6 stories you might have missed as the world watched the missing Titanic sub

Watch: Submersible lost on dive to Titanic suffered 'catastrophic implosion' - US Coast Guard

The tragedy of the missing Titan submersible has dominated our attention for the entire week.

After a frantic search, the US Coast Guard said on Thursday that the tail cone of the deep-sea vessel was discovered 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic wreckage.

Five major pieces of debris were found in total, with the crews saying all five people on board died in a “catastrophic implosion”.

The fallout will continue, with reports now suggesting the US Navy had detected the sub’s implosion days ago.

But in a week where many people’s focus has been fixed on the North Atlantic Ocean, there have been major stories elsewhere which may have gone under the radar. Here, Yahoo News UK sets out six of them.

Migrant tragedies

Hundreds are now feared dead after a boat carrying migrants sank off southern Greece last week.

While the official death toll stood at 82 on Thursday, there was reportedly up to 750 people on board. At least 209 Pakistanis are now thought to have been on the boat.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, 35 people were feared to have drowned after an inflatable boat carrying up to 60 migrants and refugees sank en route to the Canary Islands.

There were thought to have been 60 people on the boat.

Read more: At least 209 Pakistanis were on board migrant boat that sank off Greece, data suggests (Reuters, 2-min read)

Interest rates

On Thursday, the Bank of England issued its 13th interest rate hike in a row, from 4.5% to 5%: the highest level in nearly 15 years.

About 2.4 million fixed-rate mortgage deals are due to expire before the end of 2024, with some households potentially heading for a bill shock with financial markets predicting rates will hit a high of 6% by the end of this year.

On Friday, chancellor Jeremy Hunt was set to ask banks if they can do more to support struggling households after the rate hike deepened the mortgage crisis.

He was meeting large lenders including HSBC and Santander in Downing Street as the government came under pressure to relieve the pain.

Read more: Sunak And Hunt Accused Of 'Burying Their Heads In The Sand' As Interest Rates Soar (HuffPost, 2-min read)

Whitty at COVID inquiry

On Thursday, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, one of the faces of the country's pandemic response, gave evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

England's chief medical officer admitted the UK did “not have the ability to scale up” quickly to deal with the pandemic in areas such as testing.

Prof Whitty told the inquiry the “hazards and threats” from a pandemic are “going to be completely different every time”, and what is needed are “multiple capabilities that can be flexed to almost any emergency…” rather than having a plan for one particular scenario.

He also said one weakness in the system was a lack of “radicalism” in thinking, adding there should have been “a more imaginative approach to how we would respond to a major pandemic”.

Read more: UK did not have ability to scale up quickly during COVID pandemic, Sir Chris Whitty says (Sky News, 3-min read)

Hottest June day in Beijing

Beijing, the capital of China, recorded its hottest June day on record.

The mercury reached 41.1C on Thursday, the highest since records began in 1961.

Such temperatures are expected to last until the end of the month at least.

It comes as many parts of Asia are experiencing suffocating heatwaves. A study last month found climate change had increased temperatures in many parts of the continent by 2C.

Read more: Beijing issues highest heat alert as north China swelters (AFP, 1-min read)

Musk and Zuckerberg to fight

On the more ridiculous end of the news scale, social media titans Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg agreed to face each other in a cage fight.

Musk, who took control of Twitter in October, tweeted he was “up for a cage fight” with Meta boss Zuckerberg in an exchange that has since gone viral.

Zuckerberg, who manages Facebook and Instagram and recently won his first jiu-jitsu competition, agreed to the challenge by taking a screenshot of Musk’s tweet and replying “send me location”.

Musk shot back, tweeting “Vegas Octagon” in reference to the competition mat and fenced-in arena used by fighters.

Read more: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg agree to cage match, and we’ve reached peak absurdity (Yahoo Finance, 2-min read)

Three more days of rail strikes

A fresh wave of rail strikes will be held next month in the deadlocked row over pay, jobs and conditions, it was announced.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said 20,000 of its members at 14 train companies will walk out on 20, 22 and 29 July.

The government hit back, accusing the union of “targeting two iconic international sporting events” by coinciding with the fourth and fifth Ashes Test and The Open golf championship. The RMT said train operators had failed to make a new pay offer to resolve the long-running dispute.

Meanwhile, junior doctors in England also announced a strike for five days from 13 July in what is thought to be the longest single period of industrial action in the history of the NHS.

Read more: When are the next train strikes? RMT announces more strikes (Evening Standard, 3-min read)