sanctions and the blockade, no free-market “opening up” of Cuba. The blockade will be the key test. Sanctions have been around, doing their insidious damage, forever. But the blockade is Trump’s signature barbarity, and if these reforms don’t inspire enough magnanimity in the Washington despot to end this brutality, this siege, then all bets are off.

You’d think Trump would seize this opportunity to try to freeze the Russians and Chinese out of the Caribbean, and he may: Moscow was the only power in the world that broke the energy blockade. It boldly sent the Anatoly Kolodkin tanker with 730,000 barrels of crude oil that arrived in late March in Matanzas and then later dispatched the Sea Horse, with 200,000 barrels of gas and oil. Russians have long memories. They have not forgotten the horrific Nazi blockade of Leningrad and clearly, with that in mind, were not scared by Washington. They’ve seen worse. And there was nothing the white house could do about this.

 The Kremlin didn’t care, because you can bet its denizens are currently mad as hornets about revelations of over 40 Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine with, likely, Slav targets for their pathogens, as revealed by Tulsi Gabbard when she recently resigned. Rumors of these bio-weapons facilities have percolated through the internet for years, and indeed, some years back, yours truly even watched a video clip of Victoria Nuland confessing to Congress that yes, the U.S. researched pathogens in military biolabs on the Ukraine border with Russia. Was this video an AI fake – all the way back, just a year or two after the start of Moscow’s 2022 invasion? Who knows. Since it appeared, it’s evidently been scrubbed from the internet. So maybe its provenance was sketchy. Or maybe that public admission was just too damn explosive. One thing’s for sure, that clip wasn’t just watched in the U.S. – it was watched in the Kremlin, too. This was before the 2024 Ukrainian intelligence (ahem, CIA-inspired?) assassination of Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirilov, in charge of investigating these Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine. Maybe Kirilov was just too effective.

Gabbard revealed that the U.S. army worked with “anthrax, avian flu, Ebola, plague and tuberculosis” in these Ukrainian labs, RT reported June 13. According to Tass, around the same time, the Pentagon spent “over $11 million to establish biological laboratories in Ukraine,” and the U.S. firm “Black and Veatch was the main contractor for the project.” And western elites like to dismiss Kremlin leadership as, ho, ho! paranoid. They probably thought the Soviets were paranoid during the Leningrad siege, which murdered and starved to death roughly 1.5 million people or the defense of Stalingrad, which saw the deaths of 1.1 million Russians. I doubt the Kremlin cares who calls it paranoid; it’s sachems know a monstrosity when they see one and they saw it in Trump’s blockade of Cuba. It’s a pity they haven’t turned the same attention to the criminal Israeli blockade of Gaza – but that likely has to do with the 1.5 million-strong Russian diaspora in Israel. Moscow takes care of its own.

China also broke Trump’s Cuban blockade, sending 60,000 tons of rice and over 5000 sets of 2-kilowatt photovoltaic power generation equipment, as part of the collaboration in which it built 55 solar parks for Cuba in 2025, with 37 more projected over the next two years. But still, these substantial acts of solidarity are not enough, so tight is the stranglehold on Cuba from the bully to the north. Per Drop Site News June 23, even Vietnam now assists Cuba “with its recently unprecedented economic overhaul by sharing lessons, strategies and operational frameworks from its 40 years of…(Renewal) reforms, the Vietnam Plus reports.” Drop Site goes on to call what’s happening Cuba’s “deepest economic liberalization since 1959…and using Vietnam’s transition to a market-oriented socialist economy as a model.” Vietnam’s “flexible, market-adaptable State-Owned Enterprises” are critical here.

For socialists and communists everywhere, this bed of thorns raises the question, will Cuba still be socialist when the metamorphosis ends? Exactly how much damage to working people on this island did Donald Trump manage to do – beyond, of course, obvious crimes like killing infants in the NICU by blockading vital energy to run hospitals and so forth. Because clearly, Cuba’s president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, is making these changes under duress. They affect, according to Drop Site June 12: enterprise and markets; decentralization and the state; trade and investment; agriculture and food; fiscal, monetary and social; energy and transport; tourism, commerce and labor. And these reforms have no mere mild effects. For instance, foreign direct investment will be incentivized, land use and wages will be “reformed,” and there will be a “move from subsidizing products to subsidizing people.”

 While it’s easy to carp that these concessions amount to capitulation to the tyranny of the late-stage finance capitalism headquartered in New York City, frankly, I don’t see a lot of wiggle room for Diaz-Canel. He’s clearly making the best of a terrible situation. Trump apparently doesn’t care that his blockade is killing Cubans, because when it comes to Latin America, he is a dictator, egged on by years of nauseating propaganda from outlets like The New York Times about people like Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and by its caricatures of Cuban communist repression; while behind Trump looms a merciless, blood-stained phalanx of finance, real estate, stock market, banking and hedge fund predators. To say nothing of U.S. military might and its agonizing proximity to a tiny island that numerous pentagon bigwigs over the decades have threatened to turn into a parking lot.

Russia has size, resources and nukes. So does China, plus a massive population. Iran has missiles like you wouldn’t believe and an unstoppable esprit de corps. But what do little countries like Vietnam and Cuba have? Not much beyond their ingenuity and their wits. Cuab’s president has no choice but to use those. And as anyone who’s ever survived solely by their wits can tell you, it’s usually touch and go.

Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest novel is “Death Calls It a Day.” She can be reached at her website.

 

How H5N1 bird flu hid unrecognized for weeks in dairy cattle

Study reveals the biology of why the disease looked so different when it made the leap to cows, and offers a framework for spotting its next new guise more quickly

University of Pittsburgh

Facebook

XMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Microscopic image of bovine mammary gland tissue showing influenza virus receptors (yellow) on mammary epithelial cells. The study identified receptor patterns that may help explain the susceptibility of the bovine mammary gland to H5N1 infection and its ability to support viral replication.

view more 

Credit: Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGH— When H5N1 bird flu first began infecting U.S. cattle in early 2024, diagnosis was elusive, because in cows, the disease looked completely different. Instead of affecting the lungs, as H5N1 does in other mammalian species, it caused severe infection in the cows' udders, largely sparing the lungs.  

A study by University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health researchers published today in Science Advances provides the first mechanistic explanation for this peculiar new guise for H5N1, which now affects more than 100 bird and mammal species globally. The study also establishes a new way to help scientists spot bird flu’s next surprise move more quickly, saving precious time in mounting public-health measures to stem the spread. 

The disease first appeared in dairy cattle along the Texas Panhandle as stubborn cases of severe, necrotizing mastitis, a painful inflammatory condition that damages tissues in the mammary glands.  

"Mastitis is a classic disease in milk-production animals, and veterinarians were dutifully looking to all the usual suspects for the source, like bacterial pathogens," said senior author Suresh Kuchipudi, Ph.D., chair of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at Pitt Public Health. "When the real culprit turned out to be bird flu, everyone in the field was caught completely by surprise. We hadn't even remotely considered that cattle could be a host for H5N1.”  

In the weeks before the virus was identified, it moved from herd to herd, sickening the cattle—and contaminating their environments.  

"If a cow is infected, it sheds a lot of virus into the milk," said Kuchipudi. "This raised concerns about occupational risk for farm workers. Also, there is a habit of feeding raw milk to domestic pets, like cats, and there have been instances of cats dying, which we studied previously." He stressed that fortunately, pasteurization is effective at killing the virus, underlining the importance of avoiding raw milk. 

Kuchipudi has been studying influenza viruses for his entire career, with a particular focus on how receptor biology determines which species—and which tissues—can be infected. Typically, such studies involve staining cells for the presence of receptors that are known to work in a lock-and-key relationship with influenza, a subset of sugar-based molecules known as glycans.  

In initial studies by other groups, such experiments suggested that flu‑related glycan receptors were present in the noses, tracheas and lungs of cows. The fact that the animals were nonetheless not developing respiratory infections told the team there was more to the story.  

"Glycan biology is very complex," said Kuchipudi. "We realized that, to understand what was really going on, we would need to use more innovative technologies and map out the fine‑detailed architecture that enables the virus to bind to cells." Kuchipudi collaborated on the study with Harvard Medical School's Lauren E. Pepi, Ph.D., an expert in the methodology for comprehensively cataloging the entirety of glycan structures, dubbed glycomics.   

Using a multimodal approach that combined binding experiments, staining methods and ultra‑high‑resolution imaging, the team revealed that not all glycan receptors were functioning the same in animals infected with bird flu. Only a particular subtype, known as N‑linked sialic acid receptors, could bind to H5N1. These receptors were virtually absent in cow airway tissue, but pervasive in udders, making them a "perfect breeding ground for the virus," Kuchipudi said. 

The research provides a framework other scientists can use to potentially predict not just whether H5N1 can jump to new hosts, but also how.  

"We can preemptively screen different species and different tissues within them for susceptibility," said Kuchipudi. "For example, would they exhibit respiratory symptoms? Would they show only mastitis, as in cows? Or would they show neurological disease, as our team has shown in cats? The lessons learned could potentially help prevent us from being caught by surprise again."  

Other authors on the study were Surabhi Srinivas, M.S., Shubhada K. Chothe, Ph.D., Santhamani Ramasamy, Ph.D., Sougat Misra, Ph.D., Noel Chandan Nallipogu, M.D., MPH, and Lindsey LaBella, all of Pitt; Yin-Ting Yeh, Ph.D., of Pennsylvania State University; May Wang, B.S., of Harvard University; and Heidi L. Pecoraro, Ph.D., and Brett T. Webb Ph.D., of North Dakota State University. 

This research was supported by Pitt Public Health, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (FP00039373/AWD00010780). 

#  #  # 

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health  

Founded in 1948, the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health is a top-ranked institution of seven academic departments partnering with stakeholders locally and globally to create, implement and disseminate innovative public health research and practice. With hands-on and high-tech instruction, Pitt Public Health trains a diverse community of students to become public health leaders who counter persistent population health problems and inequities.   

 

www.upmc.com/media 

---

Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aea2068 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Receptor Basis of Unusual Tissue Tropism of Avian Influenza H5N1 Clade 2.3.4.4b Virus in Cattle

Article Publication Date

19-Jun-2026

COI Statement

NA

Related News Releases

• How H5N1 bird flu hid unrecognized for weeks in dairy cattle
  (University of Pittsburgh)

Highly contagious bird flu found in Australia for the first time

20.06.2026, dpa

Photo: Richard Wainwright/AAP/dpa

By Rebekah Lyell, dpa

The highly contagious H5N1 bird flu virus has been detected in mainland Australia for the first time, authorities said on Saturday.

Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said a brown skua, a type of migratory seabird, found on a remote beach south of Perth in Western Australia had tested positive for the disease.

The positive result means the virus, which has infected millions of birds worldwide, had now spread to every continent.

"This is the highly pathogenic strain of concern that has been circulating globally, and this is its first detection on mainland Australia," Collins said.

There was no evidence of any mass mortalities nor any evidence of infection in any poultry, she said.

Samples from another sick bird from the same region had been tested and had returned a suspected positive result for the avian influenza. The samples had now been sent for confirmatory testing.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the case was concerning, but the country was well prepared to respond.

"This is something that has happened through migratory birds, and has happened by definition around the world, and this is why we are preparing for this," he said.

Collins pointed to a A$100 million (US$70 million) government investment to prepare for a potential avian influenza outbreak.

"We have looked at what has happened overseas we have learnt from that, which is why we have invested early."

The H5 variant of avian flu was found on the sub-Antarctic remote Australian territory of Heard Island last year. The disease was detected on the island, about 4,000 kilometres south-west of Perth, after an unusually high number of elephant seals died there.

• Scimex on Australia confirmation
• Statement

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH