Your Friday Briefing – The New York Times

No survivors after submersible’s ‘catastrophic implosion’

The five people aboard a submersible that went missing on Sunday were presumed dead after an international search found pieces of the vessel, including the tail cone, near the wreckage of the Titanic. The debris was “consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” a U.S. Coast Guard official said.

Days earlier, secret U.S. military acoustic sensors had picked up indications of a possible implosion close to the submersible around the time communications with it were lost, a Navy official said. The search for the vessel, called the Titan, had continued because there was no immediate confirmation that it had met a disastrous end, another Navy official said.

Officials said they would continue to investigate and document the scene, but they were unable to answer questions about the prospect of recovering the bodies of the victims. “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor,” Rear Adm. John Mauger said.

Years of concern: Leaders in the submersible craft industry had long warned of possible “catastrophic” problems with the vehicle’s design. They also worried that OceanGate Expeditions, which operated the Titan, had not followed standard certification procedures.

Victims: Stockton Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate, was piloting the vessel. The four passengers were a British businessman and explorer, Hamish Harding; a British-Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood, and his teenage son, Suleman; and a French maritime expert, Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Bridge to Russian-occupied Crimea is damaged

A Ukrainian missile struck the Chonhar bridge connecting the rest of Ukraine to occupied Crimea, according to Kremlin-installed officials. There were no reported casualties. The Crimean Peninsula, which is well behind the front lines, has become vital to Moscow’s war effort and is increasingly a target of attacks.

Videos and photographs show damage to the bridge’s two spans, which run across the Chonhar Strait between Crimea and the Kherson region. An impassable Chonhar bridge could impede the resupply and logistics of Russian forces, but would not cut them off completely, as there are other crossings available and the bridge could be repaired.

Ukraine typically maintains a policy of not explicitly claiming responsibility for strikes on the peninsula, but it did acknowledge an attack on an oil depot there in April as part of what it said were preparations for a counteroffensive. Severing the “land bridge,” the Ukrainian territory that Russia occupies between its border and Crimea, is a major objective of that campaign.

Context: The attack on Thursday, just days after a strike on a Russian ammunition depot in the Kherson region, appears to be part of a broader Ukrainian strategy aimed at hindering the resupply of Russian units fending off Kyiv’s counteroffensive in southern Ukraine.

In other news from the war:

Modi visits Biden in D.C.

During a lavish state visit to Washington, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Biden emphasized common ground in hopes of bolstering economic and geopolitical ties, publicly skirting points of friction over Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Indian government’s crackdown on human rights.

At a joint news conference, Modi took questions from reporters for apparently the first time in his nearly decade-long tenure as prime minister. Challenged on his record on human rights and religious freedom, he insisted that democracy was “in India’s DNA” and denied that his government had fostered prejudice in serving its people.

The state visit was the latest move on the geopolitical chess board as Biden seeks more allies against increasingly aggressive governments in Moscow and Beijing. India, which remained staunchly nonaligned during the Cold War, has refused to join the American-led coalition aiding Ukraine in its war against invading Russian forces and has continued to buy Russian oil.

Related: Modi and other top Indian officials are single, contributing to a perception that they are less corrupt because they don’t need to steal for their families.

THE LATEST NEWS

Around the World

Yeonmi Park’s account of the horrors of her native North Korea made her a human rights celebrity. She now claims that America is on the same path — and it has made her a right-wing media star.

“So many people in America think that somehow America is immune to tyranny, and somehow a dictatorship begins like North Korea,” she told an audience at a conservative event. “It didn’t begin there. It began with amazing promises of equity. They promised a socialist paradise to us.”

Lives Lived

Teresa Taylor, a drummer for the acid-punk band Butthole Surfers who appeared in Richard Linklater’s 1990 film “Slacker,” died at 60.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

Premier League season tickets: Top-flight clubs have imposed major price hikes and scrapped many concessions, a survey by The Athletic has found.

Why Romeo Beckham joined Brentford B permanently: Beckham had a good teacher when it came to crossing and set pieces. Can he follow his father, David Beckham, into the Premier League?

From The Times: The San Antonio Spurs selected Victor Wembanyama, the French basketball star, No. 1 overall in yesterday’s N.B.A. draft.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Celebrating queer literature

T Magazine asked six high-profile queer writers to discuss and compile a list of the 25 most influential works of postwar queer literature. Here are some of their picks.

“Stone Butch Blues” by Leslie Feinberg, 1993. “I read ‘Stone Butch Blues’ when I was 17, and it was the first time I saw anything resembling butch identity. As a girl from Omaha — where I simply didn’t see anything queer — I just thought, ‘Wow.’” — Roxane Gay

“Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin, 1956. “‘Giovanni’s Room’ was a very daring book for a Black American exile to have written. It’s the first of its kind in some ways, and it holds that historical value, which makes it important.” — Neel Mukherjee

“Nevada” by Imogen Binnie, 2013. “I think any trans writer working today has read that book and been affected by it.” — Thomas Page McBee

That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a fabulous weekend. — Natasha

P.S. June is L.G.B.T.Q.+ Pride month. We’re asking for suggestions from readers of songs that embody the spirit of Pride.

“The Daily” is on experts’ longstanding fears about the Titan submersible.

You can reach Natasha and the team at [email protected].