Category: Business

• The Houthis struck a commercial vessel with an uncrewed surface vessel on Wednesday.
• It's the first time the rebels have scored a hit with a USV amid their ongoing Red Sea attacks.
• Past attempts have been unsuccessful.

The Houthis used an uncrewed surface vessel to strike a commercial ship in the Red Sea on Wednesday, the US military revealed.

The Iran-backed rebels have employed USVs, also known as naval drones or drone boats, as part of their attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, but they have been unable to actually score a hit with one until now.

The likely explosive-laden vessel struck the M/V Tutor, a Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier, US Central Command said, noting in its statement on the incident that "the impact of the USV caused severe flooding and damage to the engine room."

Prior to the release of the CENTCOM statement, United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, an element of the British Royal Navy, posted an incident bulletin earlier on Wednesday saying that a "small craft" had hit a vessel off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. It described the craft as white in color and between 5-7 meters (16-23 feet) in length.

The UKMTO later said that the vessel is "taking on water, and not under command of the crew." In a follow-on update, it said the ship reported being hit "for a second time by an unknown airborne projectile," and "military authorities are assisting."

The current status of the vessel that was hit is unclear.

One official at the Ambrey maritime security firm told The War Zone, which first reported on the incident, that the Tutor is a "dead ship" and will require "salvage operations."

The Houthis have employed USVs in years past, although it wasn't until earlier this year that the rebels actually began using the drones as part of their monthslong attacks on shipping lanes.

Wednesday's attack marks the first successful strike by a Houthi USV during the campaign. Prior to this incident, the drone boats were either destroyed by Western forces, or they were detonated in the water without hitting anything.

Beyond USVs, the Houthis have relied on their sizeable arsenal of anti-ship ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, as well as various one-way attack drones, to wreak havoc off the coast of Yemen. Since the fall, the rebels have used these weapons to hit a number of commercial vessels. It has sunk one and killed crew members on another.

Over the weekend, the Houthis hit two commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden with anti-ship missiles. In both incidents, however, the vessels managed to continue underway. The Tutor is the latest attack.

The string of attacks comes after the Pentagon recently extended the deployment of the US Navy carrier strike group that's been battling the Houthis, as American intelligence officials warn that the conflict may go on for a while.

• CEO Tim Cook said Apple Intelligence may reduce iPhone usage in an interview with Marques Brownlee.
• Cook said he believes AI will help people complete previously time-consuming tasks in less time. 
• Apple unveiled a number of new AI features for iPhones, iPads, and Macs at its annual WWDC event.

There's a good chance Apple's new AI updates may result in you spending less time on your device.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said it's a "significant possibility" that people use their iPhones less with Apple Intelligence, according to an interview with tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee released Wednesday.

The CEO said as Apple Intelligence continues to get smarter, previously time-consuming tasks may take less time.

The tech giant announced it will integrate AI into its systems at Apple's WWDC event on Monday. The CEO and other executives detailed a number of AI features that will be available on Apple devices with its latest software.

Some of the updates include a new and improved Siri with better language understanding and text capabilities, integration across apps, systemwide Writing Tools, and a revamped Photos app that organizes photos into different categories.

Apple also announced its partnership with OpenAI, which will allow users to opt into a ChatGPT-powered Siri. The AI chatbot is known to help people be more productive and get tasks done quicker.

Cook added that Apple has never been motivated to have people spend their lives on their devices. The CEO has made similar comments before, saying that people need to focus more on the people in the room with them.

"Our model is not one that needs engagement to succeed," Cook said in the interview. "Our model is one that where we want to empower you to be able to do things that you couldn't do otherwise."

Apple has added several features to the iPhone that raise awareness of how much time consumers spend on their devices and which help make their usage more intentional.

Features like Screen Time track how much time you spend on your iPhone and put it "a bit in your face," Cook said. The CEO said last year in an interview with GQ that he monitors his Screen Time "religiously." The CEO also mentioned Focus settings, which allow consumers to silence their phones or only receive specific notifications.

Cook said Apple is homed in on giving consumers tools to do "incredible things" that they couldn't do otherwise.

"That's what motivates us," Cook said.

Apple did not return a request for comment.

• Henrik Fisker's second automotive startup is on the brink of bankruptcy.
• It was pitched as a Tesla rival, but workers say mismanagement and cutting corners led to compounding problems.
• Business Insider spoke with 27 former and current Fisker staff that charted the startup's downfall.

Fisker's staff was in chaos as they prepared to deliver the company's first batch of electric cars to US customers.

It had been four years since famed automotive designer Henrik Fisker unveiled his Tesla rival, an SUV called the Ocean, and the vehicle still wasn't ready.

In the weeks leading up to the big June 2023 event, Fisker staff raced to fix faulty parts on at least four of the 22 EVs that were set to be delivered — even stripping parts off the CEO and CFO's personal cars to repair the vehicles, including door handles and seat sensors, according to 11 sources familiar with the incident.

Two days later, Fisker board member Wendy Gruel's Ocean SUV, one of the cars that had been delivered at the event, shut off on a public road while going full speed, five sources said. Later, the same thing happened to Geeta Gupta-Fisker, Henrik's wife and the company's CFO and COO, workers said.

A Fisker spokesperson denied that workers used parts from pre-production vehicles for customer cars and said Gruel's car didn't stop on a public road. The company said Gupta-Fisker's vehicle had malfunctioned, but the issue was resolved.

When TechCrunch previously reported the incident with Gruel's car, the publication said the company had confirmed the incident and said the issue was fixed.

The issue was unrelated to Fisker's part swapping, but one thing was clear: the electric cars had barely hit the road and already the problems were piling up.

Henrik Fisker's EV startup seemed to be an easy sell at first. The 60-year-old automotive veteran boasts a long history in the industry, known for being the designer behind the Aston Martin V8, the BMW Z8 roadster that famously appeared in a 1999 James Bond film, and helping design Tesla's Model S.

Even though it was Henrik's second automotive startup after his first company went out of business in 2013, some workers told Business Insider that it was easy to dismiss worries early on that his second company could meet the same fate.

For his part, Henrik said he planned to do things differently this time. He would follow Apple's model by outsourcing production through Magna International and he also aimed to target the middle of the market with a more affordable EV option that could compete with Tesla's best-selling Model Y. Fisker Inc emerged in 2016 and went public in 2020 via a SPAC backed by Apollo Global Management. At one point, the company's market value soared as high as $8 billion.

At the time, Fisker was one of several EV startups to burst onto the scene — Rivian, Lucid, and Lordstown all wanted the chance to compete with Tesla. Since then, production and market headwinds have pushed some EV startups to shutter and major players like Ford and GM to scale back their electric-vehicle operations. Even Tesla has struggled, seeing revenue decline and layoffs.

"I was hopeful at first," one former VP, who worked at both Fisker startups, said. "Initially, at least, it seemed like he'd learned from his mistakes. It became obvious later on that they hadn't."

A Fisker spokesperson said it would be "unfair" to compare the two companies.

Today, the company is fighting for its life, pulling out all the stops in an effort to avoid bankruptcy.

Business Insider spoke with over two dozen current and former Fisker employees who worked at the startup during various periods from its launch in 2016 to the present. The workers, whose identities are known to BI, requested anonymity as they were not authorized to comment on Fisker's behalf and feared professional reprisal.

A husband and wife duo who workers say mismanaged their way into a mess

Many of Fisker's woes can be traced back to the husband-wife duo that launched the brand, multiple former and current workers told BI.

They described a disorganized environment in which unqualified people were brought in to lead major programs and basic automotive standards were ignored.

While Henrik often served as a figurehead, Gupta-Fisker was heavily involved in everyday decisions, including on the engineering side, 11 workers said. Prior to taking on the role of CFO and COO at Fisker, Gupta-Fisker had served as an investment manager for the Fisker family office and as an advisor at a nonprofit. She had no prior experience in the automotive industry. But at Fisker, the workers said she managed deals with Magna and outside parts suppliers, frequently popped into engineering meetings, and weighed in on everything from parts purchases to software decisions.

A spokesperson for Magna declined to comment on Fisker. A Fisker spokesperson denied comments that Henrik took on a more passive role and said he was "deeply involved."

49-year-old Gupta-Fisker quickly became known in the company for her shrewd cost-cutting abilities. But, her strategy meant that at times Fisker ended up using components that didn't match the correct specifications for the Ocean, five former and current workers said. Gupta-Fisker made several decisions to use cheaper parts against Fisker executive and Magana executives' advice, two workers said. The mismatches led to issues with over-the-air updates, the five workers said.

The company said Magna oversaw the majority of parts sourcing and a "significant" amount of the parts came from Magna and its suppliers.

In conversations with BI, staff blamed many of the Ocean's faults on the cost-cutting efforts.

Several workers said that in the months leading up to the vehicle's launch, they filed internal reports recommending that the product undergo further testing and development before its release. They said they were told the company planned to proceed anyway.

"The focus was on getting the car to market as soon as possible," one former worker said. "The overarching belief was we could fix things with updates later on."

A Fisker spokesperson said Magna was responsible for testing and releasing the Ocean and it had been fully certified by regulators in the US and Europe. The company has been sending out over-the-air updates since 2023, the company said.

Ahead of the release, Fisker engineers were aware of multiple issues with the vehicle, according to five current and former workers, as well as internal documents viewed by Business Insider. Engineers had identified issues with the effectiveness of the car's door handles, key fobs, and seat sensors.

Over the past year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched four investigations into Fisker's SUV, including issues with inadvertent braking and flaws in the vehicle's door latch system. The company said it is cooperating with NHTSA.

Fisker has also faced dozens of lemon law lawsuits.

Cutting corners led to compounding issues

In its haste to bring the car to market, Fisker failed to set up an effective system for processing repair orders and warranty claims, seven current and former workers said. Technicians were tasked with filling out the work orders and many of them said they hadn't been trained on the process.

In lieu of a working warranty system, some workers began processing the repairs without the proper California Bureau of Automotive Repair codes and EPA license numbers, using "123456" as a placeholder on a number of repairs, according to an internal document viewed by BI. In March, a VP at Fisker warned the issue made the company non-compliant with NHTSA protocols and unable to properly track and report safety concerns.

A Fisker spokesperson said the issue was "an internal error with only draft work orders early in the service process that was immediately corrected."

Without a proper system to process warranties or repair orders, the majority of repairs went unaccounted for, seven current and former workers said. That meant there wasn't an adequate way for Fisker to keep track of which parts were being used for repairs for its own financial records. It also meant many customers did not get a record of their repairs, workers said.

Meanwhile, Fisker also struggled to find the necessary parts for all of the fixes. The company hadn't set up much inventory for aftersales parts, so some of the parts used for customer fixes either came directly off the factory line, meaning they were meant for production vehicles, or the parts were stripped off pre-production and production vehicles, 11 workers with knowledge of the issue said.

In one instance, Fisker stripped parts off an engineering test vehicle that had been shipped from Magna's facility in Graz, Austria under an import bond, according to three former workers and emails viewed by BI. The vehicle was supposed to be destroyed in its entirety shortly after it was delivered to comply with the terms of the import. This is typically within a year, according to NHTSA, but the period can be extended in one-year increments up to 3 years. The vehicle's parts were not intended to be used for customers' cars.

The company denied any test vehicles had been used for parts and said all vehicles that had been imported for testing were destroyed under NHTSA's supervision within the allotted time period.

The spokesperson also denied that Fisker had a shortage of after-sales parts: "The Service department made its own forecast for parts, based on their sector knowledge. The Purchasing department supported those requests."

Fisker staff also looked for clever ways to address the parts shortage. In some instances, workers who visited Graz were told by managers to bring parts back in their suitcases to avoid paying import fees, seven workers said. One worker recalled having to leave personal belongings behind to fit air vents and key fobs into their luggage; another said they packed a larger bag to fit trim panels.

Fisker declined to comment on the claims.

A sales scramble amid negative reviews and vanishing demand

Fisker was initially successful in generating interest in the Ocean, with over 65,000 reservations initially placed.

But in the year since the Ocean's release, the company has delivered around 7,000 vehicles, a Fisker spokesperson said. Negative reviews — including YouTuber MKBHD calling it the "worst care I've ever reviewed" — took a toll on the brand, driving thousands of would-be customers to cancel their reservations.

In November, Fisker moved to bring in hiring recruiters to help sell the vehicle, as well as orchestrate the delivery of the car after the sale had been processed, six former workers said. In many cases, the recruiters, who had initially been brought onto the human resources team, had zero experience in automotive sales.

A Fisker spokesperson said that recruiting staff did join the sales efforts, though the company said they were asked to stay because they were successful in the new role.

Selling the car wasn't easy either. The recruiters found themselves directly competing with the company's established sales team and there weren't enough leads to go around. Four former workers said Fisker's reservation numbers included many duplicate names in its count and it was difficult to track which customers had connected with a sales worker. As a result, some people on the reservation list would find themselves getting multiple calls per day from different Fisker representatives.

At one point, sales workers were instructed to target customers who had canceled their orders and pepper them with calls in an attempt to get them to reverse their decision, three former workers said.

Fisker also began hosting pop-up events to boost sales, including events in partnership with fan blog Fiskerati, two former employees told BI. The events varied from meetups at Panera parking lots to larger-scale test drive events. In at least one instance, the event was shut down after Fisker failed to get permission from the owner of the location, the two sources said. Queues of Fisker owners that needed repairs also showed up at the events, three former workers said. Fisker told BI that the event hosted at Panera was not a company event.

"Sometimes it was hard to sell the cars when you'd take someone on a test drive and any number of error messages would pop up," one former worker from sales said. "As time went on and it became clear the writing was on the wall, we became even more honest with the customers on the risk," they added.

Fisker said it was aware of the ADAS issues but it was fixed with an update.

Meanwhile, some customers who'd canceled their orders and never paid for the car ended up mistakenly receiving delivery of the vehicle anyway, four former workers said. Former Fisker Ocean owner Kurt Mechling told BI he received delivery of the vehicle before he'd signed off on the order or had his payment successfully processed.

In March, TechCrunch reported that Fisker temporarily "lost track of millions of dollars in customer payments" for multiple months. Four workers with knowledge of the issue confirmed to BI the incident involving misplaced payments occurred.

When the carmaker conducted an internal audit in December over the issue, workers began scrambling to find the missing payments and bring some of the vehicles that had been mistakenly delivered back, the workers said. Some workers were encouraged by upper management to threaten the customers by saying they'd put them on a repossession list which could impact their credit score, the former workers said.

A Fisker spokesperson said the company had an "organized process" to address issues with vehicles that had not been paid for that was in line with industry standards.

Facing the threat of a repeat bankruptcy

Over the past year, Fisker has dropped prices by as much as $24,000 for some versions of the vehicle.

The company warned in March that it might go out of business within the year. The stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in April after it fell to 9 cents per share. Fisker warned staff in an April filing that they will be laid off if the company can't find a buyer or additional investor. The company brought in a chief restructuring officer who was given "sole authority" over some financial matters, including a potential sale, as part of an agreement with one of its investors.

Layoffs have stripped the staff to the bone. Its workforce is now less than 100 people, according to two sources with knowledge of the issue. Many of the workers who remain are involved in last-ditch efforts to offload Fisker's remaining inventory, the people said.

The company said it does not have less than 100 workers left and continues to sell vehicles in the US and in Europe. It declined to specify how many workers remained.

Meanwhile, workers have been dissatisfied with what they view as Henrik and Gupta-Fisker's inability to take accountability for their actions. A Fisker spokesperson pushed back on the comments questioning Henrik's business prowess.

"I think it's a story of ego. He wanted to make a car and stamp his name on it. Henrik is a great designer, but he doesn't have the business acumen beyond that," an individual who worked with Henrik at several companies, including his first automotive startup. "The lessons he should have learned from the first startup were never implemented and he rushed a car to market once again."

For Henrik, finding a buyer or cash infusion could partially salvage a reputation that has taken a hit over the past six months. Without a rescue, the automotive veteran faces the prospect of a nightmare scenario: back-to-back bankruptcies.

June 12, 2024: Added clarification that NHTSA requires temporarily imported vehicles to be destroyed within 3 years and that Fisker said it had done so within the allotted time period.

Do you work for an EV company like Fisker or Tesla? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work email and device at gkay@businessinsider.com or 248-894-6012.

• Rob McElhenney helped support Ryan Reynolds through one of the most stressful times in his life.
• Reynolds says McElhenney took on more Wrexham responsibilities while he was working on the new "Deadpool."
• "I'm lucky to call him my friend," the Marvel star told Business Insider.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney aren't just business partners and costars on "Welcome to Wrexham," the FX docuseries that chronicles the pair buying a down-on-its-luck Welsh football club and turning it into a success. They're also good friends — and according to Reynolds, McElhenney helped him through a particularly stressful time in his life.

In a recent interview for Business Insider's digital cover story on McElhenney, Reynolds reflected on how the last few years have been "the most stressful and all-consuming" of his life, between working on the third "Deadpool" movie, managing his many business ventures, and also being a cochairman of the Wrexham football club.

"It swallows my life whole," the actor says of making a "Deadpool" movie. Reynolds cowrote, produced, and stars in the latest, "Deadpool & Wolverine," alongside Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. "It becomes an all-hours, all-consuming, time-murdering obsession that needs to be born, raised, and sent to college in the span of 24 months."

Reynolds credits McElhenney with helping him balance his priorities, all while still allowing him to make time for his family, including his wife, Blake Lively, and their four kids.

"Over the last couple years, Rob has covered for me and cared for me in ways I can't fully comprehend," Reynolds tells BI. "He's helped me find space to see my family despite needing me in Wrexham."

Reynolds also noted it's not lost on him that McElhenney is juggling a lot, too — in addition to their shared Wrexham responsibilities, McElhenney also formed a new company, More Better Industries, that has a production arm, a creative consultancy, and an investment arm. That's not to mention his starring role on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," the beloved FX comedy he created that's heading into its 17th season.

"Rob is running multiple businesses, making sure he's a present husband and dad, starring in approximately 42 television shows and somehow, some way, maintaining remarkably even skin," Reynolds jokes.

The duo's friendship, which originally started over DMs about four years ago, is something Reynolds cherishes.

"I fucking love the guy. Now and always," he says of McElhenney. "I'm lucky to know him. I'm lucky to work with him. I'm lucky to call him my friend."

• Bethenny Frankel was married to Jason Hoppy from 2010 to 2012, and their divorce took nearly a decade.
• Frankel started a YouTube Series chronicling her divorce experience.
• She shared some of the dating red flags to watch out for before you marry someone.

In 2010, Bravo aired "Bethenny Getting Married," a one-season reality show documenting Bethenny Frankel's relationship with pharmaceutical sales executive Jason Hoppy.

The marriage lasted two years, and the couple had one child, Bryn Hoppy. The divorce took nearly a decade, finalizing in 2021 after Frankel filed for divorce in 2013.

The lengthy process prompted Frankel to create "JUST B DIVORCE," a new YouTube series where the former reality star and business leader shares her insights for women both pre- and mid-divorce.

"It was a brutal, brutal experience," Frankel, 53, told Business Insider. "I thought I would never survive it."

While Frankel shares practical divorce tips on the show, she also emphasizes the importance of spotting red flags early on.

"You can't marry someone that you wouldn't want to be divorced from," Frankel told BI. "The red flags that you see in dating will become fire engine-red flags when you're getting divorced." She said people can get "vengeful" throughout the process, especially when navigating custody battles.

Frankel shared some of her biggest dating red flags to watch out for early on in a relationship.

Charm is disarming

Frankel told BI that "charming" men should set off alarm bells.

She spoke more about the red flag in her series, stating that her life coach told her to run if charm is someone's primary personality trait.

"You don't own charm, charm owns you," she quoted the coach. Excessive charm is associated with narcissists and dark empaths, who use it to manipulate the people around them, according to therapists.

Lois M. Brenner, a divorce lawyer in New York, previously told Business Insider that she's had many clients say they were love-bombed and had "no idea who this person was" when they married them because of how charming they were at first.

You don't want the 6'5" trust fund guy

In April, TikToker Megan Boni shared a sound bite designed to be remixed: "I'm looking for a man in finance, trust fund, 6'5", blue eyes." It went viral, with David Guetta releasing his own version of the song.

While the song is a joke, Frankel still warned against going after trust fund guys in particular.

"You don't want a trust fund guy because of the way that they're going to ultimately treat you and discard you," she told BI. She believes that they will get bored and toss you aside because "they're insecure and they've been given everything."

Men can still be boys

Immaturity is another quality Frankel said to stay away from, because it can indicate how a partner handles disagreement.

She stressed the importance of being with someone who's emotionally mature. "You don't want to date boys, you want to date men," she told BI, adding that physical age means nothing. "A 65-year-old man could be a boy. A 25-year-old boy could be a man."

On TikTok, Frankel advised viewers to put men they're dating "through a strainer" and be really discerning. "If it's giving boy, it's giving 'bye,'" she said.

A weak 'yes' is a hard 'no'

Frankel said "cracks become craters" once you're married, so it's important to listen to your reservations.

"If you don't have a resounding, emphatic 'yes,' the answer is 'no,'" she told BI.

She added that someone's fears and expectations might make them feel obligated to go through with a marriage, such as their parents liking the person or feeling like they need to hit a certain milestone by a certain age. But none of that means you're ready to marry the person, and the consequences can be dire.

"You have to make smart decisions, and hopefully other people can learn from so many of my mistakes," Frankel said.

• The bird flu, or avian influenza, is increasingly worrying public-health experts.
• The H5N1 bird flu virus is changing, creeping closer to humans, and getting more opportunities to adapt.
• A bird flu pandemic isn't inevitable, but it is possible. Here's why you should know what's going on.

Bird flu is flying wild, and it has many infectious disease experts more worried now than ever.

The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed tens of millions of birds across the planet and more than 40,000 sea lions and seals. For animals, it's a pandemic.

Still, the CDC says the risk to humans is low. Most people seem to have very little chance, if any, of catching H5N1 avian influenza right now.

Only three people in the US have tested positive for the virus since its surprising break into the cattle population, and they all had direct contact with infected cows.

But infectious disease experts are increasingly concerned that the H5N1 virus could make a sustained jump into humans and start spreading among us. That's not inevitable, but several recent developments suggest it's a growing threat.

"There's a lot going on," Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine and associate chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told Business Insider. "I'm becoming more worried."

You shouldn't panic, but you should probably know what's going on. This virus is a leading candidate for the next pandemic, and four developments in the past month have experts worried.

Here's what you need to know.

Bird flu hospitalized a child in Australia

On Friday the World Health Organization announced that a 2-year-old had become Australia's first human case of H5N1 in March.

After returning from travel to Kolkata, India, the child's symptoms — loss of appetite, fever, coughing, vomiting, and irritability, according to WHO — put them in the hospital for two and a half weeks, including admission to the intensive care unit.

As human cases crop up in different parts of the world, epidemiologists like Christopher Dye become more concerned.

"There's such a vast amount of virus at the moment. And clearly it is changing, and it's doing new and unexpected things," Dye, a professor and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, told BI.

He recently co-authored a paper, published in the medical journal BMJ, arguing that the risk of a major human outbreak is "large, plausible, and imminent."

"Influenza has always been a concern for decades and decades, and this particular form of influenza for at least two decades," Dye said. "But now, it's risen to a level of concern, I think, which is greater than ever before."

Mice could bring bird flu into homes

A total of 47 house mice have tested positive for H5N1 in New Mexico, the US Department of Agriculture reported on Tuesday.

"Mice are kind of everywhere," Gandhi said. "They're around other animals, they're around humans a lot. And it's a little worrisome."

The samples were collected from the sick mice in early May. According to The Telegraph, scientists suspect that the mice, as well as some domestic cats, may have gotten the virus from drinking raw milk from infected cows. (Public health experts resoundingly advise that people should not drink unpasteurized, aka "raw," milk.)

"This brings the virus closer to human homes," Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, told The Telegraph. "This is out of control," he added.

Every new population of animals, and every new exposure to humans, is another opportunity for the virus to mutate and adapt.

One mutation suggests the virus has started adapting

When the CDC analyzed a virus sample from the second US farmworker infected, they spotted a mutation in the virus's replication machinery — the way it gets inside its host's cells to make copies of itself.

It's a change "associated with viral adaptation to mammalian hosts," the CDC said in a statement in May. The statement also said that studies in mice indicate this type of genetic mutation in the virus is associated with more severe disease and enhanced viral replication.

That doesn't make it a human virus yet, though.

Other than this one change, H5N1 has mainly "avian virus properties and not human virus properties," Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude and director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds, told BI.

That means the virus is better adapted to thrive and spread among birds, not humans.

Still, that could change.

The latest US case had a troubling cough

The first two farmworkers to test positive for H5N1 in the US had pink eye. But the third case, reported in Michigan in May, featured a cough and sore throat.

That means H5N1 was in that worker's respiratory system, which is a scarier place to find a threatening virus than in our eyes.

For one thing, it's easier to spread a virus by coughing or sneezing than by, well, sharing eye fluid.

The good news is that, as far as scientists can tell, H5N1 is still not adapted to humans enough to transmit between us. The CDC has reported no evidence that the coughing farmworker spread the virus to anyone else.

But that doesn't mean H5N1 can't mutate to achieve human-to-human transmission — which brings us to the second unfortunate reality of this farmworker's respiratory infection.

Compared to the eyes, human lungs are a more convenient place for an avian virus to get more mammalian, according to Webby. In the lungs, the virus is exposed to more of the cell receptors that a mammalian virus would bind to, giving H5N1 more opportunity to mutate and start grabbing onto those receptors — thereby becoming better adapted to infecting and spreading between humans.

Many experts fear the USDA and CDC aren't monitoring cattle and farmworkers closely enough to catch concerning mutations early, and that other human cases may be going undetected.

"I think there's enough of a threat here to be very alert so that we have a surveillance system in place that, as soon as this happens, we can find it," Dye said.

Vaccines are in the works

The good news is that bird flu is not COVID-19. Scientists have been tracking this virus and its entire viral family tree, watching for any sign of a growing threat to humans, for decades.

As a result, the key elements of a vaccine are already on standby. The US is beginning to manufacture millions of vaccines using "candidate vaccine viruses" — weakened influenza viruses — that the CDC has developed.

Though the candidates are not necessarily perfect matches to H5N1, and the vaccines' use of eggs may be a manufacturing roadblock if bird flu is sweeping the chicken population, they may provide some immunity in the case of a human outbreak.

Furthermore, scientists now have proven mRNA vaccine technology at the ready. Vaccines that use mRNA, of which the COVID-19 vaccines were the first approved for use, are more flexible and faster to develop than traditional vaccines — and they don't require eggs.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have already developed an experimental mRNA vaccine for H5N1, which they've successfully tested in mice and ferrets.

If H5N1 becomes a problem in humans, a vaccine could be offered with the flu shot you get later this year.

In the meantime, bird flu is a looming threat to keep an eye on.

"As far as I can see, this is not going to go away anytime soon," Dye said.

• Immigration is one of the thorniest public policy issues and one that will define the 2024 election.
• Biden has had to pivot on some of his border policies after running against Trump's efforts in 2020.
• Meanwhile, Trump is seeking to run heavily on immigration this year, similar to his 2016 campaign.

Very few issues animate Americans more than immigration.

And under the presidencies of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, divisions over the issue have only sharpened further.

Trump's 2016 presidential campaign was defined by his hard-line views on immigration: arguing for a wall at the US-Mexico border and insisting that Mexico pay for said barrier, pushing for the deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants, and calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.

Once in office, Trump sought to execute his broad vision. His administration constructed 455 miles of fencing along the southern border, but much of the wall simply replaced anti-vehicle barriers with taller steel bars. And despite Trump's rhetoric on ramping up deportations, the number of individuals who were removed from the US declined from October 2018 to September 2019.

Biden in the 2020 election strongly denounced Trump's immigration policies, voicing his opposition to a border wall, blasting the GOP administration's family separation policy, and promising a more humane approach toward migrants at the southern border.

But since Biden took office, an explosion in border apprehensions — along with scores of migrants arriving in Democratic-led cities like Chicago and New York — has became a political liability, with voters giving him low marks on the issue.

Here's a look at Biden and Trump's positions on immigration, one of the defining issues of the November election:

Where Joe Biden stands on immigration

Immigration has been one of the trickiest policy areas for Biden, as he came into office seeking to reverse many Trump-era policies but has instead often found himself on the defensive on the issue.

Republicans across the country have routinely excoriated Biden over border security since taking office, pointing their fingers at him over record levels of apprehensions at the border. In February, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, contending that he had not enforced the country's immigration laws. (The Democratic-led Senate subsequently squashed the impeachment charges against Mayorkas.)

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott over the past two years has pushed back against what he said is Biden's lack of border security by sending hundreds of thousands of migrants to Chicago and New York. And it's created a difficult situation for Democratic officials like New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has had to tackle budgetary challenges in housing migrants.

Biden this year pushed for the passage of a Senate-crafted bipartisan bill, which would have overhauled the US asylum system, among other measures intended to strengthen security at the border. The bill seemingly put the president on the offensive on the issue, as he challenged congressional Republicans to back to proposal to get a handle on immigration.

But Senate Republicans overwhelmingly voted against the bill after Trump pressed them to tank it.

Biden last week signed an executive order that restricts asylum protections — to the frustration of immigration advocates — for migrants if there are more than 2,500 unauthorized daily border crossings over a seven-day average.

Where Donald Trump stands on immigration

Trump has staked much of his 2024 campaign on Biden's vulnerabilities on immigration among voters.

In a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted in April, 50% of registered voters approved of Trump's handling of the issue while he was in office. Meanwhile, only 32% of registered voters approved of Biden's handling of immigration.

The former president was instrumental in tanking this year's bipartisan immigration bill, blasting it as a "horrible open borders betrayal" during a January rally in Las Vegas.

Trump has made it clear that he intends to crack down on illegal immigration should he retake the White House.

The former president's conservative allies have already begun drafting executive orders and memos in preparation for potential early actions to restrict migration at the US-Mexico border, according to The Wall Street Journal.

During Trump's sole term in the White House, he also made it more difficult for foreign-born workers — which included many highly-skilled scientists and engineers — to come to the US on visas. A second Trump administration could very well see a return to such policies.

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• The US lifted a ban on Azov Brigade, allowing it to receive American weapon shipments.
• The Azov Brigade, part of Ukraine's National Guard, has faced scrutiny for its past far-right ties.
• The State Department found no evidence of human rights violations after vetting the brigade.

The US State Department announced Monday that it has lifted a ban on the Azov Brigade, a former Ukrainian militia group with an ultranationalist history, allowing the current National Guard unit to receive American weapon shipments and training.

A State Department spokesperson told BBC on Tuesday that following a vetting of the brigade, there was "no evidence of gross violations of human rights."

The group was established in 2014 as the Azov Battalion by a figure linked to far-right hate groups in Ukraine. The unit's members' alleged far-right ties led the US to bar the group from receiving assistance.

Now known as the Azov Brigade, the unit became part of the Ukrainian National Guard in 2015. The unit sought to distance itself from its checkered past, yet it has also been banned from receiving US assistance for years, since the passing of a 2018 congressional spending bill.

The State Department has dismissed the congressional ban and said the Azov Brigade "passed Leahy vetting," referring to Leahy Law, which prevents the US from supporting foreign entities that have committed major human rights violations.

"Understanding by our allies how important it is to help each of these units is another important step on the way of our struggle for independence," Ukrainian National Guard spokesperson Ruslan Muzychuk told The Washington Post following the State Department announcement.

The Kremlin has used the Azov Brigade as a talking point in justifying Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as President Vladimir Putin has previously stated that his objectives of the war include the "demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine."

The Azov Brigade has claimed that it has evolved from its problematic past and that its leadership has changed since its inception.

In a response to the decision on Instagram, the unit wrote that "obtaining Western weapons and training from the United States will not only increase the combat ability of Azov, but most importantly, contribute to the preservation of the lives and the health of personnel."

"This is a new page in our unit's history," the brigade said, adding that "Azov is becoming even more powerful, even more professional and even more dangerous for occupiers."

The brigade is closely associated with its significant, albeit costly, defense of Mariupol in 2022 at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where it was eventually forced to surrender its fight from the Azovstal steel mill. The unit's soldiers have been celebrated as heroes and symbol of Ukrainian resistance.