Secretly working multiple full-time remote jobs may sound like a nightmare — but Americans looking to make their financial dreams come true willingly hustle for it.Over the past two years, Business Insider has interviewed more than two dozen "overemployed" workers, many of whom work in tech roles. They tend to work long hours but say the extra earnings are worth it to pay off student debt, save for an early retirement, and afford expensive vacations and weight-loss drugs. Many started working multiple jobs during the pandemic, when remote job openings soared.One example is Sarah, who's on track to earn about $300,000 this year by secretly working two remote IT jobs. Over the last few years, Sarah said the extra income from job juggling has helped her save more than $100,000 in her 401(k)s, pay off $17,000 in credit card debt, and furnish her home.Sarah, who's in her 50s and lives in the Southeast, said working 12-hour days is worth it for the job security. This security came in handy when she was laid off from one of her jobs last year. She's since found a new second gig."I want to ride this out until I retire," Sarah previously told BI. Business Insider verified her identity, but she asked to use a pseudonym, citing fears of professional repercussions. BI spoke to one boss who caught an employee secretly working another job and fired him. Job juggling could breach some employment contracts and be a fireable offense.Overemployed workers like Sarah told BI how they've landed extra roles, juggled the workload, and stayed under the radar. Some said they rely on tactics like blocking off calendars, using separate devices, minimizing meetings, and sticking to flexible roles with low oversight. While job juggling could have professional repercussions or lead to burnout, and some readers have questioned the ethics of this working arrangement, many workers have told BI they don't feel guilty about their job juggling — and that the financial benefits generally outweigh the downsides and risks. In recent years, some have struggled to land new remote gigs, due in part to hiring slowdowns and return-to-office mandates. Most said they plan to continue pursuing overemployment as long as they can.Read the stories ahead to learn how some Americans have managed the workload, risks, and stress of working multiple jobs — and transformed their finances.

SirCozyCrow5 hours agoThe sound track is PEAK! I loved playing this, and my partner who normally doesn't play games like this one had a good time as well. I enjoyed the learning curve and I can't wait to play the harder difficulties.Here's a video I made, my partner jumped in for a few minutes as well.Replyso funReplyDrew.a.Chain1 day ago(+1)Very addictive!ReplyTrashpanda1191 day ago(+1)love the playstyle and the art style definitly fun to play plus the music is the cherry on topReplyAhoOppai1 day ago(+1)really fun game cant wait for the full gameReplyDin Xavier coding1 day agoI chose the laser eye. How do I turn the attack around? Can I even do that?Replyoverboy1 day agoHey, the laser eye gets a random direction at the start of each wave, it's one of the specificities of this attack ;)ReplyFort Kenmei1 day agoGameplay and Critique ;)Replyoverboy1 day ago(+1)Thanks a lot for the awesome video and the feedback! :)ReplyTLGaby2 days agoJust to know browser progress keep getting reset.Replyoverboy1 day ago (2 edits) (+1)Thanks for the report! Could it be due to some of your browser settings?Unfortunately, browser-based games can't always guarantee reliable local saves due to how browsers handle storage.To avoid this in the future, I recommend trying the downloadable version of the demo,  it provides a more stable environment for saving progress. :)Replyepic.Replyoleekconder2 days ago (1 edit) (+1)Very nice. Spent couple hours easy=) UPD: And some moreReplyMaximusR3 days agoes un juego que ya jugue en su momento cuando tenias menos cosas y ahora que esta actualizado quisiera grabarlo otra vezReplyEPIClove the spiders ♥ReplynineGardens3 days ago (1 edit) (+2)Okay so.... tried out a few things, and some Dev suggestions to report: Bigfoot is such a cool idea, and running around at that speed with like.... all THAT going on just gave me motion sickness.Summoner is hysterical fun. All hail spiders. Tomatoe's are pretty fun too.The Adept is so cool in theory, but... once you have the right build is a bit of a "standing still simulator"  Also, if you have totoms or other turrets, there's very much the question each round of "Will my circle spawn NEAR the totoms (instant win), or far from them (oh no)"   I kind of wonder if the mage circle should like... fizzle out after 20 seconds and appear somewhere else. Just... something to give a bit more dynamism, and to make the original spawn point less critical.Okay: added thoughts:Watering psycotic tomatoes feels great.Being a malevolent spider with 8 arms feels amazing. Feels very good and natural."Orbital" is one of the greatest and most fun abilities in the game.  I would take this even without the damage boost.Lots of fun, but also very silly. Good job.Replydave99993 days agowith some size you can kick the totems around to reposition them towards your circle, it benefits them too, adept can choose the wand at the start and with it you have no sustain problem anyway whatever build you want to set upReplynineGardens3 days agoOh damn- only just found out you can kick the totems!Okay, yeah in this case all is well. Or at least.... I still think a moving circle could be cool, but the fact that you can move your totems over to where the circle is makes things much better.Replyjust get enough amount+size and they hit everything, bounce is overkill ReplyLost track of time 10 hours in and still hooked. Absolutely love it! Can't wait for the full releaseReplyDriftedVoid4 days agoPretty good! ReplyIndyot4 days agoIt's a pretty addictive game, congrats! I lowkey missed a bit of satisfaction on the weapons though.ReplyCongrats on the game! I really like the weapons that you interact with which gives it a fun spin. (i.e. the spike ball)Reply1Soultaken4 days agoAnyone know good combos for the items? (I just pick randomly.)Replydave99994 days ago (1 edit) (+2)lasers plus amount+adept some arcane for basic dmg (its instable to setup and only overboy starts with one) totems +amount+ bounce+adept optional size and arcane you can stand still in the endall shovels with crit, strength their extra souls help you snowball hard and easy probably the most straightforward and stable very good build you can beat the game with nearly anything its well balanced but this one is very strong and easy (realized in the end that all size was wasted on this) soul flask, more chests are near always must pick, the high luck value ones give you better items the free reroll is a must pick, lightning dagger is somewhat unique as it  can carry you the entire early game even if you do not get enough element damage (I understand that the more gimmicky things like pets and kickables give the game versatility but to min max they are not that competative)Replydave99998 days agounderestimated totems Replylimey8 days agoi like how you made like MULTITUDES of updates on this so like as soon as i check my feed its just thisReplydave99998 days ago (1 edit) (+1)my best run so far,  there s a hidden mechanic that  makes weapons  you have more likely to drop?Replyoverboy8 days ago(+2)Lmao, awesome — looks like a really fun build to play! Yeah, Shop RNG uses a lot of hidden tricks to help you find relevant attacks, while still allowing unrelated ones to appear. That way, you can discover unique builds and experiment freely!Replyoverboy8 days ago (1 edit) Thank you so much for the incredible reception of the web demo on Itch, and to everyone who wishlisted the game! Many of the changes—along with much more to come in future updates—are directly based on your feedback here and on the game’s Discord. I’m also excited to announce that the game will release on Steam on 8 July 2025! Demo - Update 35 (06 June 2025)Singleplayer UI: Level Up Upgrade Phase and Chest Pickup Phase UI now display the items and attacks inventories (useful to check the scaling of current equipped attacks for example) Singleplayer Shop: subtle animation while selecting a Buy Button Many Balancing tweaks Balancing: nerfed Life Steal in various ways (lower values gained from items) Balancing: nerfed Knockback in various ways (lower values gained, higher item rarity, lower max applied value) Balancing: too much items enhancing HP Max were put in the Demo, this means it was easier to get a lot of HP and to survive in the Demo due to higher ratio of items providing HP Added a subtle duration during which the player can still pickup Souls even if they’re slurped by the Soul Portal Fine tuned the color of some weapons to improve the visibility Balancing: Ballista don’t double their projectiles based on amount anymore (only number of ballistas scales with amount) If Player HP is Full and HP Max > 20, the player can’t be one-shot Bugfix: in-game achievement pop up could be displayed below other UI elements while it should always be above everything else Potential Bugfix for a rare bug happening in Multiplayer shop where player2 Shop sections wasn’t displayed at allRework the save system in preparation for upcoming features ReplyxHELLO_WORLDx10 days agocontracts on the gameReplydave999910 days agoelijah_ap10 days agoLove the art style, upgrades, controls, etc. Balance might be the only thing off about this. If you were to add anything, I would want to see more variety in the stages, similar to Vampire Survivor. Otherwise- really great.ReplyThank you so much! I’ll keep working on the balance with each update, and I appreciate the suggestion on stage variety!ReplyNetsmile10 days agoTorch IV has a problem rounding numbers in the stats hover over display. Other levels of torches workReplyoverboy10 days ago (1 edit) Thanks, I'll fix this displayed rounding number issue soon!ReplySkeppartorsk10 days agoFor now I'd say it's fun, but lacking a bit in balance. I absolutely suck at brotatolikes. But find this one easy, so it's probably undertuned as far as difficulty is concerned. The power and availability of HP and regen items, makes you just literally not care if you get hit. Then the relatively strong armor on top and you're just too tanky for anything to feasibly ever kill you.Replyoverboy10 days ago (1 edit) (+1)Thanks for the feedback! Sounds like tanky builds might be a bit too forgiving right now, i'll do some balancing changesReplySkeppartorsk9 days ago (2 edits) Life steal has similar issues too. There's also the standard issue with knockback in these kinds of games. The lack of any enemy resistance/diminishing returns, means it's way too easy to get enough knockback that enemies cannot touch you anymore. Ranged attacks are too few and far between to worry about with the current levels of sustain. Meaning you can just Stand Still and Kill way too realiably. Edit: Lategame with 6x Wands I'm getting so much screen shake it's triggering simulation sickness. It was due to having Pierce + Bounce. The screen shake from my projectiles bouncing off the edge of the map.Replyoverboy8 days ago (2 edits) (+1)thanks for your feedback, it will help for the game balancing!For now I try to avoid diminishing returns by design to make sure each feature and stat is super easy to understand because I dislike when roguelike gets too opaque, I prefer that the player fully and easily undestand each of its choices, but yeah that involves a good balance to find!In future updates, Life Steal will become harder to get, Knockback will be capped at lower maximum applied values.Regarding the overall difficulty, the full version has 3 extra level of difficulties, and based on some feedbacks i have from beta testers, the balance between the 5 difficulty modes seem to be close to what i'm aiming for (minus some issues like you pointed out, and of course some balancing required on specific builds and items)There is already an option to disable screenshakes ;)Edit: Would you be interested to join the beta-test of the full game? If so please join the Discord and ping me in DM ;)ReplySkeppartorsk8 days ago (4 edits) I did notice that you could turn off screen shake entirely. But admittedly a lot of the visceral feel of the combat goes away when you fully disable the screen shake. But when you have too many Leeroy/knockback projectiles/bouncing projectiles. It just reaches the point where simulation sickness sets in. Wish there was something like an intensity setting, or a way for it to cap out at how often a screen shake can get triggered. I agree on the opaque thing. But I was more thinking something akin to how CC Diminishing Returns works in WoW. Where 1st hit = full value, 2nd hit within 10s = half value, 3rd hit = 1/4 value. Then 10s of immunity before it resets. That way you still get knockback when you pick knockback. But you can't just perma nail enemies against the wall. Edit: Also there's a wording issue (or a bug) with how multiple pentagrams work. If you have adept pentagram and the item pentagram the wording is "when you stand inside a pentagram" But the item one gives the 20% damage ONLY and the adept one gives the adept bonuses ONLY. The wording would mean that both pentagrams should give adept bonus AND 20% damage bonus.Edit2: I'd suggest reformatting Grimorius tooltip so that the -10% armor is above the "on level up"portion. The indentation difference between the +1% speed and -10% armor is small enough that I read it as losing 10% armor on every level up.Replyoverboy8 days agoThanks a lot for the interesting insights!I nerfed HP, Lifesteal and Knockback using various techniques in the last update, along with many other changes.Just tested Pentagram/Adept and it works as expected: the 2 effects stack correctly as the wording impliedI reformatted Grimorius tooltip as you suggested ;)ReplyView more in threadBad Piggy11 days agoVery cool in it's current state. I love how much it really emphasises movement like how some active abilities need to be grabbed from around the arena to do themThat said, I think enemy projectiles could honestly stand out more. I could hardly see them at times in all the chaos.Still, I think this is a pretty solid base right now, and as always, you have a beautiful visual style, though I feel like the game suffers a little from how busy it can get. Great stuff so far thoughReplyThanks Bad Piggy! Really glad you’re enjoying the mechanics. I appreciate the feedback on projectile visibility and how busy things can get. I’ll definitely look into ways to improve those aspects. Really grateful for the kind words and thoughtful feedback!ReplyLeoLohandro11 days agoA copy of the brotato), but still fun.Replyoverboy11 days ago (2 edits) (+1)Hey thanks a lot! Yes this game is a Brotato-like with many twists and new innovative mechanics, such as:- Equippable Boss Patterns (active skills you can trigger by picking orbs on the map)- Minion Summoning- Growing Plant Minions with a watercan- Amount and Size stats - Physics-Based Weapons – like chained spikeballs- Kickable stuff (you can even play soccer with your minions or other co-op players)- Playable character merge feature (get the effect of 2 different characters or more at the same time)- Dozens and dozens of unique effects (turning enemies into Sheep, or Golden Statues, or both?)I'm aiming for something like The Binding of Isaac meets Brotato — a deep, replayable experience full of chaotic synergies and wild builds that feel totally unique each run, with all the "being a boss fantasy and humor" deeply included in the mechanics and content :)Reply

A dangerous strain of bird flu is spreading in US livestockMediaMedium/Alamy Since Donald Trump assumed office in January, the leading US public health agency has pulled back preparations for a potential bird flu pandemic. But as it steps back, another government agency is stepping up. While the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) previously held regular briefings on its efforts to prevent a wider outbreak of a deadly bird flu virus called H5N1 in people, it largely stopped once Trump took office. It has also cancelled funding for a vaccine that would have targeted the virus. In contrast, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has escalated its fight against H5N1’s spread in poultry flocks and dairy herds, including by funding the development of livestock vaccines. This particular virus – a strain of avian influenza called H5N1 – poses a significant threat to humans, having killed about half of the roughly 1000 people worldwide who tested positive for it since 2003. While the pathogen spreads rapidly in birds, it is poorly adapted to infecting humans and isn’t known to transmit between people. But that could change if it acquires mutations that allow it to spread more easily among mammals – a risk that increases with each mammalian infection. The possibility of H5N1 evolving to become more dangerous to people has grown significantly since March 2024, when the virus jumped from migratory birds to dairy cows in Texas. More than 1,070 herds across 17 states have been affected since then. H5N1 also infects poultry, placing the virus in closer proximity to people. Since 2022, nearly 175 million domestic birds have been culled in the US due to H5N1, and almost all of the 71 people who have tested positive for it had direct contact with livestock. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday. Sign up to newsletter “We need to take this seriously because when [H5N1] constantly is spreading, it’s constantly spilling over into humans,” says Seema Lakdawala at Emory University in Georgia. The virus has already killed a person in the US and a child in Mexico this year. Still, cases have declined under Trump. The last recorded human case was in February, and the number of affected poultry flocks fell 95 per cent between then and June. Outbreaks in dairy herds have also stabilised. It isn’t clear what is behind the decline. Lakdawala believes it is partly due to a lull in bird migration, which reduces opportunities for the virus to spread from wild birds to livestock. It may also reflect efforts by the USDA to contain outbreaks on farms. In February, the USDA unveiled a $1 billion plan for tackling H5N1, including strengthening farmers’ defences against the virus, such as through free biosecurity assessments. Of the 150 facilities that have undergone assessment, only one has experienced an H5N1 outbreak. Under Trump, the USDA also continued its National Milk Testing Strategy, which mandates farms provide raw milk samples for influenza testing. If a farm is positive for H5N1, it must allow the USDA to monitor livestock and implement measures to contain the virus. The USDA launched the programme in December and has since ramped up participation to 45 states. “The National Milk Testing Strategy is a fantastic system,” says Erin Sorrell at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Along with the USDA’s efforts to improve biosecurity measures on farms, milk testing is crucial for containing the outbreak, says Sorrell. But while the USDA has bolstered its efforts against H5N1, the HHS doesn’t appear to have followed suit. In fact, the recent drop in human cases may reflect decreased surveillance due to workforce cuts, says Sorrell. In April, the HHS laid off about 10,000 employees, including 90 per cent of staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an office that helps investigate H5N1 outbreaks in farm workers. “There is an old saying that if you don’t test for something, you can’t find it,” says Sorrell. Yet a spokesperson for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says its guidance and surveillance efforts have not changed. “State and local health departments continue to monitor for illness in persons exposed to sick animals,” they told New Scientist. “CDC remains committed to rapidly communicating information as needed about H5N1.” The USDA and HHS also diverge on vaccination. While the USDA has allocated $100 million toward developing vaccines and other solutions for preventing H5N1’s spread in livestock, the HHS cancelled $776 million in contracts for influenza vaccine development. The contracts – terminated on 28 May – were with the pharmaceutical company Moderna to develop vaccines targeting flu subtypes, including H5N1, that could cause future pandemics. The news came the same day Moderna reported nearly 98 per cent of the roughly 300 participants who received two doses of the H5 vaccine in a clinical trial had antibody levels believed to be protective against the virus. The US has about five million H5N1 vaccine doses stockpiled, but these are made using eggs and cultured cells, which take longer to produce than mRNA-based vaccines like Moderna’s. The Moderna vaccine would have modernised the stockpile and enabled the government to rapidly produce vaccines in the event of a pandemic, says Sorrell. “It seems like a very effective platform and would have positioned the US and others to be on good footing if and when we needed a vaccine for our general public,” she says. The HHS cancelled the contracts due to concerns about mRNA vaccines, which Robert F Kennedy Jr – the country’s highest-ranking public health official – has previously cast doubt on. “The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration,” said HHS communications director Andrew Nixon in a statement to New Scientist. However, mRNA technology isn’t new. It has been in development for more than half a century and numerous clinical trials have shown mRNA vaccines are safe. While they do carry the risk of side effects – the majority of which are mild – this is true of almost every medical treatment. In a press release, Moderna said it would explore alternative funding paths for the programme. “My stance is that we should not be looking to take anything off the table, and that includes any type of vaccine regimen,” says Lakdawala. “Vaccines are the most effective way to counter an infectious disease,” says Sorrell. “And so having that in your arsenal and ready to go just give you more options.” Topics:

Meta is reportedly set to invest $15 billion to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI, in a deal that would make Scale CEO Alexandr Wang head of the tech giant’s new AI unit dedicated to pursuing “superintelligence.”Scale AI, founded in 2016, is a leading data annotation firm that hires workers around the world to label or create the data that is used to train AI systems.The deal is expected to greatly enrich Wang and many of his colleagues with equity in Scale AI; Wang, already a billionaire, would see his wealth grow even further. For Meta, it would breathe new life into the company’s flagging attempts to compete at the “frontier” of AI against OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.However, Scale’s contract workers, many of whom earn just dollars per day via a subsidiary called RemoTasks, are unlikely to benefit at all from the deal, according to sociologists who study the sector. Typically data workers are not formally employed, and are instead paid for the tasks they complete. Those tasks can include labeling the contents of images, answering questions, or rating which of two chatbots’ answers are better, in order to teach AI systems to better comply with human preferences.(TIME has a content partnership with Scale AI.)“I expect few if any Scale annotators will see any upside at all,” says Callum Cant, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex, U.K., who studies gig work platforms. “It would be very surprising to see some kind of feed-through. Most of these people don’t have a stake in ownership of the company.”Many of those workers already suffer from low pay and poor working conditions. In a recent report by Oxford University’s Internet Institute, the Scale subsidiary RemoTasks failed to meet basic standards for fair pay, fair contracts, fair management, and fair worker representation.Advertisement“A key part of Scale’s value lies in its data work services performed by hundreds of thousands of underpaid and poorly protected workers,” says Jonas Valente, an Oxford researcher who worked on the report. “The company remains far from safeguarding basic standards of fair work, despite limited efforts to improve its practices.”The Meta deal is unlikely to change that. “Unfortunately, the increasing profits of many digital labor platforms and their primary companies, such as the case of Scale, do not translate into better conditions for [workers],” Valente says.A Scale AI spokesperson declined to comment for this story. “We're proud of the flexible earning opportunities offered through our platforms,” the company said in a statement to TechCrunch in May. Meta’s investment also calls into question whether Scale AI will continue supplying data to OpenAI and Google, two of its major clients. In the increasingly competitive AI landscape, observers say Meta may see value in cutting off its rivals from annotated data — an essential means of making AI systems smarter. Advertisement“By buying up access to Scale AI, could Meta deny access to that platform and that avenue for data annotation by other competitors?” says Cant. “It depends entirely on Meta’s strategy.”If that were to happen, Cant says, it could put downward pressure on the wages and tasks available to workers, many of whom already struggle to make ends meet with data work.A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on this story.