By Joseph Ax and Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – U.S. and Canadian ships and planes searched on Monday for a submersible vessel that went missing more than a day earlier off the coast of southeastern Canada while taking tourists to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, officials said.

The U.S. Coast Guard said there was one pilot and four passengers on board and that the vessel had the capacity to be submerged for 96 hours, but it was unclear whether it was still underwater or had surfaced and was unable to communicate.

U.S. and Canadian ships and planes have swarmed the area about 900 miles (1,450 km) east of Cape Cod, some dropping sonar buoys that can monitor to a depth of 13,000 feet (3,962 meters), U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters on Monday.

“It is a remote area and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area,” Mauger said.

“We are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board,” he said. “Going into this evening we will continue to fly aircraft and move additional vessels.”

Mauger said officials have also been reaching out to commercial vessels for help.

The private company that operates the submersible vessel, OceanGate Expeditions, said in a statement on Monday that it was “mobilizing all options” to rescue those on board.

British billionaire Hamish Harding is among the passengers, according to a social media post from a relative.

Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, were also on board, their family said in a statement.

“We are very grateful for the concern being shown by our colleagues and friends and would like to request everyone to pray for their safety,” the statement said.

The U.S. Coast Guard said earlier on Twitter that a boat on the surface – the Polar Prince – lost contact with the submersible vessel, called the Titan, about one hour and 45 minutes after it began diving toward the site of the Titanic’s wreckage on Sunday morning.

OceanGate said, “We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible.”

Harding’s stepson wrote on Facebook that Harding had “gone missing on submarine” and asked for “thoughts and prayers.” The stepson subsequently removed the post, citing respect for the family’s privacy.

Harding himself had posted on Facebook that he would be aboard the sub. There have been no further posts from him. The expedition headed out to sea on Friday, and the first dive was set for Sunday morning, according to Harding’s post.

The statement from the Dawood family said the father and son had planned the journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic shipwreck.

Dawood is the vice chairman of one of Pakistan’s largest conglomerates, Engro Corporation, which has investments in fertilisers, vehicle manufacturing, energy and digital technologies. According to the website of SETI, the California-based research institute of which he is a trustee, he lives in Britain with his wife and two children.

The expeditions, which cost $250,000 per person, start in St. John’s, Newfoundland, before heading out approximately 400 miles (640 km) into the Atlantic to the wreckage site, according to OceanGate’s website.

In order to visit the wreck, passengers climb inside Titan, the five-person submersible, which takes two hours to descend approximately 12,500 feet (3,800 m) to the Titanic.

The British passenger ship famously sank in 1912 on its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 people. The story has been immortalized in nonfiction and fiction books as well as the 1997 blockbuster movie “Titanic.”

(This story has been refiled to change the word ‘submarine’ to ‘submersible vessel’ in paragraphs 1,7 and 12)

(Reporting by Joseph Ax, Kanishka Singh and Njuwa Mainaand Rich McKay; Additional reporting by Ismail Shakil and Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Franklin Paul, Jonathan Oatis, Cynthia Osterman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration says it has picked the chairman of Google parent Alphabet Inc, John Hennessy, and four other technology industry experts to help with research and development of next-generation computer chips.

Hennessy and the other selected individuals are set to be announced by the Commerce Department on Tuesday, according to a statement seen by Reuters. They will be responsible for picking a board of trustees to run the National Semiconductor Technology Center.

That public-private partnership was authorized to lead research on next-generation chips as part of last year’s bipartisan $52.7 billion semiconductor manufacturing and research law, which also subsidizes new chip plants. The nonprofit board is expected make politically sensitive decisions, including where in the United States to locate the center’s research facilities.

President Joe Biden wants to expand the domestic chipmaking industry to create high-paying jobs, reduce dependence on the major producers in China and Taiwan and to give the United States an edge in the advanced technologies that will power the military technologies of the future.

Economists attribute higher consumer inflation since the COVID-19 pandemic to, among other factors, an insufficient supply of chips, which sparked shortages in cars, washing machines and video game consoles.

“We want the NSTC to be an engine of innovation, supporting and extending U.S. leadership in semiconductor research, design, engineering, and advanced manufacturing for decades to come,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement. “This selection committee is the next step to helping us stand up the NSTC and ensure it succeeds for generations.”

Hennessy, the Alphabet chairman, is also an electrical engineering and computer science professor at Stanford University.

The selection committee also includes Deloitte Consulting principal Janet Foutty, RAND Corp chief executive Jason Matheny, Anzu Partners venture capitalist and former Qualcomm executive Don Rosenberg and education nonprofit president Brenda Wilkerson.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

By David Carnevali

(Reuters) -NV5 Global Inc, a U.S. engineering consultant whose business has taken a hit from its exposure to commercial real estate, is exploring a sale, according to people familiar with the matter.

NV5 is in the early stages of a sale process and is working with advisers to establish whether a deal would be financially attractive, the sources said.

NV5 could decide not to go through with a transaction, the sources added, requesting anonymity because the matter is confidential. NV5 representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

NV5 shares rose as much as 16% on the news and were up 6% at $109.97 on Tuesday afternoon, giving the company a market value of about $1.7 billion.

Based in Hollywood, Florida, NV5 offers services such as infrastructure engineering and building inspection to federal, state and local governments, as well as to the private sector.

While much of its work is performed on public buildings such as hospitals, schools and airports, NV5 has a real estate transaction services business that caters to commercial property, offering surveys and seismic risk assessments. It expanded this practice through the acquisition of Bock & Clark in 2017 and Global Realty Services Group in 2021.

This exposure to commercial real estate has weighed on NV5’s business and stock price. Chief Executive Dickerson Wright said in February that NV5 would have achieved more than 11% gross revenue growth in 2022 had it not been for its real estate transactions business taking a hit in the wake of high interest rates. The company’s municipal services business has been negatively affected too, he added.

NV5 shares have lost about a fifth of their value since the start of the year, underperforming a 31% rise in the NASDAQ Composite Index.

Wright, who helped launch the company in 2009 and is its second-largest shareholder with an almost 11% stake, has been a serial dealmaker, completing 57 acquisitions for NV5.

NV5 generated almost half of its $786.8 million revenue in 2022 from its infrastructure business, while its buildings consulting and geospatial solutions make up the rest.

(Reporting by David Carnevali in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

By Brendan Pierson and Disha Raychaudhuri

(Reuters) – Companies accused of fueling the U.S. opioid crisis have so far paid out more than $3 billion to compensate states, but has any of the money reached the people who need it? It depends where you live. Yes, if you’re in Massachusetts; no, in Texas.

A series of landmark settlements since 2021 with top drug distributors, pharmacies and drugmakers including Johnson & Johnson set compensation at a total of more than $50 billion nationwide.

More than 900,000 people have died of drug overdoses in the United States since 1999, with opioids playing an outsized role, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State and local officials have touted the settlements as providing desperately needed relief to communities hit hard by the crisis.

But when the money will be paid out, and who will get it, remains far from clear, Reuters has found. And many of those who have been working with opioid addiction for years, through a patchwork of non-profit treatment and aid organizations around the country, say they are still in the dark about how, and whether, their work will benefit, according to a series of interviews over the last several months.

Reuters reached out to all 50 states and the District of Columbia to ask whether they had a process for non-governmental organizations to apply for funding from the settlements. It also looked for information available online about funding applications.

Reuters received responses, or was able to locate information online, for 40 states and the District of Columbia. Of those, the news agency could only confirm that 16 had central, state-wide, publicly available processes for organizations to apply for funding.

Some of the remaining states, including Maryland and Illinois, said they planned to open an application process soon. Others offered no specific details about future plans. Arkansas has adopted a unique model; although the state does not have a funding application process, two thirds of its settlement money is going to a partnership of state and local governments, which does have such a process.

Among the states where money is already reaching organizations on the ground are Massachusetts, Kentucky and Arizona.

“The need to get this money out the door and start making a dent in the crisis has never been greater,” said Brandon Marshall, a professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health who serves as an advisor to the committee overseeing Rhode Island’s settlement. “I don’t quite understand why some states and jurisdictions are taking so long to even create a process.” (Rhode Island is disbursing settlement funds through a rolling series of application processes targeted at specific kinds of interventions.)

In Massachusetts, which according to data from the state has received more than $129 million as of this month, funds have already begun flowing, some through a public grant application process.

According to a public summary released after a December meeting of the advisory council overseeing the state’s settlement, the state has allocated $3.4 million toward purchasing the overdose reversal drug naloxone, $1.2 million toward methadone treatment programs and $5 million toward organizations that provide long-term housing to people struggling with addiction. The state has also pledged $15 million to repay student loans for health care workers who deal with addiction treatment, and continues to evaluate additional grant applications.

“I think Massachusetts is doing an outstanding job,” said Julie Burns, CEO of RIZE Massachusetts, a non-profit that funds efforts to combat the opioid epidemic “Their process has been very open.” (RIZE itself has not received settlement funding.)

The fate of Texas’s share, more than $270 million received to date beginning in December 2021, is less clear. The state legislature this year appropriated about $22 million for government agencies for 2024 and 2025, and has posted an online form for organizations to register as potential funding recipients.

But the state said it does not expect to open up grant applications until later this year or early next year.

“Texas spends funds wisely, not quickly,” Chris Bryan, a spokesperson for the office of Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Glenn Hegar, said in an email, adding that the state was seeking to avoid fraud and abuse of the money. He also noted that the state legislature, which only meets every other year, was not in session in 2022, pushing decisions on spending into this year.

Lisa Ruzicka, a coordinator at Kansas-based addiction recovery non-profit Valley Hope Foundation, said that tracks her experience. While Valley Hope, which operates in seven states, has successfully obtained a grant from Arizona and been in touch with other states, it “has been really hard to figure out” how Texas’s grant process works, Ruzicka said.

“I’ve had a call in to the Texas attorney general for some time, and you just can’t get anybody to give you answers,” she said. The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

DIFFERENT STATES, DIFFERENT STRUCTURES

The opioid settlements stem from thousands of lawsuits brought by state and local governments around the country, beginning in 2017, against drug manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies – the largest such mass litigation on behalf of the public since states sued tobacco giants in the 1990s.

Most of the settlements were nationwide agreements, though some state and local governments opted out and struck their own separate deals. The settling companies include the three largest U.S. drug wholesalers, drugmakers Johnson & Johnson and pharmacy operators Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.

Most states share a significant portion of their total settlement funds with their city and county governments, which make their own independent decisions about how to spend.

The lack of clarity, so far, about how the money will be spent is reflected in the experiences of more than a dozen advocates and workers dealing with opioid addiction who spoke to Reuters for this story.

North Carolina has been widely praised for its transparency around opioid settlement funds, of which it has so far received more than $93 million, thanks to stringent requirements for local governments, which will receive 85% of the money, to report their spending decisions and an online dashboard where the public can track them. The state’s Department of Health and Human Services has already awarded more than $15 million in grants through a competitive application process.

Even there, however, the current state of settlement spending plans is not always clear. Associate director Lauren Kestner of the Charlotte-based Center for Prevention Services, which has been awarded an $800,000 state grant, praised the state’s approach overall but said some counties have yet to reveal much about their plans, and that organizations like hers have had to rely on established relationships with officials for information.

“Those of us who have been able to get to the table have had to work” to get there, she said.

Tricia Christensen, director of policy at Community Education Group, a regional organization covering Appalachia, also commended states like Massachusetts and North Carolina but said that in others – she named Mississippi and Alabama – addiction treatment workers on the ground have “no idea what’s happening.”

A spokesperson for the Alabama Attorney General’s office said the state’s spending was up to the legislature, and that all of the funds would be used to fight the opioid crisis. Mississippi officials did not respond to Reuters inquiries for this article.

Mississippi – uniquely among the states – has pledged fully 70% of its $203 million share of the distributor and J&J settlement to a single recipient, the University of Mississippi Medical Center. It did not respond to a request for comment about how it planned to spend the money.

Another crucial part of the story is that settlement funds can be used for so-called harm reduction, such as providing clean syringes and test kits for fentanyl, which has not been allowed for federal government funding in the past. Even some conservative states, where harm reduction has been controversial, are becoming more open to the approach.

Harm reduction groups see the settlements as a chance to move from the margins to the mainstream, but in some parts of the country they may face an uphill battle.

“For the first time we’re being told, you can do syringe services and you can use this money to do it,” Marc Burrows of Challenges Inc, South Carolina’s only harm reduction organization providing syringes, told Reuters in March.

But in May, the board overseeing the state’s opioid settlement denied a joint application by Challenges and a county health department to fund harm reduction efforts, without explaining its decision. The board did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York and Disha Raychaudhuri; editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Claudia Parsons)

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a lower court ruling that blocked South Carolina from ending public funding to Planned Parenthood, giving the Republican-governed state another chance to defend its bid to deprive the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider of government money.

The justices sent the case back to the lower court to reconsider the case in light of their 7-2 ruling on June 8 in a similar case from Indiana preserving an individual’s right to sue government officials over alleged violations of rights created by federal programs that Congress enacts through its spending power, like the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had barred South Carolina from terminating funding to Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, the organization’s regional affiliate, under Medicaid, because the organization provides abortions.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic operates clinics in the South Carolina cities of Charleston and Columbia, where it provides physical exams, cancer and other health screenings, as well as abortions. The clinics annually serve hundreds of patients covered by Medicaid, a state-federal health insurance program covering low-income Americans.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate and Medicaid patient Julie Edwards sued in 2018 after Republican Governor Henry McMaster ordered state officials to end the organization’s participation in the state Medicaid program by declaring any abortion provider unqualified to provide family planning services.

At issue is whether recipients of Medicaid have the right to challenge state determinations that a medical provider is not qualified to provide certain services. The justices in 2020 turned away an appeal by the state at an earlier stage of the case.

The Supreme Court’s June 8 ruling allowed an Indiana nursing home resident’s family to sue over his care at a government-run facility under the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act. The justices made clear, however, that lawsuits like the family’s, brought under an 1871 law that helps individuals challenge illegal acts by state officials, are the exception, not the rule.

In the South Carolina case, the 4th Circuit in 2022 ruled in Planned Parenthood’s favor, finding that both the right to sue under the 1871 law and the state’s move to defund the organization violated Edwards’ right under Medicaid to freely choose a qualified provider.

“To allow the state to disqualify Planned Parenthood would nullify Congress’s manifest intent to provide our less fortunate citizens the opportunity to select a medical provider of their choice, an opportunity that the most fortunate routinely enjoy,” the 4th Circuit said.

South Carolina is one of numerous Republican-led states that have moved to ban or restrict abortion since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized the procedure nationwide.

South Carolina’s legislature in May passed a law to ban most abortions after about six weeks, but a judge blocked it. The law is a revised version of a previous ban that the state’s highest court struck down in January.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham)