(AUSTIN, Texas) — A new Texas law that overrides city and county ordinances will also eliminate protections currently in place for workers, such as mandated water breaks, even in extreme heat, according to critics.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 2127 on June 13, which aims to remove “patchwork” local ordinances around the state. The law goes into effect on Sept. 1 and would put an end to safeguards such as the ordinance the City of Austin passed in 2010 that requires rest and water breaks on construction sites for at least 10 minutes every four hours. The City of Dallas passed a similar ordinance in 2015.
Cities and counties in Texas will instead be required to follow state codes. Supporters of the bill, including state Sen. Brandon Creighton and Rep. Dustin Burrows, both Republicans, claimed that local regulations led to inconsistency and stifled business dealings across the state.
“For too long, progressive municipal officials and agencies have made Texas small businesses jump through contradictory and confusing hoops when it comes to the current hodgepodge of onerous and burdensome regulations,” Burrows said in a statement in February when introducing the bill.
The new law comes as the South, including much of Texas, is experiencing heat waves with temperatures in the triple digits much earlier in the season than normal. On Tuesday, parts of Texas experienced their highest temperatures on record, with San Angelo at 114 degrees, Del Rio at 113 degrees, San Antonio at 105 degrees and McAllen at 106 degrees. Temperatures in Rio Grande Village, located on the northern banks of the Rio Grande river, climbed to 118 degrees on Tuesday — the highest recorded temperature in the country that day.
Earlier this year, some state representatives attempted, and failed, to establish statewide regulations intended to reduce heat-induced illness for workers.
Democratic state Rep. Thresa Meza introduced House Bill 495 in February and sought to make the ordinance that Austin passed in 2010 — mandatory 10-minute breaks every four hours for contractors working for a government entity — a statewide law.
In March, state Rep. Maria Luisa Flores, also a Democrat, filed House Bill 4673, which aimed to create a statewide advisory board that would be responsible for establishing guidelines for preventing “heat illness,” defined in the bill as “a serious medical condition resulting from the body’s inability to cope with a particular heat load and includes heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat syncope, and heat stroke.” The bill also proposed penalties for employers who do not comply.
Measures like these have been blocked in the last several state legislative sessions, according to Texas-based labor advocacy group Workers Defense Project.
At least 53 Texas workers have died since 2010 from heat-related illness, the number-one weather-related killer in the world, an analysis by NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations found. Most of heat-related deaths in the U.S. happen on days hotter than 90 degrees, according to the report.
House Bill 2127 declares that the state historically has been the “exclusive regulator of many aspects of commerce and trade” in Texas and accused local jurisdictions in recent years of establishing their own regulations that are different from the state’s.
“The purpose of this Act is to provide regulatory consistency across this state and return the historic exclusive regulatory powers to the state where those powers belong,” the bill says.
Economic sectors noted in the law include agriculture, business and commerce, finance, insurance, labor, natural resources, occupations and property.
There are currently no federal heat illness protections for outdoor workers. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is responsible for protecting workers from hazards, relies on states to make those regulations. In February, the attorneys general of New York, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania wrote to Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Douglas Parker, requesting an emergency temporary standard for occupational heat exposure for workers.
A temporary standard has not been issued, but the Biden administration in 2021 ordered OSHA to issue rules to protect workers from extreme heat. It takes an average of seven years for OSHA to write and issue new safety standards, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Last year, Workers Defense Project also appealed publicly to OHSA, requesting a federal heat illness standard and accusing Texas state officials of being “anti-worker.”
The group says it hopes to “build power” among immigrant and low-wage workers, who are less likely to have health insurance and access to sick days through their employer. Immigrants may also face retaliation from employers when they speak up about workplace hazards or attempt to enforce their labor rights, the Workers Defense Project appeal states.
Workers of color have borne the brunt of heat-related deaths, according to the NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations analysis. Since 2010, Hispanic workers have accounted for a third of all heat fatalities, despite representing just 17% of the U.S. workforce, the investigation found.
League of United Latin American Citizens National President Domingo Garcia said Texas lawmakers who supported the just-signed bill “will go down in modern history as the heartless politicians who turned Texas into a plantation/patron 1900s system once again.”
“While they govern from cooled air-conditioned offices, the ‘help’ those who build their houses, tend to the crops, and ensure they are comfortable, are at risk of collapsing from heat exposure and exhaustion,” Garcia said in a statement.
“LULAC strongly denounces this barbaric and deliberate act of playing politics with lives, denying even the simplest measure of compassion to another living soul,” the statement added.
(NEW YORK) — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member accused of leaking classified documents online, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.
The 21-year-old Massachusetts native was indicted by a grand jury earlier this month.
Teixeira’s family said in a statement Wednesday, “We remain as committed as ever and our entire family continues to share complete and unwavering support of Jack.”
“Jack will now have his day in court. And as we move through this process, we are hopeful that Jack will be getting the fair and just treatment he deserves,” the family said. “We realize there is a long road ahead, and we ask for your continued respect for our privacy during this difficult ordeal.”
Teixeira is accused of abusing his security clearance and posting classified documents on social media sites, according to the Department of Justice. Teixeira allegedly revealed the kinds of military equipment the United States was prepared to give to Ukraine, “how the equipment would be transferred, and how the equipment would be used upon receipt,” according to the indictment.
Teixeira has been in custody since his April arrest. Magistrate Judge David Hennessy on Wednesday denied a defense request to revisit pretrial detention.
Teixeira enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019, according to his service record, and had top secret security clearance since 2021, according to the Department of Justice.
He allegedly began posting classified documents online in January 2022, according to the Justice Department.
Teixeira’s next court date is set for Aug. 9 via telephone.
He could face 10 years in prison for each charge if convicted.
ABC News’ Chris Donato contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Wednesday for allegedly using deceitful tactics in a years-long effort to trick millions of customers into enrolling in its Prime subscription service, the agency said.
The company also made it more complicated for customers to cancel their subscription membership in an effort to enhance sales, according to the FTC complaint.
The suit, filed in the Western District of Washington, alleged that certain Amazon executives took part in making it harder for consumers to opt out of renewing or signing up for their Prime subscriptions “because those changes would also negatively affect Amazon’s bottom line.”
“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement on Wednesday.
The heavily redacted complaint alleges that Amazon violated several laws, including deploying marketing tactics known as “dark patterns,” which manipulate consumers into unknowingly making purchases or sharing user data, the FTC alleged.
In a statement provided to ABC News, Amazon called the FTC’s claims “false on the facts and the law. The truth is that customers love Prime, and by design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership. As with all our products and services, we continually listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience, and we look forward to the facts becoming clear as this case plays out.”
Amazon’s response also said the FTC “announced this lawsuit without notice to us, in the midst of our discussions with FTC staff members to ensure they understand the facts, context, and legal issues, and before we were able to have a dialog with the Commissioners themselves before they filed a lawsuit.”
“While the absence of that normal course engagement is extremely disappointing, we look forward to proving our case in court,” Amazon’s statement concluded.
Prime Membership, according to the FTC, amounts to $25 billion of Amazon’s annual revenue. Company leadership “slowed, avoided, and even undid” changes to the membership interface that it knew would negatively affect sales, the complaint said.
In recent months, however, the company changed its subscription cancellation process in response to “substantial pressure” from the FTC, the legal complaint said.
The FTC released a report in September sounding an alarm about a rise in the use of dark patterns by companies across the digital economy.
In 2021, the agency released a warning that it would ramp up enforcement of violations tied to the use of dark patterns in response to a “rising number of complaints.”
The lawsuit on Wednesday marks the third action taken by the FTC against Amazon this year. Last month, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million to settle FTC allegations that the company’s Alexa smart home device illegally collected data on children.
The FTC lawsuit adds to a series of recent setbacks for Amazon, including a wave of layoffs that slashed 18,000 jobs, as well as the delayed opening of a second headquarters in Virginia, known as “HQ2.”
Sales at top tech firms have retreated from the blistering pace attained during the pandemic, when billions across the world were forced into isolation and came to rely more on services like e-commerce delivery.
Still, shares of Amazon have surged nearly 50% this year, owing in part to a tech sector rally amid enthusiasm about artificial intelligence.
Amazon’s stock value fell roughly half a percentage point in early trading on Wednesday.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday issued a public rebuttal to a new report detailing a luxury vacation he took with a wealthy hedge fund manager who later had business before the Supreme Court.
According to ProPublica, Alito accompanied billionaire Paul Singer on a fishing trip in 2008. Alito was flown there on a private jet provided by Singer, which the investigative outlet said would have cost more than $100,000 one-way.
The trip went undisclosed on his financial disclosures for 2008, the report said, and Singer’s business later went before the court at least 10 times, including a 2014 case in which Alito sided with the majority in Singer’s favor — raising ethical concerns, ProPublica said.
Justice Alito declined to answer questions posed by ProPublica, the outlet said, and instead tried to rebut the report in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal before it was published. The title of the opinion column reads, “Justice Samuel Alito: ProPublica Misleads Its Readers.”
“ProPublica has leveled two charges against me: first, that I should have recused in matters in which an entity connected with Paul Singer was a party and, second, that I was obligated to list certain items as gifts on my 2008 Financial Disclose Report,” Alito wrote in the editorial. “Neither charge is valid.”
Alito asserted he was not aware of Singer’s connection in the cases that went before the court, and that his conversations with Singer were limited and didn’t include his business or that of the court.
On the issue of not disclosing the trip and travel on his annual form, Alito argued the justices “commonly interpreted” rules regarding hospitality “to mean that accommodations and transportation for social events were not reportable gifts.”
When it came to the private jet travel, Alito said he accepted the offer because a seat would have otherwise gone vacant and had he taken a commercial flight it “would have imposed a substantial cost and inconvenience on the deputy U.S. Marshals” who would’ve been required to accompany him.
A spokesperson for Singer told ABC News in a statement that “Mr. Singer did not organize the trip in question or invite Justice Alito, nor was he aware that Justice Alito would be attending when he accepted the invitation.”
“At the time of the trip, neither Mr. Singer nor any Elliott entities had any pending matters before the Supreme Court, nor could Mr. Singer have anticipated in 2008 that a subsequent matter would arise that would merit Supreme Court review,” the statement continued. “Additionally, Mr. Singer has never discussed his business interests with Justice Alito.”
ABC News has reached out to the Supreme Court and Justice Alito for any additional comment but has not gotten a response.
ProPublica has also reported on undisclosed trips taken by Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, courtesy of wealthy Republican donor Harlan Crow. It also reported Crow paid for school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew, who the justice was raising as a son.
Thomas, too, said he was advised personal hospitality from friends didn’t have to be included on the forms.
Earlier this year, the Judicial Conference of the United States outlined stricter rules for reporting “personal hospitality” gifts, stating the exemption doesn’t apply to non-commercial transportation and gifts extended at a commercial property.
The ProPublica reports on Justice Thomas sparked debate over Supreme Court ethics, and calls for the justices to adopt an enforceable code of conduct. But Congress is at an impasse when it comes to legislative remedies, and all nine justices have pushed back on calls for new guidelines.
Supreme Court justices recently released their financial disclosures for 2022, but those of Alito and Thomas were noticeably not available to view online.
Chief Justice John Roberts defended the court’s integrity in remarks last month at the American Law Institute gala in Washington.
“I want to assure people that I am committed to making certain that we as a Court adhere to the highest standards of conduct,” Roberts said.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Doctors at Ukraine’s leading trauma hospital are working around the clock to save the most badly wounded soldiers as the country continues its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
In the last year, a team of 100 surgeons has performed 2,000 trauma operations at the hospital, the hospital’s director told ABC News’ Ian Pannell. The facility’s name and location are being withheld.
Nearly all the injuries treated there are shrapnel wounds from Russian shelling, missiles and exploded mines, the director said. Only 2% of the injuries are bullet wounds. Of the 2,000 trauma operations over the last year, around half were amputations performed on soldiers who lost limbs in battle.
The heavy toll has only increased in recent weeks, with the hospital seeing a 20% surge in patient admissions since the counteroffensive began two weeks ago, the director said.
Ukraine said Monday it had driven Russian forces from an eighth village.
“We are moving forward gradually, with small steps, but very confidently,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Tuesday, adding that Ukrainian forces are “gnawing every meter of land from the enemy.”
In some areas, Russia is advancing and Ukrainian forces are on the defensive, Maliar said. In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces fired more than 277,000 shells at Ukrainian forces in the last week, Maliar said.
As an ABC News crew visited the trauma hospital, surgeons were amputating the leg of a 30-year-old soldier who had stepped on a Russian mine. Another patient was an American veteran from Alaska who was hit by shrapnel from a tank round two days ago while volunteering to fight for Ukraine.
“It’s a lot of artillery. It’s a lot of tanks sitting at standoff distances,” the American veteran told ABC News.
After being stabilized, soldiers are taken for further medical care away from the hospital by a fleet of around 40 ambulances, with help from of a crew of international medics.
ABC News’ Darren Price contributed to this report.
Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(GLENDALE, Calif.) — Protesters clashed once again outside the Glendale Unified School District’s board meeting on Tuesday in response to the district’s recognition of Pride month.
Police said no one was arrested during the protests on Tuesday. Earlier this month, as the board met to vote on recognizing the month honoring the LGBTQ community, three people were arrested during fights between protesters and counter-protesters.
The three were arrested for unlawful use of pepper spray and willfully obstructing officers in the course of their duties, police said after the protest on June 6.
No LGBTQ issues were on the agenda for the Tuesday board meeting, but the planned protest continued, ABC Los Angeles affiliate KABC reported.
Police had urged residents not to engage in violence and officers were deployed in riot gear during the protests Tuesday.
“To the Glendale community, your police department is fully prepared and equipped to safeguard and protect our community, including against any agitators desiring to utilize this planned protest as an opportunity to cause violence and disturbances,” a statement from the department posted earlier on Tuesday read.
The board has recognized the month for several years, but renewed anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in politics has led to growing tensions against the community.
The district said in a June 5 statement that disinformation “about LGBTQIA+ curriculum, sex education, and supporting transgender and gender non-conforming youth” had been spread on social media about the district’s effort to acknowledge LGBTQ+ identities.
The Department of Homeland Security warned that threats of violence against the LGBTQ+ community are on the rise and intensifying across the country.
Ocean Gate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(BOSTON) — As crews scour the Atlantic for the missing submersible, a man who has completed four dives with the sub’s company, OceanGate, is sharing his story.
Mike Reiss told ABC News his submersible lost contact with its host ship on all four of his 10-hour dives, including his one trip to the Titanic.
“Every time they lost communication — that seems to be just something baked into the system,” he said.
With no GPS, Reiss said it took his crew three hours to find the Titanic despite landing just 500 yards from the ship.
Reiss, who served as showrunner for “The Simpsons,” said he signed “a waiver that mentions death three times on the first page.”
“It is always in the back of your head that this is dangerous, and any small problem will turn into a major catastrophe,” he said.
He said the submersible is built simply and is “just propelled by two fans on the outside.”
“Even I was able to steer and navigate the sub for a while,” he noted.
Reiss said his greatest fear was that the sub wouldn’t be able to release the weights that force it to submerge once it was time to rise to the surface.
Wednesday marks the final full day of oxygen available to the five crew members aboard the missing 21-foot sealed craft, named Titan.
The deep-sea vessel lost contact about an hour and 45 minutes after submerging on Sunday morning to head to the Titanic site.
Titan began the trip with a 96-hour oxygen supply. That oxygen is forecast to run out Thursday morning.
“We have to remain optimistic and hopeful,” Capt. Jamie Frederick, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator, said at a news conference Wednesday.
(WASHINGTON) — Vivek Ramaswamy has emerged as one of the most vocal defenders of Donald Trump — which has some other Republicans scratching their heads, because Ramaswamy and Trump are technically rivals in the 2024 primary race.
Since launching his long shot presidential campaign in February, Ramaswamy, a biotech founder, has regularly rallied to Trump’s side, including issuing a challenge last week for his fellow GOP primary candidates to vow to pardon Trump if Trump is convicted of mishandling government secrets, an allegation he denies.
When heckled earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ramaswamy said, “I love the man” — though, by way of differentiating himself from Trump, he argues that he would be more effective as president at building on Trump’s first-term policies.
That strategy has Republicans questioning the lack of a consistent contrast posed by Ramaswamy and wondering if he in fact has ambitions outside the Oval Office.
“He’s very much in the zeitgeist of some of the more esoteric cultural conversations happening in the party and in the country. But I don’t understand this strategy of running against Donald Trump while not running against Donald Trump,” said Iowa GOP strategist David Kochel. “If you think you’re gonna be a better president, then you have to make the case of why you’re going to be a better president. And if you’re not doing that, then what are you doing?”
Ramaswamy, who has written several books lamenting liberalism and what he sees as the decay of a national identity, has leaned deep into the culture wars in his campaign so far.
He has vowed to eliminate both the U.S. Department of Education and the FBI, use the military to stem illegal border crossings and ban gender-affirming care for minors. He has also supported raising the voting age to 25 — a pledge that would require amending the Constitution — with exceptions for those who serve in the military, for first responders and for those who pass the civics test used to grant citizenship.
In an interview with ABC News, Ramaswamy said he was running for the White House in part to fill a national “moral vacuum” that “the left” is seeking to fill with “a vision of identity grounded in race, sexuality, gender, climate.”
When given the opportunity to go after Trump on policy, Ramaswamy took his shots, suggesting he would go “further” in office than Trump did during his four years in the White House and that the former president has veered from his initial appeal.
“I’m taking the ‘America first’ agenda further than Donald Trump did, far further than Donald Trump, because I’m doing it based on, first, principles and moral authority, not just vengeance and grievance,” he said. “That’s the case I make to our base is, it’s not diet Donald Trump or Trump without the drama. There are others making that case. My case is bolder than that.”
“I think Trump is not the same person today that he was eight years ago,” he added. “I’m closer to Trump in 2015 than Trump today is to Trump in 2015. I’m 37. I’ve got fresh legs. I’m not yet jaded and cynical and tired and defeated. Maybe I will be, in some ways, eight years from now. Trump made his contributions.” (A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this criticism from ABC News.)
On personality, though, Ramaswamy was more equivocal. On top of vowing to pardon Trump if elected president, Ramaswamy suggested the allegations about Trump’s handling of sensitive documents were reflective of possible bad judgement but not criminal offenses.
“I’m especially skeptical here,” he said of the 37-count indictment against Trump. “If the facts described in there are true, I think this is reflective of very poor judgment on President Trump’s part. I would have made different judgments than he made. But a bad judgment is not the same thing as breaking the law.”
Prosecutors describe their case very differently. The indictment describes in detail how Trump allegedly held onto government secrets after leaving office and refused to return them, even, prosecutors claim, disclosing some of the classified information to unauthorized people.
On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy and his allies don’t see a contradiction between his jabs on Trump’s policy and defense of Trump himself.
“It’s not a matter of taking a position for President Trump, it’s taking a position on the rule of law and the fact of how this is all transpiring. So, he states his position clearly, and it’s not coddling to President Trump or coddling to the Trump’s voters. He speaks what he believes is the truth,” said New Hampshire state Rep. Fred Doucette, who is a strategist for Ramaswamy’s campaign in the state.
While early polls show Ramaswamy is not receiving anywhere near the same GOP voter support as Trump, the front-runner, or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, he is around the same level as former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of surveys.
At Pence’s campaign launch this month in Iowa, several attendees organically brought up Ramaswamy in conversations with ABC News.
What’s more, Ramaswamy claims to have already clinched a spot on the debate stages later this year by getting the necessary donors: at least 40,000 national contributors and at least 200 unique donors per state or territory in no fewer than 20 states or territories — a threshold other candidates are anticipated to struggle to meet. (Ramaswamy’s fundraising will not be publicly verified until after his campaign’s first Federal Election Commission filings are due on July 15.)
“I think it’s going great for someone who has basically zero name recognition to be polling where he is because of his voice, his positions,” Doucette said. “I think we’re in a really great spot.”
Ramaswamy’s strategy has also won fans among Trump’s supporters — even if they’re still pulling for the former president.
“I think Vivek has been the best messenger to the base of the non-Trump candidates in this race,” said one GOP operative who is supporting Trump and asked not to be quoted by name.
Still, this person conceded, “I don’t know that it actually matters in the end, because I think the race is so baked in for Trump right now.”
Other Republicans question the philosophy of flicking at differences with Trump in one sentence while supporting him in another.
“They may have a great plan that they’re not talking about, they may have thought this through, but it’s hard to be the biggest cheerleader in the race for President Trump and somehow get votes,” New Hampshire-based GOP strategist Dave Carney said. “From the non-Trump people, it’s not gonna happen, and from the Trump people, it’s not gonna happen.”
“Trump’s appeal is his personality,” Carney added. “It isn’t based on policy. You’re not going to out-Trump Trump. The inconsistencies that people point out, this isn’t The Oxford Union where you can score points.”
That view, which is shared by a half-dozen Republican strategists who spoke with ABC News for this story, has led some to think Ramaswamy’s ambitions actually lie in some future Cabinet position or media role.
One source familiar with Ramaswamy’s campaign told ABC News that “he’s a true believer in what he thinks” but scoffed at the idea that Ramaswamy would ever occupy the Oval Office.
“I think he’s running to be Tucker Carlson’s replacement,” the source said, “not Donald Trump’s replacement.”x
File image of the Titan submersible prior to commence diving. (Ocean Gate)
(NEW YORK) — A submersible carrying five people has gone missing while on a tour of the underwater wreckage of the Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The deep-sea vessel, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, lost contact about an hour and 45 minutes after submerging on Sunday morning with a 96-hour oxygen supply. The United States Coast Guard, in coordination with the Canadian Coast Guard and the Canadian Armed Forces, immediately launched a search and rescue operation for the 21-foot sealed craft, named Titan.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jun 21, 2:56 PM EDT
Head of Horizon Maritime, which owns the Polar Prince boat, holding out hope
The co-founder and Board chair of Horizon Maritime, the company that owns the Polar Prince boat that took the Titan submersible out to sea, is speaking out.
“We have been supporting the Titanic expeditions for several years,” Sean Leet said, calling the Polar Prince “an iconic former Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker that has been upgraded with advanced technology.”
“All protocols were followed” for the submersible’s mission, he said at a news conference Wednesday, calling the missing sub an “unprecedented” situation.
Equipment heading to search site can reach the depths of the submersible and potentially take it to the surface, he said.
“We wish to thank everyone involved in this rescue mission, especially the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards, the organizations that have made their marina assets available including the French government … [and] the many private companies that have dropped everything at a moment’s notice,” Leet said.
“Our thoughts and focus remain with the crew of the Titan and their families,” he said.
Leet said he is holding out hope that the five-person crew will be brought home safely.
“We’ll continue to hold out hope until the very end,” he said.
Jun 21, 1:34 PM EDT
Coast Guard searching in area where noise was detected
As crews scour the Atlantic for the missing submersible, the Coast Guard said it’s searching in the area where a noise was detected.
The unidentified noise was detected Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
The data on the noise was sent to the U.S. Navy to be examined, he said.
“We have to remain optimistic and hopeful when we’re in a search and rescue mission,” Capt. Jamie Frederick, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator, said at a news conference Wednesday.
The five crew members submerged underwater Sunday morning with about 96 hours of oxygen available to them. That oxygen is forecast to run out Thursday morning.
When asked about the search becoming a recovery mission, Frederick said Wednesday, “We’re not there yet.”
Jun 21, 1:21 PM EDT
Coast Guard searching in area where noise was detected
As crews scour the Atlantic for the missing submersible, the Coast Guard said it’s searching in the area where a noise was detected.
The unidentified noise was detected Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
“We have to remain optimistic and hopeful when we’re in a search and rescue mission,” Capt. Jamie Frederick, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator, said at a news conference Wednesday.
The five crew members submerged underwater Sunday morning with about 96 hours of oxygen available to them. That oxygen is forecast to run out Thursday morning.
When asked about the search becoming a recovery mission, Frederick said Wednesday, “We’re not there yet.”
Jun 21, 12:56 PM EDT
Canada sends ship with advanced, deep sonar
One of the ships the Canadian Coast Guard sent to the rescue effort, the John Cabot, is equipped with advanced, deep sonar, said Joyce Murray, minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard.
“We’ve sent so many assets to the search team to help,” Murray said. “Authorities still have hope in the mission.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Jun 21, 12:47 PM EDT
Former passenger says his sub lost contact with host ship on all 4 trips
Mike Reiss, who has done four, 10-hour dives with OceanGate, including one to the Titanic, told ABC News his sub lost contact with the host ship on every dive.
“Every time they lost communication — that seems to be just something baked into the system,” he said.
With no GPS, Reiss said it took his crew three hours to find the Titanic despite landing just 500 yards from the ship.
Reiss said he signed “a waiver that mentions death three times on the first page.”
“It is always in the back of your head that this is dangerous, and any small problem will turn into a major catastrophe,” he said.
He said the submersible is built simply and is “just propelled by two fans on the outside.”
“Even I was able to steer and navigate the sub for a while,” he noted.
Reiss said his greatest fear was that the sub wouldn’t be able to release the weights that force it to submerge once it was time to rise to the surface.
-ABC News’ Gio Benitez and Sam Sweeney
Jun 21, 9:00 AM EDT
Would-be crew member of missing sub speaks out
Digital marketing tycoon Chris Brown originally planned to go on Sunday’s submersible tour of the Titanic wreckage but withdrew due to safety concerns. His friend, Hamish Harding, is among those aboard the missing vessel.
Brown, who described himself as a “modern day adventurer,” admitted that he knew “very little” about the tour operator, OceanGate Expeditions, prior to signing up. But he said the deep-sea trip initially sounded “like a great idea.”
“The Titanic’s obviously an iconic wreck,” Brown told ABC News’ Michael Strahan during an interview Wednesday on Good Morning America.
“OceanGate had put forward this program to go down and do a 3D scan of the wreck,” he added. “So it’s a chance for an expedition, exploration and adding a bit of science into the situation.”
Brown said safety concerns ultimately led him to pull out of the trip, but he declined to go into detail.
“I’m not really sure that this is the time to be going into that sort of thing,” he added. “I think that the focus right now has to be on trying to rescue these people. It’s not fair on the families and friends to be making speculation about what might’ve happened or how it happened at this point.”
Brown said he feels “no” apprehension about joining similar projects in the future but noted that it’s important to “think about all the risks.”
“If you don’t have an appetite for those risks, then you might not go ahead,” he said. “You may try and mitigate those by bringing in some expertise from outside. You might have other risks or dangers that could be mitigated by changing the time of when you go out there.”
Jun 21, 7:33 AM EDT
New details emerge about how the missing sub navigated the ocean
The submersible that was reported missing while on a tour of the underwater wreckage of the Titanic is an unorthodox vessel with a relatively unproven history, according to company press materials and experts familiar with underwater vehicles.
News of the vessel’s disappearance prompted a flurry of interest in the company OceanGate Expeditions and its deep-sea submersible called the Titan.
The company’s founder and CEO, Stockton Rush, who is one of the five people aboard the missing vessel, manned the Titan’s first “validation dive” to 4,000 meters in 2018, according to the company. The company then began offering tourists the opportunity to dive to the depths of the Titanic in the following years, selling tickets for the 2023 journey for $250,000.
Jun 21, 6:57 AM EDT
‘Banging’ picked up by sonar in search area, source says
A source familiar confirmed to ABC News that there were reports of “banging” that were picked up by sonar in the search area on Tuesday morning, but nothing has yet been found.
The U.S. Coast Guard had said early Wednesday that an aircraft with sonar capability “detected underwater noises in the search area,” but remotely operated vehicles were unable to find the origin of the sound.
Jun 21, 6:34 AM EDT
Titanic mapping company ‘fully mobilized’ to help
Magellan, an international exploration company that digitally mapped the Titanic wreckage last year, said Wednesday that it is “ready to support” the search for the missing submersible and is “fully mobilized to help.”
The U.K.-based company told ABC News that it was contacted by the submersible’s operator, OceanGate Expeditions, early Monday and “immediately offered our knowledge of the specific site and also our expertise operating at depth considerably in advance of what is required for this incident.”
“We have been working full-time with U.K. and U.S. agencies to secure the necessary air support to move our specialist equipment and support crew,” Magellan said in a statement.
When asked for comment about media reports that U.S. authorities have failed to give Magellan the necessary permits to participate in the search, the company told ABC News it “does not not wish to comment on any specific media report.”
Jun 21, 12:34 AM EDT
USCG: Canadian aircraft detected ‘underwater noises’ but search ‘yielded negative results’
“Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises in the search area,” the U.S. Coast Guard tweeted early Wednesday morning. “As a result, ROV operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises. Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue.”
The data from the P-3 has been shared with U.S. Navy experts for further analysis, the Coast Guard added.
Jun 21, 12:34 AM EDT
Lawsuit alleged flaws with Titanic sub now missing
A former employee of OceanGate alleged in a 2018 counterclaim lawsuit that he was fired for raising concerns about quality control and testing of potential flaws in the same experimental submersible that went missing this week.
David Lochridge, an engineer and submarine pilot, claimed in his counterclaim against OceanGate that he was hired in 2015 by the Everett, Washington, company to ensure the safety of all crew and clients during the submersible and surface operations of the vessel called Titan. But when he expressed concerns about the design and testing of the minisub’s hull, he said he was terminated by the company.
OceanGate had initially sued Lochridge alleging, among other things, breach of contract, fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets — all claims he denied.
In its lawsuit, OceanGate accused Lochridge of breaching his contract by discussing the company’s confidential information with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration “when he filed a false report claiming that he was discharged in retaliation for being a whistleblower.”
Jun 20, 10:15 PM EDT
Latest Coast Guard bulletin spells out timeline for missing sub search
The U.S. Coast Guard sent out its latest release Tuesday night on the search for the missing submersible at the Titanic crash site.
According to the latest release:
Sunday, June 18, 8 a.m. ET: Submersible launches, supposed to resurface at 3 p.m., but an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, it loses contact.
Sunday, June 18, 5:40 p.m. ET: Coast Guard receives report of overdue submersible.
Monday, June 19: Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and C-130 Hercules aircraft, as well as a Canadian P8 aircraft equipped with underwater sonar capability, search for the missing submersible, according to a previous release.
Tuesday, June 20, 7 a.m. ET: Bahamian research vessel Deep Energy arrives.
Tuesday, June 20, 4 p.m. ET: C-130 crew from Air National Guard 106th arrives.
Jun 20, 8:33 PM EDT
Experts expressed Titan safety concerns in 2018 letter
Members of a committee specializing in submersibles expressed “unanimous concern regarding the development” of Titan in a 2018 letter addressed to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who is one of the passengers aboard the missing vessel.
The letter was obtained by The New York Times and was later authenticated by ABC News.
The letter warned of possible “catastrophic” problems with Titan’s development that could have “serious consequences for everyone in the industry.” The letter goes on to say that OceanGate’s safety claims were “misleading to the public” and insisted Titan be reviewed by a third-party organization.
The letter, which was addressed from the Marine Technology Society, was never approved to be sent to OceanGate though was quickly leaked to its CEO, according to committee chair William Kohnen.
“The letter did represent in 2018 the consensus by many people in the industry that they were not considering following the standard safety protocols and designs that the industry uses,” Kohnen told ABC News.
Though he wishes it was not leaked at the time, nor now to The New York Times, Kohnen said he stands by the letter and its warnings.
“The company had indicated that their state of innovation was beyond, beyond what was allowable within the regulatory standards we have today and that they would proceed without certification,” Kohnen said. “That worried a number of people in the industry.”
Kohnen acknowledged that OceanGate did “heed” some of the comments made in the 2018 letter.
-ABC News’ Amanda Maile and Victor Ordoñez
Jun 20, 6:02 PM EDT
NASA weighs in on missing submersible
NASA released a statement Tuesday on the Titan, saying it remains “hopeful the crew will be found unharmed.”
“NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center had a Space Act Agreement with OceanGate, and consulted on materials and manufacturing processes for the submersible. NASA did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities,” the agency said.
-ABC News’ Gina Sunseri
Jun 20, 6:17 PM EDT
Search teams have covered 7,600 square miles
Search and rescue teams have now covered 7,600 square miles — an area bigger than the state of Connecticut — as they scour the ocean for the missing submersible, Coast Guard officials said.
A grid depicting the expanding search area is expected Tuesday night, according to a public information affairs lieutenant for the First District of the U.S. Coast Guard.
-ABC News’ Miles Cohen
Jun 20, 3:09 PM EDT
US Navy sending salvage experts, equipment to help with submersible
The U.S. Navy said it’s sending to the search site experts and equipment “designed to provide reliable deep ocean lifting capacity for the recovery of large, bulky, and heavy undersea objects.”
The equipment, which can lift up to 60,000 pounds, and the experts will arrive in Canada Tuesday night, the Navy said.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said earlier Tuesday that the Navy was”on standby” to help with the search for the missing submersible, because the Navy has “some deep-water capabilities that the Coast Guard wouldn’t necessarily have.”
President Joe Biden is “watching events closely,” Kirby said, adding that Biden and the White House offer their thoughts “to the crew onboard, as well as to the — what is no doubt — worried family members back on shore.”
Jun 20, 1:24 PM EDT
3 Air Force C-17’s transporting equipment to Newfoundland
Three U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo aircraft will be transporting commercial equipment from Buffalo, New York, to Newfoundland, Canada, to help with the search efforts, according to a U.S. official.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Jun 20, 1:16 PM EDT
Search area larger than Connecticut, about 41 hours of oxygen left
Efforts to locate the missing submersible are ongoing, and the “complex” search covers an area larger than the state of Connecticut, Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said at a news conference Tuesday.
Crews are scouring the ocean 900 miles east of Cape Cod and 400 miles south of St. John’s, Canada, he said.
The missing five-person crew on the submersible has about 41 hours of oxygen left, Frederick noted.
“We will do everything in our power to effect a rescue,” Frederick said.
“We have a group of our nation’s best experts,” he said, and once the sub is located, “those experts will be looking at what the next course of action is” to rescue the crew members.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the crew and their families and their loved ones,” Frederick added.
Jun 20, 12:58 PM EDT
Former ABC News correspondent recounts moment his sub was trapped in Titanic’s propeller
In 2000, Dr. Michael Guillen, then an ABC News correspondent, was filming from the wreck of the Titanic when his vessel became trapped in the propeller.
“When we collided with the propeller, and I started seeing those big chunks of metal raining down on us … the first reaction I had was, ‘This can’t be happening,'” he recalled to ABC News on Tuesday.
“We got caught by this underwater turn and just drove us right into the blades,” Guillen said.
“This voice came into my head and said, you know, ‘This is how it’s going to end for you,'” he recalled. “I’ll never forget those words.”
“I’m very aware of what these poor souls on board the ship the Titan are experiencing,” he said. “I am just heartbroken about it.”
Jun 20, 11:35 AM EDT
French sending assistance
At the request of French President Emmanuel Macron, a French ship named Atalante is diverting to the area of the missing submissive and should reach the area Wednesday night.
The ship has an exploration robot that can dive up to 4,000 meters, according to a spokesman for France’s Ifremer Institute.
Jun 20, 9:04 AM EDT
‘It’s a race against time’
Per Wimmer, an explorer and global financier, told ABC News he was “shocked” and “horrified” to hear of the missing submersible.
“It felt very personal. … I’ve been wanting to go down to the Titanic for more than a decade,” Wimmer said.
He estimated that there’s been between 150 and 200 missions to the Titanic.
There “are very, very few submersibles in the whole world that can go down to the depth of Titanic, which sits at 3,800 meters, or about 12,000 feet,” Wimmer said. “It’s very deep — most submersibles can go down to about 1,000 meters.”
“It’s a race against time, because there’s only 96 hours of oxygen on board. And after that, if you haven’t reached the surface, you starve of oxygen,” he said.
“Our best hope at the moment is that the safety mechanism will be activated,” he said. “It is supposed to be able to float to the surface, little by little, and then they can open the hatch and hopefully get out again. That is the only hope we have, because you do not have enough time to get another submersible that can go that deep.”
Jun 20, 8:19 AM EDT
What to know about the 5 people aboard the missing sub
Renowned explorers and a father-son duo were among the five people aboard a submersible that disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday while touring the Titanic wreckage, ABC News has learned.
ABC News has confirmed and identified four of those on aboard as Hamish Harding, a British businessman, pilot and space tourist; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French diver and Titanic expert; Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani businessman, and his son Suleman Dawood.
Jun 20, 7:48 AM EDT
US Coast Guard commander talks search for missing sub
The United States Coast Guard commander leading the search for a missing submersible off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, said Tuesday morning that crews in multiple aircraft have flown over an area of the Atlantic Ocean “roughly about the size of Connecticut” while “looking for any signs of surfacing.”
“As we continue on with the search, we’re expanding our capabilities to be able to search under the water as well,” Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District, told ABC News’ Robin Roberts during an interview on Good Morning America.
A commercial vessel with remotely operated vehicles is now on scene that will allow rescuers to search underwater, according to Mauger.
“This is a complex case,” he added. “The Coast Guard doesn’t have all the resources to be able to affect this kind of rescue, although this is an area that’s within our search zone.”
In many cases, Mauger said, the Coast Guard’s role is to coordinate all of the assets and technical expertise that can be used in a search, in addition to operating aircraft or ships when necessary.
“In this particular case, we’ve established a unified command with the United States Navy, with the Canadian Armed Forces, with the Canadian Coast Guard and with the private operator OceanGate Expeditions to make sure that we understand what’s needed and deploy all available equipment to the scene that could be used to locate this submersible, whether it’s on the surface or down beneath the surface,” he said.
Crews have been working “around the clock” to locate the deep-sea vessel since it lost contact with its operator on Sunday morning, according to Mauger.
In the last 24 hours, a Canadian aircraft has been dropping sonar buoys into the water that can pick up sound the submersible may be emitting. Vessels that have the capability to listen with their own sonar equipment are also on scene, according to Mauger.
“If they are making sound, that’s certainly one of the ways that we’re going to use to locate them,” he said.
Jun 20, 6:18 AM EDT
Missing sub is believed to be deeper than NATO rescue capability
A tourist submersible that disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday is believed to be at depths that greatly exceed the capabilities of the NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS), according to a spokesperson for the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense.
“As the host nation for NATO’s multinational submarine rescue capability, we continue to monitor the incident in the North Atlantic and will guide and assist in any response activity as appropriate,” the spokesperson told ABC News in a statement on Tuesday.
The U.K. has not been approached to offer assistance in the ongoing search for the deep-sea vessel off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, according to the spokesperson.
Initial reports indicate that the depths of water involved greatly exceed that which the NSRS team can safely operate — 610 meters for the NSRS submersible and 1,000 meters for the NSRS remotely operated vehicle, according to the spokesperson.
The NSRS is based at the home of the U.K. Royal Navy Submarine Service in HM Naval Base Clyde, the U.K. Royal Navy’s headquarters in Scotland. Introduced in 2006, the tri-national capability team can respond to a stricken submarine in rescuable water which is capable of mating with the NSRS submarine rescue vehicle, according to the spokesperson.
Jun 20, 5:03 AM EDT
Former Navy sub captain on rescue options
Rescuers racing against the clock to save the five people trapped in a tourist submersible nearly two miles deep in the Atlantic Ocean are facing major obstacles that could make saving the people onboard extremely difficult, according to a former U.S. Navy submarine commander.
Retired Capt. David Marquet told ABC News on Monday that this type of rescue operation is complicated because there aren’t nearby U.S. or Canadian underwater vessels that can go as deep as the Titanic wreckage, which sits 13,400 feet below the ocean’s surface. Also, the ocean is pitch black at that depth.
“The odds are against them,” Marquet said. “There’s a ship in Boston that has this ability to either lower cable and connect to it or have a claw. It’s still a thousand miles away.”
Even if a vessel was able to locate the submersible and lower a cable, it’s extremely difficult to safely navigate the waters and attach it, according to Marquet.
“You’ve got to get it exactly right,” he told ABC News. “It’s sort of like … getting one of those toys out of those arcade machines. In general, you miss.”
Rescuers do have one advantage, Marquet said, as weather conditions off the coast of Newfoundland are not rough and will not disturb any boat or vessel there.
Marquet added that if the five people aboard are still alive, they would be asked to sleep to conserve their oxygen.
“We would put the vast majority of the crew to sleep because that’s when you’re using the least amount of oxygen and you’re expelling the least amount of carbon dioxide,” he said.
Jun 20, 4:27 AM EDT
What to know about the missing sub
A submersible on a tour of the Titanic wreckage was reported overdue by its operator OceanGate Expeditions on Sunday, prompting the United States Coast Guard to launch a search and rescue effort for the 22-foot, 23,000-pound vessel.
Designed with life support to sustain five crew members for 96 hours, the submersible would need to be rescued in three days to save its five passengers, according to the Coast Guard.
Stockton Rush founded Washington-based OceanGate in 2009 to make deep-sea exploration more accessible to scientists and tourists. Fourteen years, more than 200 dives and three submersible designs later, the company now finds itself in a desperate search to recover the submersible carrying five people aboard that’s gone missing off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
OceanGate confirmed Monday it had lost contact with a submersible, saying in a statement: “We are exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely. Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families. We are working toward the safe return of the crewmembers.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve remains “very far” from its target inflation rate and nearly all members of its decision-making committee support at least one additional interest rate hike, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told House lawmakers on Wednesday.
Inflation has fallen significantly from a peak last summer but remains at a level double the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.
“We’re very far from our inflation target,” Powell told members of the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. “We’re very focused on getting back to 2%.”
Elevated inflation continues to threaten Americans, especially low-income people, by eating away at their household budgets, Powell said.
Price hikes hurt “people generally at the lower end of the income spectrum much harder than people at the middle or the high end because high inflation can get you in trouble right away if you’re living on a fixed income just to cover the basic necessities,” Powell said.
“It’s for the benefit of those people that we must get inflation under control,” he added.
The slowdown of price increases from the peak last summer has coincided with a sharp escalation of the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate last seen in the 1980s.
However, the Federal Reserve earlier this month paused its aggressive series of interest rate hikes, ending a string of 10 consecutive rate increases that stretches back 15 months.
Over that period, the Federal Reserve has aimed to roll back price increases by slowing down the economy and slashing consumer demand. The approach, however, risks tipping the economy into a recession.
Data released in recent months suggests that the policy approach has succeeded in slowing economic activity while averting a downturn.
U.S. gross domestic product grew by a sluggish 1.1% annualized rate over the three months ending in March, according to government data.
Consumer spending and hiring, meanwhile, have remained solid.
A jobs report earlier this month showed that the labor market grew robustly in May, adding 339,000 jobs compared to Wall Street estimates of just 195,000.
Addressing lawmakers on Wednesday, Powell defended the central bank’s decision to pause interest rates earlier this month while simultaneously acknowledging that inflation remains well above target levels and at least one additional rate hike will likely be necessary
“The two things are entirely consistent,” Powell said. “The level at which we raise rates is entirely separate from the speed at which we move.”
“We’re moderating that pace,” he added. “If you’re driving 75 miles an hour on a highway, then 50 miles an hour on a local highway, then as you get closer to your destination, as you try to find that destination, you slow down even further.”
