The Search for a Missing Titanic Tour Sub

The U.S. Coast Guard was racing against time today to find a deep-diving submersible with five people on board two days after it went missing in the North Atlantic.

The submersible, the Titan, had been in the area to explore the wreck of the Titanic when it lost contact on Sunday morning with a chartered research ship at the dive site. Here’s a look at the people in the craft.

The challenges facing the search effort are immense: The submersible went missing in a remote patch of ocean, where the seafloor lies more than two miles below the choppy surface. At those depths, the crushing water pressure is too much for divers and many other underwater vehicles.

“There are so many things that can go wrong,” said my colleague William Broad, who has explored the ocean in a similar submersible. “Communications can go out, as is clearly the case with the Titan submersible. The scarier, worse things are the nonelectrical, mechanical breakdowns. For instance, when the propellers that move the submersible stop working.”

The Titan is thought to be equipped with only a few days’ worth of oxygen, and, as of 1 p.m. Eastern time today, there were probably about 40 hours of breathable air left, Capt. Jamie Frederick of the U.S. Coast Guard said. The authorities said that an area “about the size of Connecticut” had been searched without any results.

The submersible is operated by OceanGate Expeditions, a company that has provided tours of the Titanic wreck since 2021 — for a price of up to $250,000 per person — as part of a booming high-risk-travel industry. Dozens of experts wrote a letter in 2018 warning OceanGate of possible “catastrophic” problems with their Titanic missions.

Hamish Harding, a British businessman and explorer aboard the Titan, said in a 2021 interview that he had taken on deep-sea missions in the past knowing that rescue would not be an option. “If something goes wrong, you are not coming back,” he said.

The politics of the case, however, are far from resolved. Republicans, including the presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, accused the Justice Department of being partisan and dismissed the deal as a slap on the wrist.

Trump documents trial is set for August

Aileen Cannon, the judge presiding over the prosecution of Donald Trump in the classified documents case, set an aggressive schedule today, ordering the trial to begin as soon as Aug. 14, far before many had expected.

Pretrial litigation is likely to delay the schedule, but the brisk pace suggests that Cannon, a Trump appointee, wants to avoid any criticism of slow-walking the proceeding.

Final Fantasy and its ‘Star Wars’ problem

The role-playing video game franchise Final Fantasy became famous in the 1990s for being among the first to use the medium to tell deep, epic stories with large, diverse casts. Decades later, it still has dedicated fans that recall with nostalgia the moments when they fell in love with the game.

The year of the long walk

Walking holidays — journeys taken on foot, crossing vast expanses of land over several days — have long been popular in Europe. But recently, the pilgrimage-style walks have gained broader global attention, inspiring a host of new treks around the world.

The real power of traveling on foot is that it encourages interaction. When you’re preparing for a walking trip, consider planning for spontaneous encounters. Pick a starting point and an end, line up a few stops and stays along the way, and let the rest follow.

Let your kids get bored

The next couple of weeks can be a stressful time for parents: Children are finishing school, and many parents feel pressure to keep them busy with camps, babysitters, travel or grandparent time.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. In fact, experts say that boredom has its virtues. In moderate doses, boredom can offer learning opportunities, inspire creativity and problem solving, and motivate children to seek out activities that feel meaningful to them.

Have an unplanned evening.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Matthew

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Correction: An item in Wednesday’s newsletter about Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, misstated where icy grains that contain phosphorus were found. They were detected in material ejected into space, not on the moon’s surface.