Health Officials Trying to Trace and Contain Deadly Hantavirus Outbreak

0:00Xavier Martinez:In life, growth doesn't happen alone. Family keeps you secure. Coaches maximize your performance. But in business, who is there to help you grow? When Lumen Field wants to power game day experiences for 69 ,000 fans, who makes sure every snap and tap leave the home crowd cheering? Lumen. That's who. Helping leaders like you grow without throwing pains. Welcome to the trusted network for AI. Learn more at Lumen.com.

0:33What we know about the Hantavirus that has killed three people on a cruise ship and sickened several more. Plus, Ted Turner, who helped shape modern cable TV, has died at age 87. And some companies are cutting jobs because of AI. Those that don't expect their workers to do more work.

0:50Xavier Martinez:The days of sort of certainty and routine and having a clear career path are kind of over. It's Wednesday, May 6th. I'm Alex Oseleff for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

1:09We start our show today talking about Hantavirus. It's a rare but deadly disease that's in focus right now after an outbreak on a cruise ship that's killed at least three people. Now, a man in Switzerland who had been a passenger on that cruise ship has been hospitalized with the virus. He got sick after returning from a trip to South America at the end of last month. For more on the outbreak, I'm joined by WSJ reporter Xavier Martinez. Xavier, why are people concerned about this outbreak?

1:36Xavier Martinez:The concern here is that most hantaviruses only spread from rodents like mice or rats to humans. That's how they reach humans. But there is one strain found in South America called the Andes virus, and that can transmit between humans. humans. And so the concern is that this outbreak on board a cruise ship is that Andes strain. So if you do get this, what happens? Well, there's no vaccine. There's no real treatment. All doctors can really do is monitor patients and address the symptoms as they come up. There is a fairly high death rate for people who do progress to having certain symptoms, like a particular lung infection that occurs in the strains that are found in the Americas.

2:20So the cruise ship where the outbreak seems to be concentrated is currently anchored near Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa, and there are around 150 people on the ship. What are health officials in Switzerland where this one patient was found and other places doing to contain the outbreak?

2:35Xavier Martinez:Right now, public health officials are tracing the Swiss man's whereabouts since he left the ship. They're looking at the people that were on the plane with him to Switzerland. They're looking at the bars that he went to, the restaurants, the public spaces where he was at. And that's in an effort to see whether those individuals who he was in the same room as are showing any symptoms. And that contact tracing is going to continue on because the virus has an incubation period of between one and eight weeks, which means that the virus could be in someone's body, but they're not showing symptoms.

3:07Xavier Martinez:Our understanding is that there's a number of additional passengers who left the cruise ship and the World Health Organization. and other public health agencies are undergoing contact tracing for those individuals as well. Does it seem likely that more cases will occur? That's a question that researchers are trying to figure out right now. They're sequencing the genome of this virus to see if it has similar or different characteristics to ones that we've previously documented. However, I should say that the Andes virus, that strain that's found in South America, But researchers have found that it is often transmitted between people who are in very close quarters.

3:47Xavier Martinez:Think romantic partners and things like that. It's not something that's like COVID or the flu where you can be in the same room as someone coughing and you're likely to pass something between people. That's a little bit of good news there. That was WSJ reporter Xavier Martinez. Thanks, Xavier. Thank you.

4:10In markets today, enthusiasm around chip stocks like Intel and AMD and hopes for a peace deal in the Middle East are driving stocks higher. The Nasdaq climbed 2%, leading the gains in the indexes. It closed at a record. So did the S &P. Developments in the Iran war, which I'll tell you more about later in the show, caused big drops in oil prices. The international benchmark Brent and U.S. crude oil futures both fell 7 % or more. A development in a sexual assault and harassment case that's gone viral on Wall Street. Former J.P. Morgan investment banker Chirai Rana has sued the bank, alleging that a female colleague sexually assaulted him and that co-workers at the bank discriminated against him.

4:51Now the journal has learned that weeks before the suit was initially filed, J.P. Morgan offered a million dollars to settle the claims. Per WSJ reporting, Rana rejected the offer and asked for more money. A J.P. Morgan spokesman said that the bank did try to reach an agreement and that it believes that Rana's allegations have no merit. In media news, Disney's new CEO, Josh DeMauro, laid out his long-term vision for the company. He plans to use technology, especially video games, to reach consumers and increase profits. He said the Disney Plus streaming service will be the primary relationship between Disney and its fans.

5:25The company today reported that revenue in its latest quarter rose 7 percent to more than $25 billion.

5:35Banks have reported strong first quarter earnings in recent weeks, and many of them touted their focus on customers with strong credit. Turns out there are more of them than there used to be. The number of people with super prime credit scores of 780 or higher has grown by $15 million in the last six years. Oyen Adedoyan has been listening into those earnings calls and joins me now with more. Oyen, we hear so much about debt levels growing, about people falling behind on their loan payments. So how is it that more Americans have these super high credit scores now? We've really seen an uptick since the pandemic.

6:09Xavier Martinez:Everybody got stimulus checks and nobody was leaving their homes. It was a good environment to pay off debt and make good financial decisions and qualify for better credit cards. And some of what we're seeing today are people continuing the positive behaviors they started during the pandemic. How is this helping banks' balance sheets to have so many people with excellent credit? Most of the major banks reported really healthy earnings in the first quarter, and they attributed this growth in their consumer credit space to a really healthy prime consumer. American Express specifically cited Gen Z and millennial consumers who had healthy credit and were able to qualify for premium credit card products that typically require some kind of fees.

6:55That was WSJ personal finance reporter Oyen Adedoyan. Thanks, Oyen. Thank you. Coming up, Iran and the U.S. are working on a new framework for peace talks. More on that after the break.

7:10Xavier Martinez:I'm Steve Booth, CEO of Baird, an independent wealth, asset management, and global capital markets firm. At Baird, our 5 ,000-plus employees are united by an unwavering commitment to excellence and a genuine passion for helping our clients and each other succeed. As a privately held, truly employee-owned company, we treasure our independence since we can focus on delivering results to clients and taking care of our people throughout the cycles in our serve markets. Learn more at rwbear.com slash wsj.

7:44For months, we've been hearing about companies saying they're cutting jobs because of AI. Companies like Meta, Snap, Coinbase, and even retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond are doing it, whether it's because AI is taking on more work or because they need to cut costs to invest more in AI. But there's another group of companies taking a different approach. They're saying, actually, AI is going to help us avoid layoffs, but workers are going to have to do more. Chip Cutter covers the workplace for WSJ and is here now to discuss. Chip, you recently talked to IBM's head of HR, Nicole Lemereau, about this.

8:18Xavier Martinez:And even you could be crazy to say, OK, what if AI can do 50 percent of our work in three years and we want to double our headcount? What growth would that drive? What would we need to do differently? Because that's what I worry we're not focused on. and we'll miss the moment. Chip, besides IBM, what are some of the companies in this second camp? So it's companies that have this philosophy that their employees can just take on a lot more, that they can be stretched to maybe be two or three times more productive. And so it's companies like Axon Enterprise. This is a company that makes tasers, body cameras, a lot of software used in public safety.

8:56Xavier Martinez:So their president sent a note to thousands of employees recently saying, essentially everyone breathed. Like we're not going to have AI related layoffs anytime soon. And other employers like Spotify have said the same, where their co-CEO recently told investors, like, we could either cut staff and find efficiencies or just use our existing headcount and use our staff in new ways. So for the companies that are keeping their headcount, how can employees at these companies expect their roles to shift as AI gets more embedded in their work. The days of sort of certainty and routine and having a clear career path are kind of over.

9:31Xavier Martinez:And one person I thought was really interesting on this is DJ Castro. He's the HR chief at a company called Synchrony Financial. They issue credit cards on behalf of companies like PayPal and Lowe's and others. And he told me that he's already trying to get their workforce in the mindset that there are not going to be layoffs because of this. But he said, we have to start thinking now about what AI can do, how it's going to change those jobs, and then how the people then fit into it. You don't want to sort of do this when it's too late. That was WSJ's Chip Cutter.

10:04In international news, the Wall Street Journal has learned that Iran and the U.S. are working with mediators to hammer out a one-page memo that would provide a framework for a month of peace talks. Those talks could start as early as next week in Pakistan. President Trump told PBS News today that he believes it's possible the war in Iran could end before his visit to China next week. He posted earlier today on social media that if Tehran didn't agree to a deal, the U.S. would resume bombing Iran, quote, at a much higher level and intensity. Shifting to Ukraine, Russian forces launched one of the deadliest aerial attacks of the year.

10:39The brunt of the attacks was directed at the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, where at least 12 people were killed and 43 were injured. Russia has announced a two-day ceasefire starting Friday, while Ukraine declared one that would start today. But Russia's strikes are raising doubts about whether the fighting will stop. And in China, AI startup DeepSeek is looking to raise money from investors backed by the Chinese government. Beijing has treated DeepSeek as a national AI champion since the startup's powerful model rattled Silicon Valley and Wall Street last year. DeepSeek released an upgraded model last week, and investors expected to drive a wave of AI adoption in China.

11:20And finally, media titan Ted Turner has died at the age of 87. He helped shape the modern cable TV industry, ushering in the era of 24-hour news with CNN and also building other major networks like TBS and TNT. Starting in the 1980s, CNN redefined how breaking news is covered on television. With round-the-clock updates and live reports during major events like the first Iraq war, the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and natural disasters. Back in 2008, Turner told talk show host Charlie Rose what he was most proud of.

11:51Xavier Martinez:And in my business career, the thing I'm proudest of is CNN, closely followed by the Cartoon Network. But Turner had many interests outside of media. He was a conservationist, the owner of 2 million acres of land in nine states and in Argentina, plus 51 ,000 bison. And he was a philanthropist, best known for pledging$1 billion, one-third of his wealth, to the United Nations in 1997. His survivors include five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Anthony Bancey and Danny Lewis with supervising producer Tali Arbel.

12:29I'm Alex Osula for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

13:08Xavier Martinez:Transcription by CastingWords your finance team stops managing tools and starts driving the business. Learn more at brecks.com.