Happy Friday! We’re in for a weekend of rain here in Chicago, where Lollapalooza goers have taken over downtown. Let’s hope Charli XCX packed a rain poncho?

In today’s newsletter, we’ve got parasites, two kinds of robots, credit card fraud, and more. But since it’s the end of the week, I thought I’d start with a ray of optimism in this labor market that’s particularly tough for young people.

Many Gen Zers are weighing how new technology will reshape their career paths, with some pivoting to trade school . So what about a job AI can’t take (yet) that’s out on the open sea? Marketplace’s Samantha Fields visited Portland, Maine, to meet some teenagers who are training to join the lobstering industry.

— Jordan Mangi, digital producer (and lobster tattoo-haver)

Early on one of those summer days so perfect you think, “I should probably move to Maine,” out among the rocky islands of Casco Bay, just off Portland, the water is calm.

Janelle Anastacio, 18, is standing on the deck of the Sea Smoke. She’s dressed in orange waders, tall rubber boots, a blue life jacket, and thick blue gloves, holding a lobster.

She snaps a thick, green rubber band around each claw and then grabs a metal gauge to double-check that the lobster is big enough.

“So first you have to put the gauge from the eye socket to the back of the carapace body,” she said, lining it up. “Below 3 ¼ inches, not a keeper, that’s a baby.”

This one is, as she suspected, a keeper. She tosses it into a blue barrel full of seawater off to her left and grabs another lobster from the blue milk crate near her feet.

If you had told Anastacio a few years ago what she would be doing today, she would not have believed you.

“Oh, my God! Not at all, no!” she said with a laugh. “I literally did not know what lobstering was at all. Never would have expected to be here.”

Growing up in Maine, all Anastacio knew about lobster was that she loved to eat it. Now, she’s in her second summer on the Sea Smoke. Her senior year of high school, a teacher came up to her and some of her friends and asked them if they had any connections to the lobstering industry (they did not), and if they might want to learn how to lobster (they did — well, kind of).

“We sort of signed up as, like, a joke,” she said. “We were like, ‘We don’t know what this could possibly be, but why not?’ And I never expected to grow so passionate about it.”

Credit card chargebacks are on the rise — the U.S. saw an increase of about 29% over the last five years. There’s a ton of reasons why, including AI-boosted financial scams, hidden junk fees, and slippery automated subscriptions.

But Amanda Mull, a reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek, says fraud is also up. As in, more customers are lying when they dispute bank transactions. (Here’s a gift link to her reporting on these “card sharks”)

As real wages stagnate and our economic mood remains sour, are consumers really using credit card disputes to stick it to the man? Marketplace’s Reema Khrais called up Mull to find out. 

As an avid fruit and vegetable lover — and hater of turning on my oven in the summer — I am fairly spooked by the whole cyclospora situation. Like many Americans, I’ve been avoiding the supermarket produce section and restaurant leafy greens like, well, the plague.

(I have, though, given a pass to my local farmer’s market and CSA box. Chicago folks should check out LUCSA. Otherwise, might I recommend the USDA tool for finding a CSA near you?)

Greens growers are being extra-cautious. In the California region known as America’s Salad Bowl, farmers are chopping up all that romaine and plowing it back into the ground, even though there are no confirmed cases from U.S.-grown lettuce. Here’s a Wall Street Journal gift link to that story.

Grossness aside, it’s pretty amazing how much a little parasite can cause so much tumult. Chains that rely on leafy greens have reported lower same-store sales. Some have reminded customers they don’t sell iceberg lettuce, which may be the source of the outbreak. Will I ever eat a bagged salad again?

Don’t worry, when it’s all over, Taco Bell has a plan to win us back. Crunchwrap Supreme in September, anyone?