• The H5N1 bird flu virus has infected a third person in the US, this time with respiratory symptoms.
• The new patient's cough and sore throat could help the virus get better at infecting humans.
• Experts fear the US is missing critical opportunities to check the virus's DNA for new mutations.

The H5N1 bird flu virus has once again infected a human. But this time, the unlucky patient had a cough and a sore throat, which is a new milestone for the virus's spread in the US.

The H5N1 virus has become a pandemic among animals, raging through worldwide bird populations and now through US cattle herds.

This latest human case, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Thursday, is the third known human case in the US, following one in Texas and another in Michigan.

All three people are dairy farm workers who were exposed to infected cows, according to the CDC.

The first two cases, however, only involved eye symptoms, including conjunctivitis or pink eye. That means the infection was probably limited to their eyes. Now it has hit someone's lungs.

The risk to the general public is still low, the CDC says, but these new symptoms suggest the virus may have entered a new phase of its flirtation with human infection.

Lungs give the virus more opportunity to adapt to humans

St. Jude virologist Richard Webby is a leading researcher on an H5 group of influenza viruses, which have been circulating in bird populations for about 25 years.

Since 2021, the H5N1 virus has branched out to new frontiers of sustained spread, infecting dolphins and porpoises, migrating to the Americas, culling sea lions and seals, and now spreading through US cattle herds.

"This virus keeps on turning up surprises," Webby, who directs the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds, told Business Insider. "Had you asked me, beginning of the year, what the chances are of H5 turning up in cows, I would have said exceedingly low."

Still, he said, H5N1 is still more of a bird virus than a mammalian virus. That's mainly because of the receptors it binds to in order to enter its hosts' cells and replicate itself.

"Avian viruses bind to one form of this receptor on the host cell. Mammalian viruses bind to a different form," Webby said.

The mucus lining the human eye (where the first farmworker got conjunctivitis) is rich in the receptors that avian viruses grab, he said. There, the H5N1 virus can continue operating as an avian virus grabbing avian receptors, with no need to adapt to human receptors.

But our respiratory tracts are full of both forms of this receptor — the form preferred by avian viruses and the one preferred by mammalian viruses. Therefore, being in the lungs gives H5N1 more exposure to the receptors that mammalian viruses use, according to Webby.

That gives H5N1 more opportunity to sustain a mutation that would allow it to bind to those mammalian receptors, adapting better to human bodies.

That's the concern, but it's not clear if that has actually happened inside this patient's lungs. For such a mutation to be significant, it would then have to spread to other people as well. So far, based on all known cases, the virus has been unable to spread from one person to another.

Sequencing the virus tests for mutations

In a New York Times opinion piece on Sunday, virologist Rick Bright argued that the emergence of respiratory symptoms indicates "a dangerous inflection point" for the virus.

After all, he wrote, "Coughing can spread viruses more easily than eye irritation can."

But for Webby, the Michigan patient's cough "doesn't change a whole lot."

Two previous one-off human cases of H5N1 — one in Chile and one in Ecuador — featured respiratory symptoms.

The virus didn't necessarily have to mutate to infect the Michigan farmworker's respiratory system, according to Webby. The person could have simply encountered a large amount of virus, maybe an especially ill cow.

"That's me sort of looking at the crystal ball a little," he said, adding that it's "the most likely explanation for what we're seeing, rather than the other one, which is of course much more scary, that this virus has already changed."

Either way, scientists won't know if any scary mutations have occurred until they can examine the virus's DNA sequence from this new case. The patient carried such small amounts of the virus, though, that it's possible the CDC won't have enough to get the sequence, Webby said.

DNA sequences are critical. By checking the virus's genes in each new human case, no matter how mild the symptoms, scientists can identify any fresh mutations that help it adapt to humans. If H5N1 becomes a bona fide mammalian virus, they could watch its transformation in real-time.

"The very first signals we're going to get that this virus is changing are probably going to come from human infections," Webby said.

So far, though, the government's monitoring may not be robust enough to spot those mutations early.

Experts call for more testing so they won't miss mutations

The FDA has detected fragments of the virus in commercial milk and beef. Though it's unlikely that food could infect you, public-health experts have told BI, caution-minded people can cook their eggs and meats all the way. Nobody should drink unpasteurized milk, aka raw milk, they say.

The real risk is to people who work directly with sick animals, especially farmworkers like the three who have been infected so far.

Nationwide, the government is monitoring about 350 people who may have been exposed to H5N1, most of them in Michigan, CDC Deputy Director Nirav Shah told the press in a briefing on Thursday. However, only about 40 farmworkers have been tested for the virus, The New York Times reported.

"We would like to be doing more testing," Shah said, according to STAT News.

Bright argues that the government's weak testing regime could be allowing farmworker infections to fly under the radar.

However, undetected cases are not the same thing as undetected spread.

Bright's essay rings alarm bells about unknown human-to-human transmission, but Webby finds that unlikely. Even with its current monitoring, the CDC would probably detect sustained human spread, he said.

Rather, the problem with undetected cases is that nobody can sequence their samples. Those are windows into the virus's DNA (and possible mutations) that nobody is peeking through.

Webby and Bright agree that scientists need more sequences of the virus, more quickly. Despite the ongoing herd spread, for example, the USDA hasn't shared a new sequence from a cow infection sample in weeks, according to Bright.

"Bottom line is we need to have more information from exactly what this virus is doing," Webby said. "The more we can understand about it, I do believe we can properly control it, or at least control it way better than we are."

• Keith Gill may face an E*Trade ban, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
• Gill posted a screenshot on Sunday that appeared to show he had a $116 million position in GameStop.
• E*Trade, owned by Morgan Stanley, is worried about potential stock manipulation, the Journal reported.

Trader Keith Gill, also known on social media as "Roaring Kitty" or "DeepFuckingValue," could get barred from E*Trade after a screenshot he posted that appeared to show a huge stake in GameStop caused the stock price to soar.

That's according to a Monday report in The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed people familiar with the situation at E*Trade, a trading platform owned by Morgan Stanley.

The unnamed sources said the prominent meme-stock trader sparked concern about potential stock manipulation after he bought a bunch of GameStop options shortly before breaking his three-year social media silence last month.

Prior to last month, Gill had not posted to his social media accounts since 2021. Then, on May 12, he began making cryptic posts on X. After he reemerged, GameStop surged yet again.

Then, on Sunday night, he shared a screenshot of an E*Trade account that appeared to show he had a $116 million position in GameStop, triggering another frenzy that caused the meme stock to soar.

The Journal also reported that the Massachusetts securities division is examining Gill's actions. The Massachusetts securities division did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

The Journal reported no decision had been made yet on whether to stop Gill from trading on the platform. People familiar with internal discussions told the outlet they are still weighing if Gill engaged in manipulation and that the platform is concerned about losing customers — and the potential reaction of Gill's fans — if he were barred.

Morgan Stanley declined to comment when reached by Business Insider. Gill did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

Shortly after the Journal reported on his potential barring from E*Trade, Gill posted another screenshot that appeared to show he maintained his position in GameStop on Monday, even as the value of his stake seemingly jumped from $116 million to $140 million in less than a day.

• Tech, consulting, and finance jobs are harder to secure due to hiring cuts and more competition.
• Students are stacking internships and expanding their job search — including to the government.
• Plagued by layoffs, hiring at tech seems to have taken the biggest hit — by nearly every measure.

Management consulting, Big Tech, and finance are the go-to industries for many college students because they pay big money and look great on a résumé.

But those jobs at the entry level are harder to come by now, data shows and experts say. It's upending the job search for young people trying to find their footing in a fast-shifting workforce.

According to one survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 21% of companies at large said they expect to decrease hiring this academic year. In the 2023 and 2022 versions of the survey, only 6% and 3.5% of employers, respectively, said that they expected hiring to drop.

Economists, career experts, and students who spoke to Business Insider all agree on one thing: If you're fixated on a career in one of these three industries, it's going to be a tough ride that won't get easier for future classes, especially as artificial intelligence starts to affect white-collar jobs.

Last month, people at Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, told The New York Times that their firms are considering cutting back on fresh graduate hiring by up to two-thirds. Analysts who make it in may be offered lower salaries because their work can be assisted by AI.

Those in tech fear a similar fate.

Students "are scared that engineering roles will be replaced in the future," said Austin Wang, a class of 2025 computer science major at Yale University.

Management consulting

Known for $200,000 straight-out-of-business-school pay packages and work across industries, consulting giants like McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company have long been the dream for fresh graduates.

Now, less client work is forcing these firms to tighten their belts.

In March, professional services firm Accenture pushed back start dates. McKinsey went one step further and offered UK employees nine months' worth of pay and career-coaching services as an incentive to leave the firm. The tactics came after the firm said it would slash 1,400 jobs globally last year.

Industry woes are showing up in hiring numbers, too.

Jobs posted for fresh graduates under the category "professional services" — a proxy for consulting — fell over 14% from 2023 to 2024, according to data from Handshake, a job platform for college graduates.

"Consulting has been very difficult in particular because these companies who hired interns to work for them have asked them to delay their start date," Beth Hendler-Grunt, the president of Next Great Step, a career counseling service for college graduates, told BI.

Some consultancies pushed entry-level start dates back eight to 11 months, she said: "That is a lot to ask of somebody to wait around and hope that the job is still there."

Given the market's pessimism, students are applying to more companies, hoping to improve their odds of success. Business students from this year's graduating class are less likely to apply to consulting roles and more likely to seek positions in customer relations, marketing, and analytics, according to a Handshake survey. Handshake polled about 2,700 undergraduate students who are graduating this year from 616 US colleges.

Matthew Park, who just graduated from Yale after serving as the president of the university's undergraduate consulting group, said the market has changed since he applied to internships in 2022. He said those who applied with him had a much easier time landing offers than this year's cohort — but his peers, on the whole, want to stick with consulting.

"I don't really think there's been a marked shift in student interests," Park said about the demand for these roles. "If there has been a shift, I'd say it's a shift more out of necessity than intrinsic interest."

Tech

Plagued by layoffs and budget cuts, hiring in tech seems to have taken the biggest hit of all three industries examined in the story.

Tech job postings geared toward fresh graduates fell by 30% compared with last year, according to data compiled by Handshake, a job platform for college graduates. Companies are cutting workforces that swelled during zero-interest-rate, pandemic-era boom times.

Career consultants are seeing a change in the job market.

"We have students who come in from excellent schools and Ivy League schools with STEM experience and are still struggling to land interviews," said Hendler-Grunt, the career advisor.

To improve their chances, some students are branching out.

Yale's Wang, who leads a computer science club at the university, has seen his peers apply to more jobs and more diverse roles, including engineering jobs in finance.

"There is overall a lot more stress going around this year due to the recruitment cycles being tougher than usual," Wang said.

Anika Nair, a computer science student who graduated from Rutgers University last month, said she expected her résumé — including cloud certification and a software engineering internship at JPMorgan — would make her search straightforward.

"I started job searching in December of last year and continued to do so through 2024 — I sent out around 200 applications, received 20 interview invitations, and experienced numerous ghostings and rejections," she told BI. "I didn't expect it to be this hard."

Investment banking

The first quarter of the year has been one of mixed signals for Wall Street's mightiest investment banks — and their head counts.

Citigroup began the year saying it would lay off as many as 20,000 employees in the next two years. Around the same time, JPMorgan said it would spend $2.8 billion in 2024, primarily on hiring. Within a month of those announcements, Deutsche Bank announced it would cut 3,500 jobs.

While industry hiring sentiment remains mixed, job platforms are seeing a drop in finance postings. The number of early-career postings for financial services, which include more than just investment banking roles, dropped over 13% for the Class of 2024, according to Handshake. Finance-related roles made up more than one-fifth of total applications, the survey found.

In Singapore, undergraduates are stacking investment banking internships with the ultimate prize: a full-time job. Some Singaporean students take off a semester for off-cycle internships to bolster their résumés.

"There's so much stress seeing friends taking a whole semester off to do an internship. If you are not taking the semester off, you'll be like, 'Oh, am I doing something wrong?'" one National University of Singapore student previously told BI.

Students are hedging their bets

The government looks like the biggest winner of the drop in tech and professional services hiring.

According to Handshake, about 7.4% of job applications from 2024 graduates have been submitted to government roles, compared to 5.5% last year.

After hearing about so many layoffs and hiring freezes, some students are prioritizing working in industries that feel more stable, like government work, said Christine Cruzvergara, the chief education strategy officer at Handshake.

Career counselors at top schools are also noticing that students are less likely to stick to a short list of companies.

Richard Carruthers, the deputy director of careers service at Imperial College London, said more students this year have backup plans and that the process is taking longer for students who get offers.

"We're seeing more students waiting longer for decisions about offers, across many sectors," he said. "Students with good prior experiences and strong CVs are included within this."

Work visa restrictions

A tougher job market means more clampdowns on work visas.

Over the past month, KPMG, Deloitte, and HSBC rescinded offers for foreign graduates who no longer meet sponsorship requirements due to UK visa rule changes. Employers must now pay skilled workers nearly 50% more than the previous minimum threshold to be able to sponsor work visas.

An international student at the National University of Singapore who graduated with internships at Amazon Web Services and Deloitte said she started her job hunt in August and has applied to over 400 roles. She spoke anonymously because of her ongoing job search; her identity is known to BI.

"It's quite bad for entry-level jobs in general but even worse for international students," she said. "I've reached out for referrals to seniors, only to learn that their company has stopped sponsoring visas."

"I saw my friends struggle to get interviews in 2023, and with the way layoffs continued, I knew it would be harder in 2024," she said.

She has yet to receive a full-time offer.

Do you have a career story to share? Get in touch with this reporter by email.

• A Google leak exposed thousands of privacy incidents, according to a 404 Media report.
• The information obtained from an anonymous tipster details incidents flagged by employees.
• It's the second Google leak in the last week, and it highlights how the giant manages data.

A leaked copy of an internal Google database revealed thousands of privacy-related incidents from 2013 to 2018, according to a report from 404 Media published Monday.

The leaked information, sent to 404 Media by an anonymous tipster, reveals flagged instances where Google's privacy guardrails may have failed. Business Insider has not been able to view the leaked information.

The incidents were reported by employees between six and nine years ago, a Google spokesperson said. All the incidents have been reviewed and resolved, meaning any private information has been deleted, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider.

Some of the instances listed in the leaked information included a blurring mishap on YouTube that exposed the uncensored versions of images and a Waze Carpool incident that shared users' home addresses.

In one incident, a Google speech service logged audio of an estimated 1,000 children for about an hour, the report said. Another situation involved Google's Street View saving license plates due to an algorithm that detected text in images, according to the 404 Media report citing the leaked information.

According to Google, several flags detailed in the 404 Media report and shared with the tech giant were not incidents at all, or they involved issues from third-party platforms.

For example, some were internal security team simulations aimed at enhancing product protections or false alarms on product bugs, according to Google. The company said others were third-party issues from a vendor Google used for employee travel and a WiFi network scam attempt at an industry conference.

The list of incidents is the second internal leak in the last week; 2,500 documents were released on May 27, appearing to reveal secrets to how Google organizes the web. The leak sent SEO experts into a fury, with some claiming that Google hadn't always been honest about how it ranks sites.

While the previous incident resulted in distrust from website owners and SEO experts, this leak threatens Google's reputation with everyday users. The leak also comes during a time when Google's reliability is already in question after inaccurate responses from AI Overviews forced them to scale back the feature.

The latest leak also sheds light on how Google deals with these incidents. Few of the documented incidents were publicly reported, according to 404 Media. Rather, they entailed an employee flagging them and giving them priority rating before the relevant response team investigated them.

Since Google prioritizes improving products, it encourages employees to file internal incident reports, and they're taken seriously, according to the company. But Google said this often results in reports labeled as high priority not matching the ratings determined by the security response team.

Google told Business Insider it implemented hundreds of new and additional protections over the last six years to ensure user security and privacy. For example, it updated YouTube's policy around kids and data protection in 2019, limiting data collection on videos made for kids to only what is needed to support the service.

Google said its products also regularly undergo independent verification of security, privacy, and compliance controls to achieve global standards.

• The Epoch Times, a media company linked to China's Falun Gong movement, has grown massively.
• It says its pro-Trump, conspiracy theory-heavy editorial content has won donations and subscriptions.
• But federal prosecutors say its growth was fueled largely by its CFO's pandemic-era cybercrime spree.

The Epoch Times, a US media company linked to Chinese dissidents that seemingly shot to success by embracing Donald Trump and conspiracy theories, significantly funded its growth with proceeds of cybercrime, according to federal prosecutors.

The Justice Department said the company's CFO, Weidong "Bill" Guan, was arrested on June 2 and charged with money laundering in New York. The DOJ indictment claims that he and others "used cryptocurrency to knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds" and plowed it into the Epoch Times starting in 2020.

The Epoch Times wasn't named in court records, and the Justice Department said the case had nothing to do with its editorial slant. The indictment only mentioned a "multinational media company headquartered in Manhattan." However, the outlet could be identified because Guan is listed online as its CFO and because the financial numbers in the complaint come close to what the Epoch Times has reported to the IRS.

According to the indictment, most of Guan's criminal activity mentioned in the indictment took place in 2020, 2021, and 2022, but prosecutors say that up until last month, Guan helped launder "at least $67 million."

The time period overlaps with a period of major growth for Epoch Times, whose revenue grew from $15.5 million in 2019 to more than $70 million in 2020 and over $120 million a year in 2021 and 2022, according to its nonprofit tax returns.

According to prosecutors, Guan and the Epoch Times' offshore "Make Money Online" team, or MMO team, used cryptocurrency to buy prepaid debit cards loaded with proceeds of fraud, like unemployment insurance fraud, starting in April 2020. They used the prepaid cards and financial accounts that were opened with stolen personal information to plow millions of dollars into the Epoch Times' bank accounts, prosecutors say.

"When banks raised questions about the funds, Guan allegedly lied repeatedly and falsely claimed that the funds came from legitimate donations to the media company," US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a press release.

The Epoch Times didn't respond to a comment request.

NBC News reported last year that the Epoch Times, which is linked to members of the Falun Gong group that has been repressed by China's government, grew by sending out free physical copies of its newspaper to hundreds of thousands of people and that it has focused on conservatives over age 60. The publication claims it's the fourth-largest newspaper in the US by subscriber count, but unlike other media outlets, its circulation figures aren't audited.

Other outlets have noted the Epoch Times' willingness to play up stories about vaccine injuries and to traffic in conspiracy theories, like the idea that the Biden administration is trying to reduce food production and force Americans to eat bugs