Good morning.
US and Canadian rescue teams are scrambling to search for a tourist submarine that went missing during a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck with a British billionaire and Pakistani businessman among the five people onboard.
Hamish Harding is the chair of the private plane firm Action Aviation, which said he was one of the mission specialists on the OceanGate Expeditions vessel reported overdue on Sunday evening about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland. Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood have also been named as two of the other people on the submersible.
The other two passengers are believed to be Paul Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy commander, deep diver and a submersible pilot, and Stockton Rush, the chief executive and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that organised the mission to the wreck of the Titanic.
The vessel, known as Titan, is understood to have a four-day supply of oxygen onboard, which would have started being used on Sunday morning.
What went wrong? It is too early to say what has happened but experts have offered several of the most likely scenarios, from becoming tangled in wreckage of the Titanic, to a power failure or an issue with the sub’s communications system. The wreckage of the Titanic, which lies 3,800 metres (12,500ft) down on the ocean floor is surrounded by debris from the disaster more than a century ago.
What’s the latest on the rescue mission? US and Canadian aircraft are searching the area, as well as large ships, but the hunt was “complex” because crews do not know if the vessel has surfaced, meaning they must scour both the surface and the ocean depths, said Rear Admiral John Mauger, first district commander of the US Coast Guard, overseeing the search-and-rescue operation.
Judge orders Trump lawyers not to disclose evidence in documents case
A Florida judge handed prosecutors in Donald Trump’s classified documents lawsuit a significant victory on Monday by ruling that the former president cannot publicly disclose any of the evidence against him.
Trump, who was arraigned in Miami last week on a 37-count indictment over his improper storage and handling of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort, can also only view, but not retain, any of the evidence under the direct supervision of his lawyers, the order from the magistrate judge, Bruce Reinhart, stated.
The secrecy ruling in particular will thwart Trump, who has been a vocal critic of justice department prosecutors and special counsel Jack Smith on his Truth Social website, from attempting to publicize or spin any of the evidence to his advantage as he continues to insist the case against him is a politically motivated “witch hunt”.
“Discovery materials, along with any information derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any news or social media platform, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the court,” Reinhart’s order, filed on Monday in the southern judicial district of Florida, stated.
Will he be convicted? Despite Monday’s victory, the justice department could have an uphill battle to convict Trump, who also faces a criminal fraud trial in New York for an alleged hush money payment to an adult film star, and potential legal peril in Georgia and Washington DC for attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.
Americans mark Juneteenth with celebrations, parades and reflection
Americans across the country celebrated Juneteenth, marking the relatively new national holiday on 19 June with cookouts, parades and other gatherings as they commemorated the end of slavery after the civil war.
While many have treated the long holiday weekend as a reason for a party, others urged quiet reflection on America’s often violent and oppressive treatment of its Black citizens.
And still others have remarked at the strangeness of celebrating a federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the nation while many conservative leaders are trying to stop parts of that history from being taught in public schools.
Monday’s federal holiday commemorated the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed – two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the bloody civil war.
How did the holiday start and how is it celebrated today? Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when the last enslaved people in the US learned they were free. The national reckoning over race ignited by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police helped set the stage for Juneteenth to become the first new federal holiday since 1983, when Martin Luther King Jr Day was created. Now there is a movement to use the holiday as an opportunity for activism and education, with community service projects aimed at addressing racial disparities and educational panels on topics such as healthcare inequities and the need for parks and green spaces.
In other news …
Gay rights are going backwards in the US, where “disgraceful” laws are discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, Elton John has said. The singer said he would no longer do residencies in the US, though he would consider more live shows elsewhere.
According to linguistic analysts at Florida International University’s center for the humanities in an urban environment, a new dialect has evolved blending Spanish meanings and English words into a colloquial form of language. This unique Miami dialect can be traced to Cuban influence.
Tourists will be able to stroll close to the spot where Julius Caesar met his bloody end, when Rome’s authorities open a new walkway on the ancient site on Tuesday. The ruins are all below street level and up until recently could only be viewed from behind barriers close to a busy road junction.
The $188m Apple TV+ remake of Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi classic Metropolis has been cancelled due to writers’ strike. The major project was in pre-production in Melbourne when NBCUniversal’s Universal Studio Group announced the eight-part series would not go ahead.
Stat of the day: 30-minute daytime naps may keep brain healthy as it ages, study says
Taking a short nap during the day may help to protect the brain’s health as it ages, researchers have suggested after finding that the practice appears to be associated with larger brain volume. While previous research has suggested long naps could be an early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, other work has revealed that a brief doze can improve people’s ability to learn. Now researchers say they have found evidence to suggest napping may help to protect against brain shrinkage. That is of interest, the team say, as brain shrinkage, a process that occurs with age, is accelerated in people with cognitive problems and neurodegenerative diseases, with some research suggesting this may be related to sleep problems.
Don’t miss this: ‘She doesn’t have the power’ – Central Park birdwatcher Christian Cooper on why racist ‘incident’ won’t define him
Better Living Through Birding is Christian Cooper’s first memoir. It traces his journey from his childhood as a nerdy kid from Long Island, to his time as a comic book editor, to his birding days in Central Park. While doing so it weaves the history of Black people in America – from slavery and lynchings to segregation and economic disparity – into the unfolding of his life. It also covers the moment, three years ago, when Cooper received international attention when, while birdwatching in Central Park, he asked a woman to leash her dog, in compliance with park rules, because he didn’t want it to disturb or maim any nearby birds. The woman who is white, became irate and said that she would call the cops and tell them that an African American man was threatening her life. Cooper was doing no such thing, but he did film the entire exchange.
Climate check: nature at risk of breakdown if Cop15 pledges not met, world leaders warned
Humans are exploiting nature beyond its limits, the University of Cambridge economist Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta has warned, as the UN’s environment chief calls on governments to make good on a global deal for biodiversity, six months after it was agreed. Dasgupta, the author of a landmark review into the economic importance of nature commissioned by the UK Treasury in 2021, said it was a mistake to continue basing economic policies on the postwar boom that did not account for damage to the planet, writes Patrick Greenfield. Speaking to the Guardian six months after Cop15, where countries agreed this decade’s targets to protect nature, Dasgupta cautioned that a headline goal to protect 30% of land and sea should not lead to the destruction of the remaining 70%. He reiterated a recommendation from his 2021 report that companies must disclose the parts of their supply chain that rely on nature, so governments can take action on halting biodiversity loss.
Last Thing: Does the world really need a $4,650 Indiana Jones bag?
The latest, and hopefully last, Indiana Jones film is released this month. It isn’t a spoiler to say that it probably won’t end up occupying the same cultural territory as Raiders of the Lost Ark, but then again what could? Still, it isn’t a bad film. It contains some digital de-ageing that’s almost convincing, a big twist at the end and – most importantly – Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character carries a bag around for some of the film, writes Stuart Heritage. No, really, that’s important. Why? Is it because the bag plays an important role in the film? Not really. Is it because it’s an especially memorable bag? No. I’ve seen the film and didn’t even realise that she had a bag until I went back and did a Google Image search for it. But the bag is still very important, because otherwise nobody would have bothered to make an officially licensed partial replica of it and sell it on the internet for several thousand dollars.
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