Now that all the drama about the debt ceiling has died down, AURN’s White House Correspondent, Ebony McMorris, explains what the new package means to our community. #EbonyMcMorris #CafeMochaRadio
Sabres cashed in big last night with the 13th pick drafting forward Zach Benson. The pick comes as a surprising steal to many as he was projected to be drafted in the top 10.
This pick doubles down on the fast, and offensive style of hockey they have been known for playing. Accounting for 98 points in 60 games for Winnipeg last season in the Western Hockey League he has made a name for himself as a smart, crafty scorer especially for his undersized frame standing at only 5’10. Despite his offensive prowess General Manager Kevyn Adams also described him as “responsible defensively” With his only “glaring” weakness being his skating the upside on Benson is sky high.
As the Sabres go into rounds 2-7 today they will need to look for a solid defensive man as stopping the other team from scoring was an Achilles heel for the team all last season.
Originally Published: 29 JUN 23 07:49 ET
Updated: 29 JUN 23 09:01 ET
By Chris Isidore, CNN
New York (CNN) — The problems with flight delays and cancellations that have plagued US travelers this week are mostly over — except at struggling United Airlines.
Tracking service FlightAware shows that there are 383 flights to, from or within the United States that have been canceled as of 9 am ET Thursday and another 963 delayed. For canceled flights, the problem is clearly focused on United, with 318 of those cancellations. That means 11% of United flights scheduled for Thursday were already canceled.
The next greatest number of canceled flights for a US airline is only 15 for JetBlue. That’s only 1% of its flights.
Even the problems at United early Thursday would mark an improvement from Tuesday and Wednesday, when the airline had to cancel more than 700 flights each day, or more than a quarter of its schedule. But United could see additional delays and cancellations as Thursday progresses. The FAA warned that a ground stop was likely Thursday afternoon at the two Chicago airports due to severe thunderstorms expected into the area. That would mean that not only are planes on the ground there prevented from taking off, but flights due to land in Chicago would have to delay departures at their origin airport.
Chicago is United’s home base, with one of its largest hubs at O’Hare Airport. Groundstops are also possible for Denver and San Francisco and parts of Texas, also locations of United hubs.
But beyond the bad weather there are signs that the problems at United are greatly human made.
Earlier this week United CEO Scott Kirby blamed much of the problems with the airline’s service meltdown this week on the Federal Aviation Administration and a lack of adequate staffing at air traffic control centers, particularly in the New York area, where United operates a major hub at Newark airport.
“The FAA frankly failed us this weekend,” said Kirby in an internal company memo to United staff shared with CNN.
He said the FAA reduced arrival rates at Newark by 40% and departure rates by 75% was “almost certainly a reflection of understaffing/lower experience at the FAA.”
“It led to massive delays, cancellations, diversions, as well as crews and aircraft out of position,” he said.
But Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who oversees the FAA, pushed back on that criticism of his agency Wednesday evening when appearing on CNN Primetime.
“Look, United Airlines has some internal issues they need to work through. They’ve really been struggling this week, even relative to other US airlines,” he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. While he agreed there needs to be more air traffic controllers, he said “I want to be very clear, air traffic control issues are not the number one issue causing cancellations and delays. They’re not even the number two issue. All the data, including industry’s own data is very clear on that.”
And United management’s handling of the service meltdown was also attacked by the two major unions representing its pilots and flight attendants.
“United’s travel disruptions this week stem from one source; company senior management’s inadequate planning an insufficient investment in the airline infrastructure,” said Captain Garth Thompson, head of the Air Line Pilots Association unit at United. “Our pilots agree with our passengers that this lack of foresight and disregard of warning signs is unacceptable. It’s time for United leadership to change their thinking and invest in its labor, staff support, and facilities with updated contracts instead of ensuring our CEO has the highest salary.”
United did not have an immediate response to the comments from Buttigieg and the pilots union.
Earlier in the week the Association of Flight Attendants also said that the problems were not just caused by weather or inadequate air traffic control staffing.
“The levels of frustration are high and it feels as if there is no solution in sight – especially for those who have been on duty for extended periods of time,” the Association of Flight Attendants said in a memo shared with CNN Tuesday.
The union message sent Monday to members cites hours-long hold times with company crew schedulers, hinting at problems beyond air traffic control staffing.
“Because hold times are currently in excess of 3 hours as crew scheduling works to update crews in chronological order, we are working to find solutions to relieve some of the backlog,” the memo said.
Asked about the flight attendants’ complaints, United responded by sating that “making sure our flight attendants can reach us quickly is a top priority. We have deployed all available resources to catch up on call volume, including increasing staffing in crew scheduling and mandatory overtime on the scheduling team. We also have ways flight attendants can check in electronically for trips and schedule changes.”
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Yesterday was primary night in New York State and the local results are in.
Masten District
Zeneta Everhart- 1,525 votes 67%
India Walton- 741 votes 33%
Highlighting the Buffalo races was the Masten district council member seat. Former mayoral democratic nominee India Walton ran against aide to state senator Tim Kennedy Zeneta Everhart. Everhart won in a landslide wining just over 1500 votes good enough for 67% of the vote share while Walton brought in 741 votes good enough for just 33%. This was a district India won barely last year carrying 51% of the votes in the district. Ms. Everhart will now advance to the general election in November as the democratic nominee, it is unclear as of now if she will face an opponent. As far as for Ms. Walton this is her second political defeat in less than 2 years, it’s now back to the drawing board.
Ellicott District
Leah Halton Pope- 950 votes 50 %
Cedric Holloway- 505 votes 26%
Matt Dearing- 294 votes 15%
Emin Egriu- 162 votes 8%
In late January the current Ellicott city councilman and Buffalo common council President Darius Pridgen announced he will not be seeking re-election. With endorsements from Council President Darius Pridgen and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, Ms. Halton Pope was the clear frontrunner and benefitted from a fractured field, only winning 50% and winning in a landslide. Ms. Halton-Pope, who has worked as a senior policy advisor to State Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples Stokes ran a campaign focusing on quality neighborhood schools, healthcare and promoting home ownership. It remains unclear whether she will face a challenger in the general election in November.
North District
Joseph Golombek Jr (I)- 1,069 votes 71%
Eve Shippens – 445 votes 29%
Mr. Golombek Jr. faced his first primary challenger since 2011. His challenger was long time Buffalo school teacher Eve Shippens who was backed by the Working families party. Mr. Golombek won in a landslide and will face Ms. Shippens again in the general election who will be on the ballot as a working families candidate.
University District
Rasheed Wyatt (I)- 1,193 votes 66%
Kathryn Franco- 625 votes 34%
With Wyatt winning re-election he will more than likely go on to win a 3rd terms in the general election in November.
Lovejoy District
Bryan Bollman (I)- 1,006 votes 70%
Mohammed Uddin- 440 votes 30%
With this primary win Bollman is likely to win his 4th term in the general election in November.
The Buffalo Sabres are gearing up for an exciting new chapter as they prepare for the 2023 NHL Draft Wednesday, June 28th through Thursday, June 29th, aiming to secure top-tier prospects who will help transform their team. The Sabres front staff is meticulously analyzing potential candidates to significantly impact their team, with a fresh perspective and a renewed sense of purpose.
After a challenging season in which they finished toward the bottom of the standings and failed to make the playoffs yet again, the Sabres are in an excellent position to make a significant jump forward. With the 13th overall pick in round one, Buffalo has a good opportunity to select a game-changer who will immediately boost their roster.
Kevyn Adams and the Sabres coaching staff are focusing on improving their offensive firepower with the 13th pick in the 2023 NHL Draft. The team ranked near the bottom of the league in goals scored last season, struggling to generate consistent scoring chances. Adding a dynamic forward with a nose for the net will greatly benefit the Buffalo Sabres.
On the other hand, the Buffalo Sabres also struggled defensively throughout the season, due mostly to injuries and the inexperience of its defence core. With players such as Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power making significant defensive plays while still contributing offensively, and Mattias Samuelsson, a defensive anchor, there is a reasonable chance the Sabres will use one of their picks in this year’s draft on a defender to balance out the grouping.
In addition to their first-round pick, the Sabres also hold several later-round selections. This provides them with an opportunity to add depth and address other areas of concern. Building a solid prospect pool will be crucial for long-term success, and the draft presents an ideal platform to accomplish that goal. Here’s a look at all of the Sabres picks in the 2023 NHL Draft.
| Round | Overall Pick |
| 1 | 13 |
| 2 | 39 |
| 2 | 45 |
| 3 | 86 |
| 4 | 109 |
| 5 | 141 |
| 6 | 173 |
| 7 | 205 |
As the draft approaches, the Sabres have an opportunity to infuse new talent, skill, and enthusiasm onto their roster. With careful planning, smart decision-making, and a touch of luck, the Buffalo Sabres can embark on a path towards redemption in the upcoming season.
Originally Published: 28 JUN 23 07:59 ET
Analysis by Nicole Goodkind, CNN
Editor’s note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.
New York (CNN) — Companies are sitting on a lot less cash than they were last year, largely because they’re spending it on share buybacks and corporate dividends.
While shareholders may be chuffed by that news, the slumping economy, surging interest rates and a credit crunch may mean US firms come to regret reducing their cash buffers.
The largest companies in the S&P 500 still have a decent stockpile of currency, but the decision to reward investors instead of paying down debt could mean corporations are overly focused on short-term stock gains.
What’s happening: A new report from Moody’s Investors Service finds that nonfinancial companies’ corporate cash declined 12% last year to $2 trillion.
The cash went toward rewarding investors: Share buybacks rose 31% and dividend payments were up 10% last year, found Emile El Nems, vice president for Moody’s Investors Service.
There was also a noteworthy 18% increase in capital expenditures — long-term investment in business growth.
But debt was flat year over year, meaning that companies didn’t use much of their cash reserves to pay down outstanding loans. In fact, the tech sector accounted for the highest amount of cash held with 34% last year, but also the highest percentage of debt outstanding, with 12%, according to Moody’s.
Profit pressures on corporate borrowers are intensifying at a rapid pace as business costs remain elevated while consumer demand wanes amid the prospects of an economic downturn.
High borrowing costs because of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and an uncertain economic outlook mean that credit is getting more expensive and harder to find. Recent turmoil in the mid-sized banking sector only exacerbated those problems.
“The global cost of capital is now significantly higher than in the last few years,” said Ben Lofthouse, head of global equity income at Janus Henderson. “When companies could essentially access finance at almost zero cost, there was a huge incentive to issue debt and buy back shares as this added immense value,” he said.
Now that it’s more expensive to borrow, companies in the US should reconsider the amount of money they’re spending on buybacks, he added.
“One would argue that in a higher rate environment, it’s more beneficial to keep cash on the balance sheet … because you can generate a decent return on your cash rather than burning a hole that will require you to go out and borrow money at higher rates,” El Nems told Before the Bell.
Last year was a remarkably bad year for markets, with the S&P 500 dropping nearly 20%. If companies believed that there was a price mismatch in their stock value and their actual value, they would prioritize buying back shares of their own stock at a discount, he said.
Buyback announcements reached a new record of $1.22 trillion last year, and they’re on track to beat that high in 2023, according to Bank of America analysts. The S&P 500 is up more than 14% so far this year.
The rapid growth in buybacks is not a one-year phenomenon, either. Buybacks have almost tripled in value since 2012 (+182%), according to recent data from Janus Henderson.
Why it matters: Buybacks, say critics, are a tool that allow ultra-wealthy executives to manipulate markets while funneling corporate profits into their own pockets instead of the economy. Preventing companies from repurchasing their own shares, they argue, would free corporate cash to invest in growth and raise wages instead.
US President Joe Biden has called for a quadrupling of the tax on buybacks.
Corporations counter that they use repurchases as a way to efficiently distribute excess capital. Limiting buybacks, say supporters, could reduce the liquidity in stock markets and hurt share prices. Executives typically use buybacks to reduce the number of shares available for purchase, thus increasing demand for their stock and earnings per share.
Still, “buybacks cannot always be relied on to enhance shareholder returns,” said Lofthouse. “Their discretionary nature makes them more volatile — as evidenced in 2020’s Covid disruption when they fell dramatically.”
Consumers all the way down
Ancient Greeks believed that Atlas held the world on his shoulders and Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan believes that consumers hold the economy on theirs.
Moynihan has told CNN on multiple occasions over the last year that the continued strength of the US consumer is nearly single-handedly staving off recession in the US. Americans are still employed, they still have money in their bank accounts and they’re still spending that money, he has said.
But on Tuesday, the banking boss told CNN’s Poppy Harlow that he’s beginning to see some weakness there. Already, consumers are cutting back on spending to a level that is consistent with 2% inflation, Moynihan said, citing Bank of America customer data.
That’s both “good and bad,” he added. “Good [because] that’s what the Fed needs to see inflation under control. Not so good because it does mean we have a higher probability of a mild recession coming true,” he said.
He also said he believes the unemployment rate likely won’t exceed 5% during a recession.
However, Moynihan said that even consumers who keep their jobs will be impacted by the downturn due to credit tightening. Borrowers deemed riskier could be denied a loan or charged a much higher interest rate compared to when the economy is in an expansion period.
Still, there may be some strength left: Spending at US retailers rose last month, in a sign that consumers are still fueling the economy.
Retail sales at stores, online and in restaurants grew 0.3% in May from April, the Commerce Department reported on Thursday. That’s above economists’ expectations of a 0.1% decline, according to Refinitiv.
Pickleball goes sour
Pickleball, America’s fastest-growing sport, is taking a toll on players’ wrists, legs and shoulders. And it’s especially popular with injury-prone seniors, which is driving up the cost burden, reports my colleague Nathaniel Meyersohn.
Pickleball injuries may cost Americans $377 million in health care costs this year, accounting for 5% to 10% of total unexpected medical costs, UBS analysts estimated in a report Monday.
“While we generally think of exercise as positively impacting health outcomes, the ‘can-do’ attitude of today’s seniors can pose greater risk in other areas such as sports injuries, leading to a greater number of orthopedic procedures,” the analysts said.
The analysts estimated that there will be around 67,000 emergency room visits, 366,000 outpatient visits and 9,000 outpatient surgeries related to pickleball injuries this year.
That’s a pretty big dill.
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Just hours before the NBA draft the Golden State Warriors shocked the basketball world trading for the 38 year old long time rival Chris Paul in exchange for Jordan Poole and draft capital. The move comes as a shock to many due to it being such a non fit. The Warriors for so long have been a pace and space team, with their players playing fast, free, and often times random. Chris Paul especially at this stage of his career is none of that. Chris Paul is your traditional point guard who needs the ball in his hands to be effective and thrives off of pick and roll action, something the Warriors have been notorious for avoiding to do. However the idea of adding Chris Paul is not completely far fetched, this is a core that has began to show it’s age this playoffs; noticeably in the Kings series where they made a concerted effort to slow down the pace and not to get into a track meet. Chris Paul can provide that and bench stability in the non curry minutes, which was a fatal weakness of the team last year.
This leaves the question did the Warriors actually get better, and personally I can’t say so. The Warriors main problems last year stemmed from the defense in the aspects of rim protection, fouling, and point of attack defense. They were not a particularly “big” team either and struggled defending bigger players, most noticeably the Lakers series. You can bring up the point of getting rid of Jordan Poole who was turnover machine and obvious locker room distraction but your replacing him with a guy known for injury and who according to Marcus J Spears, will be in the starting lineup for the Warriors come Opening Night. Everything you thought you were getting in bench stability and low turnover numbers for your 2nd unit your no longer getting along with none of the problems from last year getting addressed.
The Warriors core of Curry, Thompson, and Green are not getting any younger and the one highlight young player we had from the championship run 2 years ago they ran out of town for reason we can speculate about another time. This move did not make the Warriors better and they arguably got worst. They need to round out the roster with size, athleticism, and defense to be in serious title contention discussions.
Originally Published: 22 JUN 23 01:54 ET
Updated: 22 JUN 23 13:09 ET
By Nouran Salahieh, Gabe Cohen and Eric Levenson, CNN
(CNN) — The US Coast Guard said Thursday a “debris field” was discovered by a remotely operated vehicle near the Titanic and within the search area for the missing submersible with five people aboard.
“Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information,” the Coast Guard said. It is unclear if this debris field is connected to the missing submersible. The Coast Guard said it plans to host a press briefing at 3 p.m. ET to “discuss findings from the Horizon Arctic’s ROV on the sea floor near the Titanic.”
A spokesperson for Pelagic Research Services confirmed to CNN their remote-operated vehicle, which was the first to conduct a search for the submersible on the sea floor, found the debris field.
The news comes as the search for the vessel, known as the Titan, has reached a “critical” stage, the co-founder of the company operating the submersible said Thursday.
Follow live Titanic submersible updates
“Today will be a critical day in this search and rescue mission, as the sub’s life support supplies are starting to run low,” Guillermo Sohnlein, the co-founder of OceanGate, the company operating the expedition, said in a statement Thursday.
Sohnlein said he is “certain” that pilot Stockton Rush and the crew “realized days ago that the best thing they can do to ensure their rescue is to extend the limits of those supplies by relaxing as much as possible. I firmly believe that the time window available for their rescue is longer than what most people think.”
The Titan began its descent Sunday to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, located about 13,000 feet below sea level in the North Atlantic Ocean, with an estimated 96 hours of life support. The cramped vessel lost contact with its mother ship about 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive, did not surface as expected and has not been heard from since.
The expedition, which cost participants $250,000, was billed as “a chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary,” an archived version of OceanGate’s website shows.
Aboard the Titan are Rush, the OceanGate CEO and founder, along with British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, according to relatives and social media posts. Officials have not publicly named those aboard.
The expedition reflects the ongoing fascination with the Titanic’s wreckage more than a century after it hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage, killing more than 1,500 people. The journey is also part of the growing business of wealthy adventure tourism, along with the space flights of Blue Origin or the rise of guided tours to Mount Everest.
The focus on the vessel has also renewed criticisms of OceanGate’s approach to safety from employees and other industry leaders.
Yet even as the Titan’s estimated oxygen levels are depleting, hope for positive news remains.
“We continue to find in particularly complex cases that peoples’ will to live really needs to be accounted for … and so we’re continuing to search and proceed with rescue efforts by bringing this new capability online this morning,” US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told NBC on Thursday.
Search and rescue operations growing
The international search and rescue efforts have kicked into high gear in the past few days.
A remotely operated vehicle was looking for the submersible on the sea floor, the US Coast Guard’s Northeast District tweeted Thursday morning. An ROV from a French vessel has also been deployed, and equipment from Magellan, the team that mapped the Titanic wreckage site last year, was headed to the site to assist.
Further, aircraft are scanning a search zone about twice the size of Connecticut and as deep as 2 1/2 miles, Capt. Jamie Frederick, the response coordinator for the First Coast Guard District, said Wednesday. Medical personnel specializing in dive medicine and a hyperbaric recompression chamber arrived on scene Thursday, according to a spokesperson for the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Banging noises detected underwater Tuesday and Wednesday in the massive search area provided hope for survivors, though their origin was not clear. The underwater sounds detected by sonar devices on Tuesday first came every 30 minutes and were heard again four hours later, according to an internal US government memo update on the search.
Naval experts were analyzing recordings of the sounds to determine their origin. “I can’t tell you what the noises are,” Frederick said.
If indeed there are survivors, the crew would have “limited rations” of food and water in the 21-foot submersible, which has rudimentary controls and no room for passengers to stretch out, officials have said.
“We need a miracle,” oceanographer and water search expert David Gallo told CNN on Wednesday. “But miracles do happen.”
The number of assets in the search operation is expected to double in the next day or two, Frederick said Wednesday. A Canadian Coast Guard boat with sonar capabilities, the John Cabot, arrived Wednesday, and the US Navy is sending a lift system that can pull heavy objects up from 20,000 feet deep to help if the submersible is found.
“The Coast Guard has done a very good job in putting the right tools with the right team in the right spot. So, the chances are as good as they can be,” Gallo, the senior adviser for strategic initiatives at RMS Titanic Inc., told CNN on Thursday morning.
“It’s tough because the oceans are pitch black, you can only use sound to image effectively, and you’ve got to be pretty much on top of the object to actually see it,” he added.
Environmental factors in the ocean are likely complicating efforts to identify the noises, said Rick Murcar, the international training director for the National Association of Cave Divers. Currents can deflect the sound so it appears it’s coming from miles away from its source, Murcar explained, likening the effort to locate the noise to trying to pinpoint a snare drum in a stadium full of cheering fans and other instruments.
If the submersible is found at depth, it would take a while to bring it to the surface, and there won’t be a way to get oxygen into it, said ocean explorer Tom Dettweiler, who was part of the expedition that discovered the Titanic wreckage in 1985.
“The thing to do would be to bring it up as quickly as possible and open the hatch and get to the people. Unfortunately, it cannot be brought up all that quickly when it is on the end of a cable and dependent on the speed of a winch to bring it up,” he told CNN. “You’re still talking about hours, potentially, to get it up.”
Harsh conditions on the submersible
As aircraft, ships, sonar buoys and robots comb through the ocean, experts warn conditions are likely dire aboard the 23,000-pound submersible – especially if it’s still deep underwater.
Ret. Navy Capt. David Marquet, a former submarine captain, described Wednesday what he imagines the five passengers are experiencing in the Titan beyond hunger, thirst and discomfort.
“They’re freezing cold. The water entirely surrounding the ship is at freezing or slightly below. When they exhale, their breath condenses. There’s frost on the inside of the parts of the submarine,” Marquet told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “They’re all huddled together trying to conserve their body heat. They’re running low on oxygen and they’re exhaling carbon dioxide.”
The submersible has a “limited ability” to absorb the exhaled carbon dioxide, which at high levels could trigger headaches, confusion and nausea, Marquet said. “The oxygen and the carbon dioxide and the freezing are what they got to hold onto as long as possible to give the rescuers the time they need.”
Those onboard will need to conserve energy, said Joe MacInnis, a physician and renowned diver who’s made two trips to the Titanic wreck.
“Resting, breathing as little as possible, and trying to keep calm – that is the most important thing,” he told CNN early Wednesday.
Per Wimmer, an adventurer and acquaintance of Harding and Rush, said he believed they would know to conserve oxygen.
“I still have hope,” Wimmer said on “CNN This Morning.” “I remain optimistic, positive, and hoping for a miracle here, at least until it’s proven otherwise.”
The last communication between the vessel and its mother ship, the Polar Prince, came in at 11:47 a.m. Sunday. With no GPS underwater, the submersible is only guided by text messages from the surface ship.
Indeed, “issues with computer control” were among the reasons Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown” host Josh Gates and his team decided after a 2021 test dive of Titan against filming a segment on the vessel as it “became clear to us at that time that there was a lot that needed to be worked out with the sub,” he said.
“A lot of the systems worked but a lot of them really didn’t. We had issues with thrusters and issues with computer control and things like that. Ultimately, it was a challenging dive,” Gates told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday.
“We were inside Titan for two or three hours, and there were a lot of things that weren’t really ready for prime time, it seemed,” he said, adding he couldn’t get comfortable with the Titan at that time.
OceanGate declined safety review of Titan submersible, industry leader says
The disappearance of Titan and the international dash to find it have put its operator under the microscope.
At least two former OceanGate employees years ago expressed safety concerns about the vessel’s hull, including the thickness of the material used and testing procedures, CNN has learned. The 23,000-pound craft is made of highly engineered carbon fiber and titanium.
OceanGate Expeditions strayed from industry norms by declining a voluntary, rigorous safety review of the vessel, according to an industry leader. If the company had pursued a certification review “some of this may have been avoided,” Will Kohnen of the Marine Technology Society told CNN on Wednesday.
The company also faced a series of mechanical problems and inclement weather conditions that forced the cancellation or delays of trips in recent years, according to court records. The scuttled excursions led to a pair of lawsuits in which some high-paying customers sought to recoup the cost of trips they said they didn’t take. The complaints alleged that the company overstated its ability to reach the Titanic wreckage.
OceanGate did not respond to the claims in court and could not be reached for comment.
Some expeditions were delayed after OceanGate was forced to rebuild the Titan’s hull because it showed “cyclic fatigue” and wouldn’t be able to travel deep enough to reach the Titanic’s wreckage, according to a 2020 article by GeekWire, which interviewed the company’s CEO.
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Originally Published: 22 JUN 23 11:54 ET
By Brian Fung, CNN
(CNN) — TikTok has acknowledged to US lawmakers that some personal information belonging to creators on the platform may be stored in China, outside of the protections that the company applies to other types of US user data.
The disclosure was made in a June 16 document addressed to Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Sen. Richard Blumenthal and released by the senators Thursday. The senators have previously accused TikTok of misleading Congress about its handling of Americans’ personal information.
Amid mounting scrutiny in Washington in recent months on TikTok’s ties to China through its parent company, TikTok has said it is implementing a program known as Project Texas that would store data from American users on cloud servers managed by the US tech giant Oracle. TikTok CEO Shou Chew has said Project Texas also includes strict protocols that limit access to the data to US employees.
But those protections do not apply to certain financial records that TikTok holds, the company said in the document, including “signed contracts and related documents for U.S. creators who enter into a commercial relationship with TikTok.”
The exception for creator business records is one of several that TikTok has negotiated with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the company said, referring to the multi-agency US government panel that has been reviewing TikTok for several years. Other exceptions include “public data, business metrics, [and] interoperability data,” TikTok told the senators, describing how some of the data it collects is meant to assist with its legal compliance obligations.
The creator data is distinct from what TikTok refers to as “protected data” involving app-based information — including users’ behavioral data — that the US government deems more sensitive, TikTok told US lawmakers. TikTok said Chew was referring to the “protected information” when discussing Project Texas in his congressional testimony earlier this year.
In the document, TikTok does not explicitly say that creator data is stored in China. But TikTok’s disclosure drawing the distinction between protected user data and creator data comes after Blackburn and Blumenthal challenged the truthfulness of TikTok’s testimony in light of a Forbes report finding that TikTok was storing some US financial data in China.
TikTok’s responses to the senators maintain that the company was telling the truth in its testimony. “TikTok has been clear that there are certain, limited exceptions to the definition of protected data,” the company wrote.
Still, Blackburn said Thursday that the document shows that TikTok was being misleading.
“TikTok’s response makes it crystal clear that Americans’ data is still exposed to Beijing’s draconian and pervasive spying regimes – despite the claims of TikTok’s misleading public relations campaign,” Blackburn said in a statement.
TikTok declined to comment beyond the document.
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Originally Published: 22 JUN 23 01:54 ET
Updated: 22 JUN 23 11:32 ET
By Nouran Salahieh and Gabe Cohen, CNN
(CNN) — The search for the submersible with five people aboard that went missing Sunday while descending to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean has reached a “critical” stage, the co-founder of the company operating the submersible said Thursday.
“Today will be a critical day in this search and rescue mission, as the sub’s life support supplies are starting to run low,” Guillermo Sohnlein, the co-founder of OceanGate, the company operating the expedition, said in a statement Thursday.
Sohnlein said he is “certain” that pilot Stockton Rush and the crew “realized days ago that the best thing they can do to ensure their rescue is to extend the limits of those supplies by relaxing as much as possible. I firmly believe that the time window available for their rescue is longer than what most people think.”
The submersible, known as Titan, begins each trip to explore the wreckage of the Titanic with an estimated 96 hours of life support. With estimated oxygen levels ever depleting, the search for the submersible has kicked into high gear.
Follow live Titanic submersible updates
A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is now looking for the submersible on the sea floor, the US Coast Guard’s Northeast District tweeted Thursday morning. An ROV from a French vessel has also been deployed, and equipment from Magellan, the team that mapped the Titanic wreckage site last year, is headed to the site to assist.
Further, aircraft are scanning a search zone about twice the size of Connecticut and as deep as 2 1/2 miles, Capt. Jamie Frederick, the response coordinator for the First Coast Guard District, said Wednesday. Medical personnel specializing in dive medicine and a hyperbaric recompression chamber arrived on scene Thursday, according to a spokesperson for the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax of the Canadian Armed Forces.
The situation is increasingly bleak, but search teams have not given up hope.
Banging noises detected underwater Tuesday and Wednesday in the massive search area provided hope for survivors, though their origin was not clear. If indeed there are survivors, the crew would have “limited rations” of food and water in the 21-foot submersible, which has rudimentary controls and no room for passengers to stretch out, officials have said.
“We continue to find in particularly complex cases that peoples’ will to live really needs to be accounted for … and so we’re continuing to search and proceed with rescue efforts by bringing this new capability online this morning,” US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told NBC on Thursday.
“We need a miracle,” oceanographer and water search expert David Gallo told CNN on Wednesday. “But miracles do happen.”
The Titan lost contact with its mother ship Sunday about 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive to explore the Titanic’s wreckage at 13,000 feet below sea level – a trip that costs participants $250,000, an archived version of its website shows.
The five passengers on board are the CEO of OceanGate, three wealthy explorers and an experienced French deep-sea diver.
The expedition reflects the ongoing fascination with the Titanic’s wreckage more than a century after it hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage, killing more than 1,500 people. The journey is also part of the growing business of wealthy adventure tourism, along with the space flights of Blue Origin or the rise of guided tours to Mount Everest.
The focus on the vessel has also renewed criticisms of OceanGate’s approach to safety from employees and other industry leaders.
Search operation expanding daily
The number of assets in the search operation is expected to double in the next day or two, Frederick said Wednesday. A Canadian Coast Guard boat with sonar capabilities, the John Cabot, arrived Wednesday, and the US Navy is sending a lift system that can pull heavy objects up from 20,000 feet deep to help if the submersible is found.
“The Coast Guard has done a very good job in putting the right tools with the right team in the right spot. So, the chances are as good as they can be,” Gallo, the senior adviser for strategic initiatives at RMS Titanic Inc., told CNN on Thursday morning.
“It’s tough because the oceans are pitch black, you can only use sound to image effectively, and you’ve got to be pretty much on top of the object to actually see it,” he added.
When banging noises were heard in the search area, crews redirected remotely operated vehicles to explore their origin, according to the US Coast Guard. The underwater sounds detected by sonar devices on Tuesday first came every 30 minutes and were heard again four hours later, according to an internal US government memo update on the search.
But it remains unclear whether the noises are from the missing submersible, Frederick said. Naval experts were analyzing recordings of the sounds to determine their origin. “I can’t tell you what the noises are,” he said.
Environmental factors in the ocean are likely complicating efforts to identify the noises, said Rick Murcar, the international training director for the National Association of Cave Divers. Currents can deflect the sound so it appears it’s coming from miles away from its source, Murcar explained, likening the effort to locate the noise to trying to pinpoint a snare drum in a stadium full of cheering fans and other instruments.
If the submersible is found at depth, it would take a while to bring it to the surface, and there won’t be a way to get oxygen into it, said ocean explorer Tom Dettweiler, who was part of the expedition that discovered the Titanic wreckage in 1985.
“The thing to do would be to bring it up as quickly as possible and open the hatch and get to the people. Unfortunately, it cannot be brought up all that quickly when it is on the end of a cable and dependent on the speed of a winch to bring it up,” he told CNN. “You’re still talking about hours, potentially, to get it up.”
Aboard the Titan are Rush, the OceanGate CEO and founder, along with British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, according to relatives and social media posts. Officials have not publicly named those aboard.
Harsh conditions on the submersible
As aircraft, ships, sonar buoys and robots comb through the ocean, experts warn conditions are likely dire aboard the 23,000-pound submersible – especially if it’s still deep underwater.
Ret. Navy Capt. David Marquet, a former submarine captain, described Wednesday what he imagines the five passengers are experiencing in the Titan beyond hunger, thirst and discomfort.
“They’re freezing cold. The water entirely surrounding the ship is at freezing or slightly below. When they exhale, their breath condenses. There’s frost on the inside of the parts of the submarine,” Marquet told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “They’re all huddled together trying to conserve their body heat. They’re running low on oxygen and they’re exhaling carbon dioxide.”
The submersible has a “limited ability” to absorb the exhaled carbon dioxide, which at high levels could trigger headaches, confusion and nausea, Marquet said. “The oxygen and the carbon dioxide and the freezing are what they got to hold onto as long as possible to give the rescuers the time they need.”
Those onboard will need to conserve energy, said Joe MacInnis, a physician and renowned diver who’s made two trips to the Titanic wreck.
“Resting, breathing as little as possible, and trying to keep calm – that is the most important thing,” he told CNN early Wednesday.
Per Wimmer, an adventurer and acquaintance of Harding and Rush, said he believed they would know to conserve oxygen.
“I still have hope,” Wimmer said on “CNN This Morning.” “I remain optimistic, positive, and hoping for a miracle here, at least until it’s proven otherwise.”
The last communication between the vessel and its mother ship, the Polar Prince, came in at 11:47 a.m. Sunday. With no GPS underwater, the submersible is only guided by text messages from the surface ship.
Indeed, “issues with computer control” were among the reasons Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown” host Josh Gates and his team decided after a 2021 test dive of Titan against filming a segment on the vessel as it “became clear to us at that time that there was a lot that needed to be worked out with the sub,” he said.
“A lot of the systems worked but a lot of them really didn’t. We had issues with thrusters and issues with computer control and things like that. Ultimately, it was a challenging dive,” Gates told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday.
“We were inside Titan for two or three hours, and there were a lot of things that weren’t really ready for prime time, it seemed,” he said, adding he couldn’t get comfortable with the Titan at that time.
OceanGate declined safety review of Titan submersible, industry leader says
The disappearance of Titan and the international dash to find it have put its operator under the microscope.
At least two former OceanGate employees years ago expressed safety concerns about the vessel’s hull, including the thickness of the material used and testing procedures, CNN has learned. The 23,000-pound craft is made of highly engineered carbon fiber and titanium.
OceanGate Expeditions strayed from industry norms by declining a voluntary, rigorous safety review of the vessel, according to an industry leader. If the company had pursued a certification review “some of this may have been avoided,” Will Kohnen of the Marine Technology Society told CNN on Wednesday.
The company also faced a series of mechanical problems and inclement weather conditions that forced the cancellation or delays of trips in recent years, according to court records. The scuttled excursions led to a pair of lawsuits in which some high-paying customers sought to recoup the cost of trips they said they didn’t take. The complaints alleged that the company overstated its ability to reach the Titanic wreckage.
OceanGate did not respond to the claims in court and could not be reached for comment.
Some expeditions were delayed after OceanGate was forced to rebuild the Titan’s hull because it showed “cyclic fatigue” and wouldn’t be able to travel deep enough to reach the Titanic’s wreckage, according to a 2020 article by GeekWire, which interviewed the company’s CEO.
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