Good morning.
The search for a submersible that went missing during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic has entered its fourth day, amid concerns the oxygen supply sustaining its five passengers is running dangerously low.
Equipment from the US, Canada, UK and France is heading to the scene of the search, about 400 miles (640km) south of St John’s, Newfoundland, joining an international coalition of rescue teams that is sweeping a vast expanse of the North Atlantic for the Titan after it went missing on Sunday, nearly two hours into its dive.
Officials still hold out hope of a rescue. A US Coast Guard captain, Jamie Frederick, said on Wednesday: “When you’re in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope.” Joyce Murray, Canada’s coastguard minister, echoed that sentiment. “We have to retain hope as part of what we are doing as a human community to find the explorers and bring them to safety,” she said.
The search is focused on an area where underwater sounds have been heard but their origin remains a mystery. “I can’t tell you what the noises are. What I can tell you is we’re searching where the noises are, and that’s all we can do at this point,” Frederick said, adding that recordings were being analysed by navy subsurface acoustics experts.
Is there still any oxygen left in the submarine? It is hard to know. The oxygen supply in the vessel depends largely on a range of factors, according to experts, such as the breathing rate of those onboard, their level of physical activity and whether they remain calm.
What is the latest on the rescue operation? Follow the news here.
Half of Americans have faced ‘extreme’ weather in the last six weeks
Half of the US population has faced an extreme weather alert since 1 May and many more are likely to face risks from wildfires, flooding, tropical storms and extreme heat as summer begins.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has been tracking the alerts sent by the National Weather Service warning about dangerous weather.
The UCS also found that more than 51 million people in the US were facing extreme weather alerts on Wednesday, with about a third of them living in areas designated as disadvantaged by the federal government.
Between May and November is a period the UCS is calling “danger season”, when increasingly intense storms, heatwaves and wildfires are expected to besiege the country. Fifty per cent “is a very troubling sort of threshold that we’ve crossed,” said Juan Declet-Barreto, a senior social scientist for climate vulnerability at UCS. “And we are one month and a half into danger season.”
How is the extreme weather linked to the climate crisis? About 10% of the extreme heat alerts this year have a clear “climate signal” linking them to the crisis, said Declet-Barreto. That figure is based on the non-profit Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index, which estimates the influence of climate change on extreme temperatures around the world. In Texas, the heat was made at least three, four and five times as likely by climate breakdown, the index indicates.
Invasion of giant African land snails prompts quarantine in south Florida
An invasion of giant African land snails has alarmed people in south Florida, where authorities have established a quarantine area to try to deal with the destructive pests.
The invasive snails have voracious appetites and consume at least 500 species of plants, according to Florida’s agriculture department, which is fearful for the state’s lucrative growing industries of citrus and other fruits and vegetables.
It has set up a “treatment area” covering several dozen blocks of the city of Miramar, south-west of Fort Lauderdale, and is warning people that the snails pose a serious health risk to humans by carrying the parasite rat lungworm, known to cause meningitis.
Under the quarantine order, the department says it is unlawful “to move a giant African land snail or a regulated article, including, but not limited to, plants, plant parts, plants in soil, soil, yard waste, debris, compost or building materials”.
Why are they such a problem? The snails are illegal to import or possess in the US without a permit, and authorities have been trying for years to eradicate them. They can damage buildings as well as destroying crops, but are considered a delicacy by some.
In other news …
Ukrainian forces have carried out a missile strike on a bridge connecting Ukraine’s Kherson region and Crimea, Russia-appointed officials in both regions have said. Vladimir Saldo, the Russia-appointed Kherson governor, said the bridge was likely to have been attacked by Storm Shadow missiles.
Campaigners in Japan have reacted angrily to a government report revealing that children as young as nine were among thousands of people who were forcibly sterilised under a eugenics law that was not repealed until the 1990s. About 16,500 people were operated on without their consent under the law.
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has performed yoga poses ranging from cobra to corpse at the UN headquarters as he began the public portion of his US visit. On the UN’s north lawn, Modi said yoga was an all-ages, portable practice accessible to all faiths and cultures.
A California man who drove a stun gun into the police officer Michael Fanone’s neck during one of the most violent clashes of the January 6 riot was sentenced yesterday to more than 12 years in prison. Daniel “DJ” Rodriguez yelled “Trump won!” as he was led out of the courtroom.
At least 31 people were killed when an explosion ripped through a restaurant in the north-western Chinese city of Yinchuan on the eve of a popular local holiday, according to state media. “A leak of liquefied petroleum gas … caused an explosion during the operation of a barbecue restaurant.”
Don’t miss this: the people turning to birth control after the fall of Roe
When the supreme court struck down the nationwide right to abortion, Jana, a 24-year-old aspiring lawyer, saw warnings across her social media feeds that period tracker apps were sharing her data, and could be used as evidence if the user was suspected of having an illegal abortion. Jana deleted the apps. A few months later, around the end of November 2022, Jana found she was pregnant. She managed to get an abortion but quickly realized she would have to go back on birth control. It was the last thing she wanted to do after facing anxiety and depression, which were exacerbated by the hormonal contraception, but she felt she had no choice. Jana is not alone in feeling backed into a corner by the supreme court’s Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Within a month of the ruling, in July 2022, a Time survey found 21% of respondents reported changing their method of birth control after Roe was overturned.
Climate check: Senate examines role of ‘dark money’ in delaying climate action
The Senate budget committee held a hearing yesterday morning to scrutinize the role of oil- and gas-linked “dark money” in delaying climate action – and tearing through local and federal budgets. The hearing was led by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has held 10 climate crisis-focused hearings since he took the helm of the budget committee this past February. It follows an inquiry launched by House Democrats in 2021, which focused on big oil’s alleged efforts to mislead the public about the climate crisis. “I am shining a light on the massive, well-documented economic risks of climate change,” said Whitehouse, who has also given nearly 300 speeches about the climate crisis on the Senate floor. “These are risks that have the potential to cascade across our entire economy and trigger widespread financial hardship and calamity.”
Last Thing: workplace sins – US restaurant used fake priest in ‘shameless’ wage theft scheme
A northern California restaurant chain will have to pay more than $140,000 in back pay after it ran a “shameless” wage theft scheme that involved a fake priest who had workers confess to any sins they committed while on the clock. The owners and operators of Taqueria Garibaldi, a Sacramento-based restaurant chain, are also accused of threatening workers and fabricating timesheets as part of an effort to obstruct an investigation into the business. In what the labor department described as “among the most shameless” efforts to intimidate workers that investigators have seen, the owners of Garibaldi also brought in a fake priest to conduct confession sessions with employees. Once employees sat with the “priest” they were peppered with work-specific questions and asked whether they had any ill feelings toward their employers or had spoken negatively about them to anyone, including investigators.
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