Jake Rosmarin, a travel influencer who was on the M/V Hondius as it suffered a hantavirus outbreak, is one of 16 Americans quarantining at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Rosmarin spoke with CBS News about how a five-week trip is now stretching into 12 weeks away from home.

A New York native is among 16 American passengers who are quarantining in Nebraska after being on the cruise ship that is at the center of the deadly hantavirus outbreak.

Jake Rosmarin is one of three New Yorkers who were on the M/V Hondius. Rosmarin, originally from Monroe, New York, described his time so far at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s National Quarantine Unit.

“I know I’m in the best care possible, and I’m just trying to stay positive,” he told CBS News New York’s Mary Calvi in an interview Wednesday. 

There have been 11 confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus so far, including three deaths, since the outbreak began. 

Seventeen Americans and one British dual citizen were flown to the U.S. Monday. Of the 18, one tested “mildly PCR positive” for the Andes strain of the hantavirus, and another began showing symptoms, U.S. health officials said Sunday. 

Sixteen of the Americans, including the one who tested positive, were taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Fifteen of those, including Rosmarin, were placed in single-occupancy rooms at the medical center’s National Quarantine Unit. The person who tested positive for the Andes strain was initially placed in the center’s biocontainment unit, but was medically cleared Wednesday to be moved to the quarantine unit. 

“I feel well,” Rosmarin said. “I have no symptoms, and I’m just ready to cope with the next 40 days left here in quarantine.”

Meanwhile, the passenger who showed symptoms, along with the person they were traveling with, were flown to Atlanta for treatment and monitoring at a biocontainment facility at Emory University Hospital. 

What the day-to-day is like in quarantine

In quarantine, Rosmarin said he gets a daily temperature check and regular blood work done. There’s also a stationary bike inside his room for exercise. He also has Wi-Fi and a bathroom. He said he has a window, but he keeps it closed because “there are people outside, so I don’t need them looking in my room.”

Michael Wadman, the medical director of National Quarantine Unit, told reporters that there is no intermingling between passengers and no visitors, aside from medical staff.   

Rosmarin described his room as “much more spacious than the ship.”

“We don’t really have much going on during the day…For the most part, we just get to kind of, you know, relax and be comfortable in here,” he added.  

Rosmarin indicated, though, that he hasn’t been given regular updates from the outside world as to the status of his fellow passengers. 

“I’m not really sure of anything that goes on outside of this room,” he said.   

“It was a really scary time”

Rosmarin said the trip was “unbelievable” until the final 24 to 48 hours before they were initially slated to disembark. That is when the Hondius passengers learned there had been a confirmed case of hantavirus, he said. 

“Everything just went downhill,” Rosmarin explained. “…It was that week following before we could get off the ship and repatriated by the United States, that was a really scary time, specifically for me,” he said.

Rosmarin said it was frightening that no government wanted the ship to disembark at their ports due to the virus. Spain finally agreed to dock the ship in the Canary Islands. There were nearly 150 people from 15 countries aboard the ship when the evacuations began Sunday. The evacuees were placed on repatriation flights to their respective countries, with the U.S. passengers arriving in Omaha, Nebraska, on Monday. A skeleton crew remained behind to sail the Dutch-flagged Hondius to Holland.   

Once-in-a-lifetime trip

Rosmarin described the trip as an expedition journey, and said the passengers weren’t on a typical cruise. Because it was a smaller group, all the passengers knew each other. 

He said some of their destinations included South Georgia Island, where they saw the largest king penguin colony in the world, and Tristan da Cunha. 

“We got to swim in the middle of the ocean, not far from the equator, where the ocean was over 15,000 feet deep,” he said. “Overall, I mean it was a really, really unbelievable experience.” 

In:

But Jeff Bezos, founder of the world’s largest online retailer Amazon, said Zuckerberg and Gates are the “exception” to the idea that all major tech companies were founded by college dropouts and that a degree doesn’t matter as much these days. 

While it’s “possible” to be 18, 19, or 20 years old and drop out of college to become a great entrepreneur, Bezos said these tech leaders are an exception.

“I always advise to young people: Go work at a best-practices company somewhere where you can learn a lot of basic fundamental things [like] how to hire really well, how to interview, etc.,” Bezos said during an interview at Italian Tech Week last fall. “There’s a lot of stuff you would learn in a great company that will help you, and then there’s still lots of time to start a company after you have absorbed it.”

Working at a company, instead of immediately trying to start one, “increases your odds” of being successful, he added. 

Bezos, now the third-richest person in the world at a $268 billion net worth, founded Amazon when he was 30 years old after about a decade of work experience. Both Gates and Zuckerberg, on the other hand, were just 19 years old when they launched Microsoft and Facebook, respectively. Still, Zuckerberg is the sixth-wealthiest person in the world with a $231 billion net worth, and Gates is the 16th-richest at a $118 billion net worth. 

But Bezos says that “extra 10 years of experience actually improved the odds that Amazon would succeed.” And succeed it did: Today, the online retailer has a whopping $2.64 trillion market cap.

Not only did Bezos have work experience, but he also finished college. He graduated summa cum laude—the highest honors—from Princeton University in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. 

He was also elected to honor societies Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi, and also served as president of the Princeton chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space. That academic focus later came to fruition in 2000 with Bezos’s aerospace-tech company Blue Origin, which he’s described as the “most important work” he does. Blue Origin is a private company, so its valuation has never been disclosed, but Bezos has said he thinks it will eventually be bigger than Amazon.

“That would always be my advice: I finished college, and I enjoyed college,” Bezos said. “I think it’s been helpful to me.”

Still, younger generations continue to question the value of a college degree. As the cost of college continues to grow and available jobs for newer grads shrink, many are starting to question the real return on investment for a degree. Even Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, said during a recent company conference last week, going to college “should be a debate.”

“Nothing in the history of Western civilization has gotten more expensive, more quickly,” added Mike Rowe, a longtime vocational advocate. “Not energy, not food, not real estate, not even health care, [nothing has been inflated more] than the cost of a four-year degree.”

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on October 6, 2025.

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Yet, many workers have dreaded the return to physical offices, and argued that hybrid work allows for flexibility without losing productivity. This presents a new post-pandemic challenge for workplace designers, who must now build attractive spaces to draw employees back to the office, said Ray Yuen, the office managing director at architectural firm Gensler.

“We’re no longer just designing workplaces, we’re actually designing experiences,” said Yuen, at the Fortune Brainstorm Design forum in Macau on Dec. 2. “You’ve really got to make the campus or the workplace more than work, and that’s the fun part of it.”

Citing results from a 2025 survey by his firm, Yuen said that when asked what makes for good workplaces, employees increasingly named factors such as food and wellness. 

“They didn’t even mention anything about work—everybody just picked the stuff that we really want as human beings,” he added.

As such, workplace designers like Yuen need to think about how to reimagine modern offices. He pointed to a project Gensler worked on in Tokyo, Japan, for a company where 50% of its staff members had been working from home.

“We designed it [their office] with 15 different food offerings, including trying to bring Blue Bottle in. We ended up [also] designing a secret [vinyl] bar,” said Yuen.

Companies have also been seeking more transformable workspaces, Yuen added, and interior designers have responded by replacing built-in spaces with modular, removable furniture. “[This way,] you can transform a space when you need to, from an F&B [space] for the staff, to an events space or a happy hour space for your clients.”

The user needs for spaces are also becoming more complex, Yuen said. Airports, for instance, no longer serve as meagre transit hubs but are also places where travelers can work or rest.

Now, airports have “a lot more outdoor-indoor space [and] natural light, past the actual check-in area. Airport [experiences] used to be just you checking in, and sitting there, waiting,” the designer said. “It’s a destination, it’s no longer just a [place of] transit.”

As with other fields, artificial intelligence is also rewriting the playbook for designers.

Yuen recounted how some clients have pulled up visuals on AI image generators like Google’s Nano Banana Pro, before asking: “If they can do it in a second, why can’t design firms do it quicker?”

Many designers traditionally regard time and craftsmanship as core tenets of design, but AI is pushing them to change the way they work, Yuen said. Clients now want “immediate response, immediate gratification,” he continued.

“With AI, we’re now almost like a creator [of] all these art pieces, and we try to select what is suitable—that’s the only way we can manage that need from clients on speed and time,” said Yuen.

“Sri Lanka and China are ushering in a new chapter in bilateral relations,” Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has said in an interview with Xinhua.

At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Dissanayake was on a state visit to China from Tuesday to Friday, his first trip to China since taking office in September as Sri Lankan president.

“I first visited Beijing in 2004. Returning after 20 years, I see a tremendous transformation,” Dissanayake said.

Over the past 68 years since establishing diplomatic ties, China and Sri Lanka have deepened their strategic cooperative partnership through sincere mutual assistance and lasting friendship.

Following their talks on Wednesday, the two heads of state jointly witnessed the signing of several cooperation documents in such areas as Belt and Road cooperation, agricultural products, social welfare, and the press, radio and television.

Dissanayake said that Sri Lanka is currently facing several challenges, including poverty reduction, technological advancement and infrastructure development, and China can play a significant role in supporting Sri Lanka in overcoming these challenges.

“I observed that the Chinese government is people-centered and attentive to public needs. Similarly, Sri Lanka’s new government is also dedicated to serving its people,” said the 56-year-old president.

Dissanayake applauded China’s poverty alleviation achievements. “China’s poverty reduction experience is a global model and has been praised by the United Nations. Sri Lanka has much to learn from China’s experience,” he said, highlighting his plan of field trips to rural areas in China to learn firsthand how local farmers have overcome poverty.

Dissanayake was also impressed by his visit to the Museum of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which shows how China, led by the CPC, has overcome challenges and achieved its current success. “The exhibition holds great significance not only for the Chinese people, but also for us as it offers new perspectives on development,” he said.

Over the years, Sri Lanka and China have made steady progress in high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

Chinese enterprises have constructed ports, highways, railways, hospitals, water conservancies and power facilities in Sri Lanka, significantly improving its infrastructure and investment environment while boosting local employment.

China is a major trade partner for Sri Lanka, a leading source of imports and foreign investment, and a key provider of development assistance.

The Colombo Port City and Hambantota Port are landmark projects of the Belt and Road cooperation between the two sides. “These two projects will undoubtedly bring long-term economic benefits to Sri Lanka,” Dissanayake said.

Industrial parks would be developed around Hambantota Port, and Colombo Port City would attract more investment, greatly improving the living standards of the Sri Lankan people, he said.

Debunking Western media’s disinformation that China is creating a “debt trap” and militarizing Sri Lankan ports, Dissanayake said, “Global South countries need development, which cannot be achieved without external investment and loans. We cannot view such assistance as a ‘debt trap’.”

Looking ahead, Dissanayake expressed hope of attracting more Chinese enterprises to invest in Sri Lanka and more Chinese tourists. Currently, China is Sri Lanka’s fourth-largest source of tourists.

To further boost tourism, Sri Lanka has launched tourism promotion campaigns and streamlined visa application processes, and it is planning more direct flights to attract Chinese tourists.

“Sri Lanka and China are both nations rich in cultural heritage with a long history of people-to-people exchanges. I believe Chinese tourists will have a wonderful time in Sri Lanka,” said the president.

Source: Xinhua

–Agencies 

Trump loves that “central casting” look, as he likes to call it.

Some, like his choices for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, are TV hosts on Trump’s favorite network, Fox News. Mike Huckabee, his choice for U.S. ambassador to Israel, hosted the Fox show “Huckabee” from 2008 to 2015 after his time as Arkansas governor.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former syndicated talk show host and heart surgeon, was tapped Tuesday to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees health insurance programs for millions of older, poor and disabled Americans. He would report to Trump’s choice for health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., himself a regular on the cable news circuit.

Trump, a former reality television star himself, has made no secret of his intention to stack his administration with loyalists after his decisive 2024 election win — including some whose lack of relevant experience has raised concerns among lawmakers. But he’s also working to set up a more forceful administration in this term, and in his eyes, many of those people happen to intersect with celebrity.

The trend was not lost on Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who posted on social media after the Oz nomination: “We are becoming the world’s first nuclear-armed reality television show.”

For good measure, Himes added: “Just spitballing here, but what if the Attorney General and the Secretary of HHS fight each other in an octagonal cage?” That was a reference to Trump’s affinity for the UFC fighters who do battle in the octagon.

Choosing TV personalities isn’t that unusual for the once-and-future president: A number of his first-term choices — John Bolton, Larry Kudlow, Heather Nauert and Mercedes Schlapp, were all on TV — mostly also on Fox. Omarosa Manigault Newman, a confrontational first-season member of Trump’s NBC show “The Apprentice,” was briefly at the White House before she was fired.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who ran Trump’s 2016 transition team until he was fired, said that eight years ago, Trump held “Apprentice-like interviews at Bedminster,” summoning potential hires to his club in New Jersey.

On a call on Tuesday organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, Christie said this year’s Cabinet choices are different than 2016’s but it’s still “Donald Trump casting a TV show.”

“He’s casting,” Christie said.

Trump has readily highlighted the media experience of his choices as he’s announced them. He said Duffy, a former lawmaker and onetime cast member of MTV’s “The Real World,” was “a STAR on Fox News.”

Hegseth, a military veteran, “has been a host at FOX News for eight years, where he used that platform to fight for our Military and Veterans,” Trump said. He also noted that Hegseth’s book “The War on Warriors” spent nine weeks on The New York Times “best-sellers list, including two weeks at NUMBER ONE.”

As for Oz, Trump said: “He won nine Daytime Emmy Awards hosting ‘The Dr. Oz Show,’ where he taught millions of Americans how to make healthier lifestyle choices.”

It’s also true that those seeking positions in Trump’s orbit often take to the airwaves to audition for an audience of one. Tom Homan, Trump’s choice for “border czar,” is a frequent Fox contributor. Ohio Sen. JD Vance was chosen as Trump’s running mate in part because of how well he comes across on air.

Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, upped his profile when he took to Fox News to argue that a pre-election appearance on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” by Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was a violation of the “equal time” rule governing candidate appearances on television.

The White House-to-cable news pundit pipeline tends to cut across administrations of both parties, to some extent. President Joe Biden had three MSNBC contributors on his transition team and his former press secretary went to the network after she left the White House. Biden, though, looked to career diplomats, longtime government workers and military leaders for key posts like the Defense Department.

Trump’s affinity for Fox News is well-documented, though the romance cooled for a time after Fox made an early call of Arizona for Biden in 2020, a move that infuriated Trump and many of the network’s viewers. Trump suggested viewers should migrate to other conservative news outlets.

While the Arizona call ultimately proved correct, it set in motion internal second-guessing and led some Fox personalities to embrace conspiracy theories, which ultimately cost the network $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems.

But Trump is still an avid watcher — the network provides Trump a window into conservative thinking, with commentary from Republican lawmakers and thinkers who are, often, speaking directly to the president-elect.

How many degrees of separation are you from the globe’s most powerful business leaders? Explore who made our brand-new list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business. Plus, learn about the metrics we used to make it.

3 hospitalized as dozens experience heat illnesses at Pikes Peak Air Show

Amid extreme heat at the Pikes Peak Air Show in Colorado Springs Saturday afternoon, around 40 to 50 people experienced heat-related illness, three of whom were hospitalized, officials said.

In a social media post at around 3:45 p.m., the Colorado Springs Fire Department said several dozen people were taken indoors to cool down as fire personnel monitored them. The conditions of the three people hospitalized were not confirmed. 

Few other details were immediately available, but the number of people needing help required “additional resources,” the fire department said.  

The air show took place at the Colorado Springs Airport at 7330 Embraer-Heights and saw performances from the Blue Angels, and F-22 Raptor, the EA-18G Growler Airshow Team, historic planes like a B-25J Mitchell and more. Other military and civilian aircraft were on display.

The weather forecast for Saturday called for a high of 93 degrees Fahrenheit and minimal cloud coverage.

At around 1:45 p.m., the air show reminded people on social media to drink enough water amid the heat: “PLEASE remember to stay hydrated during this hot weather. There is a FREE water station at the center of the grounds near the medical station.”

The airshow is held “under the open sky,” it says on its website. “We strongly recommend bringing hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen. Please plan on being exposed to direct sunlight for the duration of the event. You may also bring a small personal umbrella; however, no large umbrellas, tents, or canopies are allowed.”

“You can pre-purchase tickets to the upgraded Canteen Experience, which is the only ticket option that comes with shade,” the website’s “frequently asked questions” section continued.

The airshow is scheduled through Sunday. 

Austen Erblat

Austen Erblat is a digital producer and assignment editor at CBS News Colorado and is Covering Colorado First. Originally from South Florida, he’s been working as a journalist in Denver since 2022.