Rescuers in all-night race to save sub crew

BOSTON—A massive search and rescue effort for a missing submersible near the wreck of the Titanic is in a critical stage, with just hours before its oxygen supply for the five people aboard is expected to run out on Thursday.

While coast guard officials insisted they remained “hopeful,” with a surge of assets and experts joining the operation and sonar picking up unidentified underwater noises, the challenge of locating and recovering the crew alive appeared increasingly formidable.

Based on the sub’s capacity to hold up to 96 hours of emergency air, rescuers estimate that the passengers may run out of oxygen in the early hours of Thursday.

Organizers of the multinational response -- which includes US and Cana-

In Brief

Ukraine strike damages Crimea bridge—Russia

MOSCOW—A strike has damaged a bridge linking the annexed Crimean peninsula to a region of southern Ukraine partially occupied by Russia, a Russian official said on Thursday.

“During the night a strike hit the Chongar bridge. There are no victims,” Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, said on Telegram.

The bridge connects Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, to the Ukrainian region of Kherson.

The Russia-installed governor of Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said that Ukrainian strikes had hit “bridges” near Chongar, next to photos of what appeared to be gaping holes on a bridge.

The strike came as Ukraine wages a counter-offensive to recapture territory occupied by Russian forces.

Crimea has been regularly targeted by strikes, mostly using drones, over recent months.

Meanwhile, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan will attend a Ukraine-organized meeting this weekend in Denmark, alongside representatives of multiple countries, including some that have remained neutral on Russia’s invasion, a Western official told AFP on Wednesday.

The meeting in Copenhagen aims to discuss ways of achieving a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine, the source said.

The invitees include top security officials of the United States, the European Union, and other countries that have backed Ukraine since Russia invaded last year, as well as those that have not condemned the invasion, the source added, without specifying which states. AFP

Australia watchdog gives Twitter 28 days to clean up ‘toxicity’

SYDNEY—Australia’s internet safety watchdog on Thursday threatened to fine Twitter for failing to tackle online abuse, saying Elon Musk’s takeover had coincided with a spike in “toxicity and hate”.

E-safety commissioner Julie Inman Grant—a former Twitter employee—said the platform was now responsible for one-in-three complaints about online hate speech reported in Australia.

Inman Grant said Twitter had 28 days to show it was serious about tackling the problem or face fines of Aus$700,000 (US$475,000) for every day it missed the deadline.

She said Twitter must come back with a series of concrete steps showing “what it is doing to prevent online hate on its platform and enforce its own rules”.

“We need accountability from these platforms and action to protect their users,” she said.

“And you cannot have accountability without transparency, and that’s what legal notices like this one are designed to achieve.”

Since Musk bought the platform in October 2022, he has slashed more than 80 percent of the global workforce, including many of the content moderators responsible for stamping out abuse.

In November, Musk declared a broad amnesty that allowed tens of thousands of suspended or banned accounts to rejoin the platform. AFP

SETTLERS’ RAGE. A picture shows burnt cars, which were set ablaze by Israeli settlers, in the area of in al-Lubban al-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank, where four people were shot and killed on June 21, Israeli o cials said, a day after an army raid in the territory left six Palestinians dead. AFP dian military planes, coast guard ships and teleguided robots -- are focusing their efforts in the North Atlantic close to the underwater noises detected by sonar.

An additional Canadian vessel carrying medical staff and a decompression chamber was en route to the area early Thursday, with Canadian media reporting it was not expected to arrive before midday.

The sounds raised hopes that the passengers on the small tourist craft are still alive, though experts have not been able to confirm their source.

“We don’t know what they are, to be frank with you,” said US Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick.

“We have to remain optimistic and hopeful.”

The submersible, named Titan, began its descent at 8:00 am on Sunday and had been due to resurface seven hours later, according to the US Coast Guard.

The 21-foot (6.5-meter) tourist craft lost communication with its mothership less than two hours into its trip to see the Titanic, which sits more than two miles (nearly four kilometers) below the surface of the North Atlantic.

Titan was carrying British billionaire Hamish Harding and Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who also have British citizenship.

OceanGate Expeditions charges $250,000 for a seat on the sub.

‘Mr Titanic’ Also on board is the company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, and a French submarine operator Paul-Henri Nargeolet, nicknamed “Mr Titanic” for his frequent dives at the site.

Ships and planes have scoured 10,000 square miles (around 20,000 square kilometers) of surface water—roughly the size of the US state of Massachusetts— for the vessel, which attempted to dive about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

After the noises were detected by a Canadian P-3 aircraft, rescuers relocated two remotely operated vehicles (ROV) that search under the water and one surface vessel with sonar capability.

The ROV searches have not yielded results but data from the Canadian aircraft has been shared with US Navy

STILL MISSING.

A graphic on the Titan tourist submersible used to explore the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic, which went missing with ve people on board.