Argentina lost all contact with one of their submarines, the ARA San Juan, which was last spotted on Wednesday. The Argentinian Navy along with vessels of a plethora of local countries are searching the ocean, especially along the planned route of the San Juan. The difficulty with this search is that they are searching for a submarine, which is designed not to be found, especially by ships on the surface. It’s likely that the vessel lost power and is now resting on the seafloor, which would make it even harder to find the ship and its crew. The submarine can withstand depths of up to 600 meters, so should it be resting on the seafloor and it’s still on the continental shelf, then the hull will hold, but if the submarine sunk out in the Atlantic, then it will buckle under the water pressure. Assuming that the ship is resting on a safe stretch of sea floor, the crew could have roughly 7-10 days of oxygen, so search efforts are on the clock. Thankfully, the San Juan was built in Germany and is compatible with other NATO subs, which will allow the US to send another submarine to rescue the trapped crew. With any luck, these sailors can be found and brought home in time.

23 member countries of the European Union have signed a joint defense pact. This defense pact creates a structure within which the European Union members can effectively band together in defense of each other. This pact is missing 5 of the 28 EU member states, most notably the United Kingdom, which is set to leave the EU following their “Brexit” referendum last year. Other similar movements have been tried in the past, Britain has always blocked them or refused to sign into them, but with the UK leaving the picture, the other EU states are free to go through with this defense pact.