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Your Wednesday briefing: the search for the missing Titanic submarine

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An international team of rescuers raced against time to find a deep-diving submarine with five people on board after it lost contact in the North Atlantic while on a tour to explore the wreckage of the Titanic.

The submarine, the Titan, is believed to be equipped with less than two days of oxygen, and as of 1 p.m. Eastern time yesterday, it likely had about 40 hours of breathing air left, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

On Sunday, contact with the Titan was lost more than halfway through the dive that should have lasted two and a half hours. The five people on board are Hamish Harding, a British businessman and explorer; Shahzada Dawood, a British-Pakistani businessman and explorer, and his son Suleman; and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French marine expert who has made more than 35 dives to the Titanic wreck. Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, piloted the submarine, according to the company.

The search for the Titan faces a series of obstacles, and even if it can be found, it won’t be easy to find it again. The search area is more than two miles below the surface, with a pressure equivalent to that under a 100-story tower made of solid lead.

Dangerous tourism: OceanGate Expeditions has been offering tours of the Titanic wreckage for up to $250,000 per person since 2021, as part of a booming high-risk travel industry. Leaders in the submersible vehicle industry sent a letter to the company’s CEO in 2018 warning that the company’s “current ‘experimental’ approach” could lead to “catastrophic” problems.

“There are so many things that can go wrong,” said our colleague William Broad, who has been in a similar submarine. “Communications can go down, as is clearly the case with the submarine Titan. The scarier, worse things are the non-electrical mechanical failures, such as when the propellers that propel the submarine stop working.” Or, he added, if the ballast won’t fall, you won’t be able to surface again.

Harding acknowledged in a 2021 interview that he had gone on deep-sea missions in the past knowing rescue wouldn’t be an option. “If something goes wrong, you don’t come back,” he said.

The chairman and CEO of the Chinese tech giant, Daniel Zhang, will step down from his position, Alibaba announced yesterday. Two long-serving executives will take over the top positions, while Zhang will serve alone as CEO of the company’s cloud computing division.

The realignment comes at a critical time as the company splits into six units. Alibaba was the most prominent target of Beijing’s crackdown on the power of China’s largest tech companies.

Joseph Tsai, an Alibaba veteran, will take over as chairman. Eddie Yongming Wu, who, like Tsai, is a co-founder of Alibaba, will become CEO.

“The trusted team, the old guard, are back in control,” said the chairman of an investment advisory firm in Beijing.

Other developments:

Finance: China’s central bank cut key interest rates yesterday, a clear sign of concern among the Chinese government and business that the country’s economy is stagnating.

The men — Michael McMahon, a retired New York police officer, Zhu Yong and Zheng Congying — were also found guilty of acting as unregistered foreign agents, and Zhu was convicted of a second conspiracy charge.

Prosecutors said the men were key to a plot to force the former official, Xu Jin, to return to China, where he could have faced the death penalty on charges of embezzlement.

Prosecutors accused the men of playing roles in Operation Fox Hunt, which the Justice Department says is part of Beijing’s effort to control Chinese nationals around the world.

Take a stroll down Geylang Road, a street food destination in Singapore’s red light district, where stalls showcase the city’s distinctly multicultural Chinese, Malaysian and Indian flavours.

“No matter how full you are,” writes our travel reporter Christine Chung, “there’s always room for an extra meal in Singapore.”

The tradition of naming newly discovered body parts and diseases after great medical figures was once regarded as medicine’s highest honor. But the discovery that dozens of eponyms were associated with Nazi-era doctors, including Asperger’s syndrome, has prompted a re-examination.

Still, some scholars say the tradition should live on, arguing that even “cancelled” eponyms can serve as a reminder of the paths medicine should never take again.

This savory farro and mushroom dish has a rich, earthy taste.

Pixar’s “Elemental,” a smart, animated girl-meets-boy story, is a Times critic’s choice.

Here are new songs from Doja Cat, Peggy Gou, Elliott Sharp and others.

“By All Means Available” looks at US achievements and mistakes in Afghanistan.

Play the mini crossword and a clue: Trickles (five letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. —Justin and Amelia

PS Jonah Markowitz wrote about his two-year experience taking pictures in a Brooklyn neighborhood known as “Little Bangladesh.”

“The Daily” is about the fall in US inflation.

We welcome your feedback. You can reach us at briefing@nytimes.com.

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