• The Titanic wreckage site continues to be a big draw for the wealthy and adventurous.
• But experienced deep-sea explorers tell Business Insider there's nothing more to see there.
• Hot sea vents and deep-water coral reefs are under-explored and far more accessible, explorers say.

The Titanic may be one of the most popular and identifiable wreckage sites in the history of sea travel.

It also may be one of the most overrated, deep-sea explorers told Business Insider.

More than a century after the ocean liner sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, the Titanic has proven the staying power of its lore, not least in part due to James Cameron's 1997 film, which became the first billion-dollar box office success. The film reignited interest in the ship and created a fandom that lives strong to this day. Titanic-themed birthday, anyone?

Then, in 2023, five people died in OceanGate's Titan submersible during a dive to the wreckage site, once again placing the iconic ship at the forefront of the news cycle.

Despite the wreckage's thorough documentation and the recent fate of the OceanGate submersible, the wealthy and well-resourced continue to pour efforts to venture 12,500 feet into the ocean just to see the site of the 1912 sinking.

Passengers on the Titan paid up to $250,000 for a seat inside the submersible. Now, billionaire real estate investor Larry Connor said he will voyage to the Titanic.

Deep-sea explorers are left wondering: Why?

'People are trying to impress people'

"The wreck is well-documented," Karl Stanley, a submersible expert, told BI in a recent interview. "That's probably the best documented deep-water wreck there is."

Stanley, who owns a submersible tourism company, Stanley Submarines, was one of many colleagues who warned OceanGate's CEO Stockton Rush about the dangers of rushing to produce a vessel that could take people to the Titanic.

For him, the wealthy's desire to visit the shipwreck has less to do with a genuine passion for deep-sea exploration and more to do with namesake recognition.

"I think whatever market exists for tourism to the Titanic is extremely analogous to the kind of clientele that pays Sherpas to drag them up Mt. Everest," Stanley said, referring to the Nepalese ethnic group that dwells in the Himalayan mountains. Some climbers pay up to $15,000 per expedition to have a Sherpa guide, BI previously reported.

Since the early 1900s, more than 330 people have died on the mountain, and 107 of them were Sherpas, according to The Himalayan Database.

Stanley said there are more dangerous but less traveled mountains and shipwrecks that are less deep but better preserved, such as the HMHS Britannic, Titanic's sister ship, which lies in a relatively shallow grave of about 400 feet, near the Greek island of Kea.

"People are trying to impress people," he said.

Guillermo Söhnlein, the cofounder of OceanGate who left the company in 2013, agreed with Stanley.

While he doesn't want to discourage anyone's genuine passion for the iconic ocean liner, Söhnlein told BI in an interview that the Titanic "holds no interest for me whatsoever."

"One of the reasons I talked with Stockton all the time in the recent years is he would always call me before the expedition to see if I wanted to come to the Titanic," he said.

"And honestly, I never had any desire to go to the Titanic. I just don't see the appeal of it," Söhnlein said, "For me, personally, I think a big part of that is because I prefer exploration. And the Titanic has already been visited, it's been documented, its been filmed. James Cameron has done a phenomenal job on it."

Brine pools and unexplored blue holes

Stanley and Söhnlein said they're less interested in shipwreck sites overall and more keen on exploring the ocean's ecosystem.

"Hot sea vents, brine pools, and deep-water coral reefs would all be more interesting than a shipwreck and can be accessed by going 2,000-5,000 feet, not the 13,000 feet it takes to get to the Titanic," Stanley said.

Similarly, Söhnlein is interested in deep trenches and hydrothermal vents — something Rush was also passionate about, he said.

Söhnlein explained that they're "almost completely unexplored," "play key roles in our planetary dynamics," and "they likely hold thousands of undiscovered and unknown life forms."

Söhnlein's company, Blue Marble Exploration, recently announced it would venture into Dean's Blue Hole, a site in the Bahamas about 660 feet from the surface.

"Dean's Blue Hole is an enigma for geologists studying underwater caverns," Blue Marble Exploration's website says. "It is the largest of its kind in the world, and yet very little is known about it, including how it formed more than 15,000 years ago."

The company adds that it expects to find "human remains" of people who drowned in the blue hole "due to a variety of misfortunes."

It's unclear how many people died at the site. The most notable case occurred in 2013 when American freediver Nicholas Mevoli attempted to break a freediving record by reaching 72 meters in a single breath, The New York Times reported. Mevoli surfaced but died shortly after.

• A US Navy carrier strike group that's fought the Houthis for months is finally returning home.
• The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group left the Middle East on Saturday, the Pentagon said.
• It will soon be replaced by the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group.

The US Navy carrier strike group that's been battling the Houthis in the Red Sea is finally heading home after spending months in the region protecting shipping lanes from relentless attacks by the Iran-backed rebels.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group left the Middle East on Saturday and will remain briefly in the US European Command area of responsibility before returning stateside. It will not see its deployment extended for a third time.

Its departure follows "more than seven months deployed in support of US regional deterrence and force protection efforts," Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced in a statement.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, operating in the Indo-Pacific region, will soon head to the Middle East to replace the strike group.

The Eisenhower strike group — which consists of the aircraft carrier Ike and several other warships — originally deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean in October but was quickly redirected to the Middle East to defend shipping lanes from unrelenting Houthi attacks.

Since then, the Eisenhower strike group has intercepted scores of missiles and drones — both in the air and in the water — and also targeted the rebels directly in Yemen. These have been a mix of joint strikes alongside the British military and preemptive strikes designed to eliminate a threat before the Houthis can launch it.

"During its deployment, the IKE CSG protected ships transiting the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb and the Gulf Aden, rescued innocent mariners against the unlawful attacks from the Iranian-backed Houthis, and helped to deter further aggression," Ryder said.

The reshuffling of American naval assets comes amid concerns over the long-term sustainability of the counter-Houthi operations. US intelligence suggested last month that the Houthi threat is likely to remain active for some time, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had already extended the Eisenhower strike group's deployment twice.

During its time in the Red Sea, the strike group fired off more than 500 munitions, totaling some $1 billion, and sailed more than 55,000 miles. Its aircraft have also flown over 30,000 hours.

Despite the Eisenhower's presence, the Houthis continue to attack shipping lanes. The rebels have already struck multiple commercial vessels in June alone, including one with a naval drone for the first time since they began their campaign in the fall.

Ryder, meanwhile, said the Roosevelt strike group will leave the Indo-Pacific region next week upon completion of a scheduled exercise and sail for the Middle East "to continue promoting regional stability, deter aggression, and protect the free flow of commerce in the region."

• Trump on Saturday is headlining a rally at Temple University in deep blue Philadelphia.
• The former president hopes to make inroads with Biden's base of Black voters.
• Trump has focused his campaign message on the economy. But Biden retains deep ties to the city.

For former President Donald Trump, few states anchor his potential path back to the White House more than Pennsylvania.

The former president lost the Keystone State to Biden by 1% in the 2020 election after narrowly winning the state over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016.

And a huge part of why Biden won in 2020 was his strong margins in the Philadelphia area — the city and its affluent suburbs — which offset the substantial edge Trump enjoyed.

But Biden has struggled over the past year to reactivate the liberal-leaning coalition that sent him to the White House four years ago. Support among Black and Hispanic voters is particularly shaky.

It's part of why Trump will speak at Temple University on Saturday in Philadelphia. He hopes to woo voters who may not have considered him in the past and may be up for grabs in November. He'll also be joined by Pennsylvania GOP Senate nominee David McCormick, who'll face veteran Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. in the fall.

Here's a look at how Trump is looking to win over these voters and the deep challenges that he faces in doing so.

It's all about the economy…

Pennsylvania's unemployment rate has sat at 3.4% for eight consecutive months as of May 2024, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry.

That's below the current US unemployment rate of 4%.

But similar to most national polls, Trump leads Biden on the question of which candidate would better handle the economy. In the most recent New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll conducted in late April and early May, Trump had a 12-point advantage over Biden on the issue among registered voters. And only 21% of respondents said the US economy was "good" or "excellent," while 78% described it as "fair" or "poor."

Trump is banking that many Democratic-leaning voters, who rate inflation and elevated housing costs as major concerns, could give him a lift in Philadelphia — a city where voters gave 81% of their votes to Biden in 2020.

In 2020, Biden won Pennsylvania by roughly 80,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million ballots cast. And over 604,000 of those ballots cast for Biden came from Philadelphia voters. So any small movement toward Trump, especially among Biden's base of Black support in the city, could have dramatic implications for the statewide results.

… but Biden's Philly ties run deep

There's perhaps no city outside of Delaware that Biden loves to visit more than Philadelphia.

He's lavished attention on the City of Brotherly Love — paying particularly close attention to its Black voters and union workers — before and during his presidency. As a US Senator from Delaware who resided in Wilmington, he was only miles away from Pennsylvania's largest city.

So he has a natural relationship with many elected Democrats and union leaders. He can easily find himself among receptive audiences in the city's numerous Black churches, where a loyal base of older Black voters are overwhelmingly supporting his bid for a second term.

Biden has stumbled with younger Black voters over issues like the conflict in Gaza and student-loan debt relief. And many young voters overall are largely unaware of his work on climate issues. But it would take a huge electoral shift — which can often take several cycles to come to fruition — for Biden to be seriously in danger of losing a large chunk of his Philadelphia base.

So far, many down-ballot Senate Democratic candidates like Casey are outperforming their GOP challengers in critical races across the country. It's something that the Trump campaign is surely noticing as they look to flip Pennsylvania.

Right now, the statewide race is incredibly tight. And Philadelphia is poised to once again have its say in the outcome.

• The Justice Department is cracking down on anticompetitive uses of artificial intelligence.
• The DOJ has been investigating RealPage for using AI algorithms to set high prices since 2022.
• The investigation comes amid the Biden administration's wider antitrust crackdown on Big Tech.

AI can make many things easier for companies, including price fixing.

The Department of Justice is now cracking down on such anticompetitive uses of the buzzy new technology.

That means practices like setting prices above the market rates, colluding with rivals, and striking exclusionary deals are unlawful — whether humans or algorithms are behind them.

The Justice Department has been concerned about AI's impact on antitrust litigation for at least the past few years.

Since 2022, it has been investigating RealPage, a rental property management software company, for instance, for using AI algorithms to set prices above competitive levels.

The Justice Department says the company used sensitive and private data in an algorithm under the expectation that its competitors would do the same. That practice, it says, should be judged under the same guidelines as humans. "Automating an anticompetitive scheme does not make it less anticompetitive," the agency said in a statement from 2023.

This focus on anticompetitive uses of AI comes amid a broader spate of investigations and antitrust lawsuits the Biden Administration has launched against major tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.

In the long term, algorithms will likely be even more important to litigate because they can process more information than humans.

"If your AI fixes prices, you're just as responsible," Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter told The New York Times in reference to the RealPage probe. "If anything, the use of AI or algorithmic-based technologies should concern us more because it's much easier to price-fix when you're outsourcing it to an algorithm versus when you're sharing manila envelopes in a smoke-filled room."

That means stricter regulations around the use of AI — and stricter penalties for its misuse — could be coming.

At the American Bar Association's annual gathering on white-collar crime this March, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Justice Department's focus on AI means prosecutors will impose "stiffer sentences" on individuals and corporations that misuse AI for white-collar crime, according to the Associated Press.

And compliance officers, who ensure companies adhere to legal regulations, should "take note," she said. "When our prosecutors assess a company's compliance program — as they do in all corporate resolutions — they consider how well the program mitigates the company's most significant risks. And for a growing number of businesses, that now includes the risk of misusing AI."