By Jessica Hamilton

Published: 05:34 EDT, 10 September 2023 | Updated: 19:11 EDT, 11 September 2023

A family who paid £4,000 for a ‘holiday from hell’ at a Rhodes resort say they have been left furious after TUI told them it would not be offering any compensation despite claiming they had to endure bug-filled rooms.

Kimberley Tooth, her husband Stephen, and daughter Sarah, from Hatton, Warwickshire, said they paid just under £4,000 to stay at the Lydia Maris hotel on the Greek island of Rhodes at the start of July.

But they said what should have been an idyllic trip turned sour when, on two occasions, they were served raw food and left with an infestation of flying ants and bugs swarming their accommodation. 

The family say they had no choice but to move into different hotel rooms and eat at restaurants elsewhere.

Sleepless nights and a huge bill for eating out followed, but the family claim TUI has refused them any compensation on the grounds they had rejected an offer for compensation during their stay at the resort.

Kimberley said: ‘Our holiday was ruined. It was horrific. I’ve stopped in two-star hotels before that were better than this. I’m disgusted with TUI. 

‘It’s not even the money that we’re bothered about, it’s the fact that we’ve not even had an apology and they’ve not looked into it.’

The eleven-night trip, which started on July 1, was going swimmingly until the first morning when Kimberley described the breakfast as ‘stone cold’ and inedible. She says she gave it the ‘benefit of the doubt’ as a minor blip.

But that night, on returning for dinner, Kimberley’s husband Stephen, 38, cut into some roast chicken which she described as ‘bleeding, pink and still raw’.

The family complained to the chef, but claim they were turned away and told that the chicken was ‘meant to be like that’.

That evening, they claim they went back to their room to find flying ants everywhere. In the middle of the night, Kimberley says a centipede crawled across her daughter’s face.

The family complained to the receptionist but say they were told that there were no spare rooms left so they couldn’t be moved elsewhere. Instead, they say, they were told someone would be sent to fumigate the apartment.

The following evening, however, the apartment remained infested, says Kimberley, 35, with ‘dead insects absolutely everywhere’.

Her 16-year-old daughter, frightened, didn’t sleep at night and would instead sleep on the sun loungers during the day, restricting the family to spending much of their holiday at the resort.

On the third day, having eaten out for the previous two nights after the incident with the chicken, the family opted to return to the hotel for an evening meal.

But they say they suffered the same misfortune as on the first night – claiming the minced beef was pink in the middle. They claim they were again told by a chef that there was nothing wrong with the food.

Kimberley says she herself suffered with an upset stomach on one of the nights. For the rest of the holiday, they purchased food elsewhere – setting them back another 500 euros (£430).

They then complained to a holiday rep and were moved from the infested room to a room Kimberley described as ‘really dated’.

She says the rep told her he’d have to contact the head office to resolve the complaint after the holiday.

With the Rhodes wildfires erupting just a week or so after their return to England, Kimberley said that while the family hadn’t heard anything regarding their trip, they understood that the fires would have been top priority for the company.

But then she received an email, almost a month later, which said: ‘I can see that you were offered compensation in resort that you have chosen not to accept. On this occasion, we will not be able to offer any compensation but we greatly appreciate your feedback.’

Mrs Tooth emailed back to allege that they had not been offered the refund in question.

But a response from TUI then said: ‘Thank you for your email. From reviewing the complaint and speaking to the necessary members of staff we will not be able to offer any compensation. If you are not happy with the outcome of the complaint then you can see further advice from ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents).’

TUI has been approached for comment.

For a long time, it was a mystery how Jho Low – a rather unassuming Malaysian businessman – became ingratiated with some of the biggest names in showbusiness.

However, when it was revealed that he was lavishing them with gifts, funding their projects and inviting them to Great Gatsby-esque parties across the globe, it became easier to understand why stars kept him around.

Instead, the mystery became how it was that Low could afford his free-spending lifestyle. There was one answer to this question, too: the embezzlement of 1MDB.

Several pictures captured Low rubbing shoulders with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Alicia Keys and Paris Hilton – suggesting that despite often looking out of his depth, he had a knack for making friends in high places.

The suit-wearing 41-year-old was educated at Harrow, one of England’s most exclusive public schools, and he showered movie stars, models and singers with gifts beyond imagining for anyone who doesn’t have access to billions of pounds.

For Australian beauty Miranda Kerr – understood to have been in a relationship with Low in 2014 – he splashed £6 million on jewellery and a crystal piano.

He also once told Kim Kardashian that she could keep his £200,000 casino winnings, and paid £800,000 to Britney Spears to jump out of his birthday cake.

Tales have also told of a single night in St Tropez where Low spent £1.5 million on Champagne, and of another occasion when he flew stars from a New Years Eve party in Australia to another in Las Vegas.

Perhaps his most notable associate was Leonardo DiCaprio – one of Hollywood’s biggest and most recognisable stars.

Low’s film production firm funded the actor’s 2013 box office hit The Wolf Of Wall Street, and he purchased a $30 million mansion close to DiCaprio’s in Hollywood.

He also gifted DiCaprio a £2.5 million Picasso painting and invited him to several parties.

However, Low’s high-flying world came crashing down around him in October 2016 when Interpol published a red notice at Singapore’s request to locate and arrest him.

He has since been charged in Malaysia and the United States for allegedly masterminding the theft of $4.5 billion from state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), and is an international fugitive.

He has consistently denied wrongdoing.

It was with this money, authorities say, that he purchased the extravagant gifts for the likes of Kerr and DiCaprio, bought properties and paid for debauched parties.

Now, a new documentary titled Man On The Run – set to be released in cinemas next Friday – has delved into his fraud.

The documentary is the culmination of years of digging into Low and his associates by British investigative journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown and America’s FBI, and has uncovered Low’s trail of corruption that added to Malaysia’s crippling debt.

A Malaysian-Chinese born on the island of Penang whose grandfather was from southern China’s Guangdong, Low once described himself on his website as a ‘global investor and philanthropist’ with experience in many companies, financings and projects in media, entertainment, retailing, hospitality and real estate. 

Educated at Harrow, the elite British prep school, and later at Wharton, his family is said to have made its fortune in mining, trading and garment manufacturing.

While at Harrow, he became friends with Riza Aziz, stepson of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who set up 1MDB to support the country’s economy.

But Najib was ousted in an election upset in 2018 after former leader Mahathir Mohamad, outraged by the scandal, came out of political retirement.

Mahathir reopened a probe into the 1MDB fund, and Najib is currently serving a 12 year prison sentence over his involvement. The Fugees rapper Pras Michel and two Goldman Sachs bankers have also been jailed over the 1MDB scandal.

However, the whereabouts of Low – who went on the run – remains unknown.

Malaysian authorities have previously said Low was believed to be in China, though Beijing has denied it. Others have suggested he is somewhere in the Middle East.

It means that to this day, he has not faced justice for the fraud.

Low first gained the attention of the public eye in 2009, the same year 1MDB was founded, when it was reported how he had sent 23 bottles of Champagne to Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan who was celebrating her 23rd birthday.

A year later, socialite Paris Hilton was seen sunbathing on his yacht in France, and in 2011 he invited stars including Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Jay-Z to a Beverly Hills party.

Documents recently released by the FBI also show that he once gave Kim Kardashian £83,000 to spend on fireworks, and how her ex-husband Kanye West was on the guest list to his 30th birthday party in Las Vegas in 2012.

A year later, he was snapped posing with Alicia Keys on a red carpet, on the way in to a charity ball in New York City.

But speaking to The Sun ahead of the release of the documentary, Rewcastle Brown says what caught her eye was Low’s involvement in Martin Scorsese’s Wolf Of Wall Street – a movie that is itself about financial fraud.

It was Low and Aziz’s Red Granite Pictures which released the film.

The reporter suspected the pair were getting the funds from 1MDB, which at the time was rumoured to be in deep debt.

‘I was waging a Twitter war with Leonardo DiCaprio from the launch of the movie, saying, ‘You better know there is suspicion about the money behind your movie’,’ Rewcastle Brown tells The Sun.

Instead, she was threatened with legal action and DiCaprio thanked Low in his Golden Globe speech when accepting the best actor award for his role in the film.

Despite the threats, Rewcastle Brown persisted with her reporting. 

This made her even more enemies, with Malaysia attempting to have her placed on the Interpol Red Notice list for the ‘terrorism’ of her journalism.

Thankfully, the international body refused.

Rewcastle Brown tells The Sun that she was also followed by private detectives and was even warned that her life was in danger.

Others were also targeted. 

In the documentary, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, 76, and whistle-blower Xavier Justo, 55, a Swiss banker, say they were jailed for exposing Low.

Eventually, Low’s extravagance caught up with him. In 2016, US special agents filed a civil lawsuit in a bid to reclaim billions stolen from the 1MDB fund.

They revealed £250 million had been spent on a yacht, £30 million on works of art, and £4 million on diamonds for Razak’s wife. 

The Department of Justice also traced $100 million from a deal with PetroSaudi to the purchase of properties in Hollywood, and $40 million to apartments in New York.

DiCaprio is reported to have returned the Picasso he was gifted by Low, as well as a Basquiat painting worth £7 million, while Kerr returned the jewellery.

The DoJ is also understood to have seized royalties from the Wolf Of Wall Street, as well as two other films Red Granite Pictures helped finance.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by any of the celebrities linked to Low.

It is now believed that Low was using his associations with big-name celebrities to help strike deals across the globe. Investigators have linked him to deals with China, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

In a trial this year of Fugees star Michel, he revealed that Low was also trying to influence politics in America, particularly related to the president.

Michel was accused of funnelling money from a now-fugitive Malaysian financier through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, then trying to squelch a Justice Department investigation and influence an extradition case on behalf of China under the Trump administration.

In May, a jury in Washington DC, found him guilty of all 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government.

Michel testified in his own defence. He said Low wanted a picture with Obama in 2012 and was willing to pay millions of dollars to get it.

Michel agreed to help and used some of the money he got to pay for friends to attend fundraising events. No one had ever told him that was illegal, he said.

DiCaprio, a former friend of Michel’s, gave evidence on behalf of prosecutors.

The rapper is currently awaiting sentencing.

Meanwhile, Malaysian former prime minister Razak is serving 12 years in jail. He nevertheless pins all the blame on Low, telling the upcoming documentary: ‘I trusted in the wrong people but the system failed me.’

As for the charges against Razak’s stepson and Low’s former associate Aziz, Malaysian prosecutors dropped them in May 2020 after reaching a settlement.

Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng was sentenced to ten years in prison in March, and his colleague Tim Leissner is awaiting sentencing.

But while those accused of helping Low suffer the consequences, the supposed mastermind behind the fraud remains on the run.

Reports suggest that Low fled to Antarctica on his yacht after he was first linked to the 1MDB fraud by US officials, and in 2019 some say he was spotted in Shanghai.

He has been rumoured to be in other locations including the United Arab Emirates.

Whether he will ever be brought to justice, remains to be seen.

Rewcastle Brown believes he may never be caught.

‘I’m very sceptical Jho Low is still with us,’ she told The Sun. 

‘He has so much toxic information about deals with China, and they can’t have him going to a Western court room to spill all this,’ she said.

Wilko paid out £77m to owners before collapse

• Chain was controlled by descendants of founder, James Kemsey Wilkinson
• Biggest payout was a £63m jackpot in 2015 
• Multi-million pound dividends continued even as company headed for rocks 

By Patrick Tooher

Published: 16:50 EDT, 12 August 2023 | Updated: 16:53 EDT, 12 August 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

SOCIETY

RENTAL PERSON WHO DOES NOTHING 

by Shoji Morimoto (Picador £14.99, 160pp)

‘I’m an amateur writer and at the moment I’m writing a novel. When I’m writing on my own, I often get a bit lazy, so I’d like someone to watch me. I wonder if you would sit in front of me while I work. I may say something to you occasionally, but basically I’d just like you to sit there and pass the time.’

This simple and somewhat odd request is commonplace for Shoji Morimoto, a 39-year-old freelance writer from Japan.

Many people dream of a life where they get paid to do nothing at all, or at least very little. This is a reality for Morimoto, aka Rental Person Who Does Nothing.

Dispirited by the monotony and repetition of his freelance writing work, and having quit every job he’s ever had and always been told he was a ‘do-nothing’ by former bosses and co-workers, Morimoto decided that, since he was so good at doing nothing, he may as well do it full-time.

He tweeted his idea, offering himself up as a service to be rented out, as long as it essentially involved doing… well, nothing. 

‘Maybe there’s a restaurant you want to go to, but you feel awkward going on your own. Maybe a game you want to play, but you’re one person short… I can’t do anything except give very simple responses.’ 

Within ten months, his 3,000 followers had jumped to 100,000 (he currently has more than 400,000) and he has since been hired by more than 4,000 people.

He initially charged just expenses for travel and food, but now, to avoid time wasters and to reduce the volume of requests, the price of Rental Person’s company is 10,000 yen — roughly £60.

Jobs can be straightforward, such as joining a client for an ice-cream soda — ‘I know how awkward it can be for a Japanese man to go into a cafe on his own and order an ice-cream soda, so I said “Yes” straight away’ — or accompanying someone when they go to file their divorce papers (‘It was an interesting day for me. I felt I’d accompanied her from one stage of life to the next’).

Others are less so, from being asked to visit someone in a suicide unit of a hospital after a drug overdose, to the man who hired him so he could share something he felt he couldn’t tell anyone else: that he’d killed someone.

‘Since then, I think I’ve looked at people in a different way, realising that even the most ordinary, upright-looking people are not what they seem.’

Some people find it easier to work or study if another person is there.

Others use Rental Person’s impending visit as an excuse to finally clean their homes after months of avoiding it.

And some are simply bored, lonely or want to be listened to.

Although Rental Person has undeniably helped many people, acting as a sort of companion, therapist and lunch date all rolled into one, he denies he is altruistic — and says this was the case even when he didn’t charge for his services.

‘I really want to avoid being thought of as a good person,’ Morimoto writes. ‘I’m absolutely not a good person and I don’t want people to expect me to be. Rental Person has been described as “a new-age gigolo” and “a new-age beggar”. I think being a gigolo or beggar are potential ways of relating to people, and the word “new” sounds good, so I feel quite positive about these comments.’

Although he didn’t actually write the book, as this would be ‘doing something’ — he was interviewed by a writer and editor and gave very simple responses — Morimoto has a detached charm and honest self-deprecation that means you can’t help but like him. ‘I have, as usual, done nothing. I have simply watched, with interest and surprise, as this book has developed.’

There’s a lovely irony that the man who was made to feel like a waste of space has ended up with such a fulfilling and unique job, and earned some £215,000, all from ‘doing nothing’.

Nurses will be given paid time away from the frontline so they can attend management courses and boost their chances of landing senior NHS roles.

Steve Barclay has promised to ‘improve the lives’ of nurses by giving them more chance to progress their career and protecting them from violence.

The health secretary’s olive branch comes as more than 300,000 Royal College of Nursing members are being balloted over industrial action with polls closing tomorrow.

Writing for the Daily Mail, he said he ‘deeply regrets’ recent strikes and wants nurses to be properly represented at the top of the health service, so they have more of a say in how it is run and make it a better place to work.

It is hoped the move will prevent more nurses leaving the profession and improve patient care.

Women fill nine in ten nursing roles but fewer than half of ‘very senior’ NHS manager posts, such as chief executives and directors.

Ministers have offered NHS staff – excluding doctors, dentists and very senior managers – a pay rise of 5 per cent for 2023/24, an average rise of 4.75 per cent for 2022/23 and a one-off bonus payment of up to £3,789.

They also promised to make improvements to non-pay issues.

However, while the deal was accepted by most health unions, the RCN rejected the offer and threatened further strikes in pursuit of a double-digit rise.

Pat Cullen, the RCN’s chief executive, has accused Mr Barclay of being sexist and denying her members a larger rise because they are predominantly female.

More than 650,000 appointments and operations have been cancelled as a result of NHS strikes by the likes of junior doctors, nurses and physiotherapists since December, causing waiting lists to surge to a record 7.4million.

Mr Barclay said: ‘Nurses do an outstanding job at keeping patients safe and went above and beyond the call of duty during the pandemic to care for our loved ones.

‘I deeply regret the strike action we have seen in recent months, which has been disruptive for both staff and patients, and I want to work constructively with unions to improve the lives of staff, starting with delivering the pay deal agreed in May.

‘This week I held a meeting with a group of frontline nurses working across the NHS, from intensive care to mental health, to hear directly from them what matters most.

‘The health and wellbeing of nurses is paramount to making the NHS a better place to work.

‘I want nurses to be given more chances to progress their career by better protecting their training time so they can rise to management levels, mentor newly qualified staff, and have a say in how the NHS is run.’

Mr Barclay said he plans to trial body-worn cameras in the health service and use AI to try to reduce violence against staff after figures showed there have been 6,500 sex attacks in hospitals in three years.

He said: ‘Any kind of violence against staff is unacceptable and should never be allowed to happen in the NHS.

‘I want to create a safe environment for staff, through body-worn camera trials and a national violence prevention.

‘I’ve heard first-hand about some of the vile behaviour staff are subject to and have asked the NHS to explore how to improve the quality of the data available on these incidents, including potentially using artificial intelligence to better identify trends, and working with the police to ensure appropriate action is taken, including prosecution to ensure the NHS is always safe for staff and patients.’

The cabinet minister said NHS staff are receiving the pay rise in their pay packets from this month, meaning a newly qualified nurse will see their salary go up by more than £2,750 over two years up to 2024.

He added: ‘This deal is not just about money though and I understand staffing pressures, professional development and workload are all reasons why nurses can feel undervalued.

‘The NHS will soon publish a long-term workforce plan to grow the number of nurses and improve retention.

‘We’re making progress with 44,000 more nurses working in the NHS compared to September 2019 – but I know there’s further to go.

‘I hope RCN members recognise this is a fair deal and decide it is time to bring industrial action to an end.

‘Whatever the outcome of their ballot I will continue to deliver changes and work with the NHS Staff Council to make the NHS a better place to work so staff can provide the best possible care to patients.’

An RCN spokesperson said: ‘The commitment from the government to improve career development – as well as tackling violence and safer staffing – is positive but nursing staff are eager to see clear progress and not more promises.

‘The simplest way to raise standards is with more nurses and yet there are record unfilled jobs – our professionals are concerned over the impact of low pay and stress driving more people out.

‘The RCN will continue this year to campaign for nursing staff and to hold government to its pledges on valuing our professionals, making the NHS safer and improving cafe for patients.’

A German adventurer who paid to see the wreck of the Titanic on the missing Titan submarine two years ago has called the voyage a ‘suicide mission’.

Arthur Loibl, 60, dived down 12,500 feet to the Atlantic wreck site in August 2021 and says he was ‘incredibly lucky’ to survive.

His story echos much that has been learned about the OceanGate tourist vessel since it vanished on Sunday, with past reports highlighting how many components were purchased off-the-shelf. It has also been revealed to have been uncertified to dive to the necessary depths to reach the Titanic.

Speaking to German tabloid Bild, Loibl recalls the first submarine they tried didn’t work and a second attempted dive had to be abandoned. He said parts fell off and the mission went into the water five hours late due to electrical problems.

This, Loibl suspects, could be the cause of the Titan’s disappearance.

‘It was a suicide mission back then!’ Loibl tells Bild. 

The German knows a thing or two about risk taking, too. He has previously travelled to the north and south pole, and flown over Russia in a MiG-29 fighter jet.

But out of all his adventures, ‘the Titanic was the most extreme,’ he says.

He paid 100,000 euros and booked the trip through an English company that organises special safaris, Bild reports. 

He says the start of the expedition was bumpy. 

‘The first submarine didn’t work, then a dive at 1,600 meters had to be abandoned. My mission was the 5th, but we also went into the water five hours late due to electrical problems,’ he recounts to the publication.

Shortly before the sub was launched, Loibl says the bracket of the stabilisation tube  – used to provide balance as the craft descends into the depths – fell off the vessel.

‘That was reattached with zip ties. That didn’t worry me,’ he tells Bild.

As for conditions inside the vessel, the adventurer says they were challenging.

On his voyage, he was joined by French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 73, and OceanGate’s CEO and pilot Stockton Rush, 61. 

Both are currently on the Titan and have been missing since Sunday, along with British adventurer Hamish Harding and Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.

Up to five passengers can be taken on the 22-foot long Titan. There are no seats, a single toilet (with a black curtain pulled across for ‘privacy’). At a depth of around 3,200 feet, sunlight can no longer penetrate the darkness of the ocean.

‘You need strong nerves, you mustn’t be claustrophobic and you have to be able to sit cross-legged for ten hours,’ Loibl says. ‘It must be hell down there. There’s only 2.50 meters of space, it’s four degrees, there’s no chair, no toilet.’

When he did reach the Titanic, however, he described a sense of euphoria. 

With Loibl inside, the Titan travelled around the wreck twice and once even touched down on its deck, he said, before making the return journey.

The German said he is closely following the news of the missing submersible and the search operation – which is rapidly running out of time. 

‘I feel bad, I’m nervous, I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I was incredibly lucky back then,’ he told Bild. Like many, he is hoping for a miracle.

For his next adventure, Loibl said he had hoped to fly into space with Virgin Galactic for $250,000. But after the ‘drama’ surrounding the missing Titan vessel, he said, ‘my whole pursuit of extremes is now in question’.

Family and friends of the missing passengers are in for an agonising 24 hours, as experts warn the ‘opportunity to find them alive’ is fading, with oxygen supplies within the submarine thought to be dwindling.

Titan lost communication with tour operators on Sunday while about 435 miles south of St John’s Newfoundland during its voyage off the coast of Canada.

Last night the discovery of loud banging noises sparked fresh hopes that the passengers were still alive and could be banging on the side of the craft to be detected on sonar.

But at 12,500ft below the surface, and with possibly just two vessels on Earth capable of rescuing them, time is running out to find the craft.

Experts have said rescuers searching for the orca-sized submersible are facing a gargantuan task that will test the limits of technical know-how, with only a very slight chance of success.

Teams from around the world are racing against the clock to locate the vessel before its oxygen runs out – with little more than a day’s supply left – as of midday on Wednesday.

But scouring a 20,000-square-kilometer area of the North Atlantic to a depth of more than two miles is not easy.

‘It’s pitch black down there. It’s freezing cold. The seabed is mud, and it’s undulating. You can’t see your hand in front of your face,’ Titanic expert Tim Maltin told NBC News Now. ‘It’s really a bit like being an astronaut going into space.’

US Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick told reporters Tuesday that his organization was coordinating the search.

But, he said, it was incredibly difficult and far beyond what the coast guard would normally tackle.

‘While the US Coast Guard has assumed the role of search and rescue mission coordinator, we do not have all of the necessary expertise and equipment required in a search of this nature,’ he said.

‘This is a complex search effort, which requires multiple agencies with subject matter expertise and specialised equipment.’

Frederick added that rescuers were using several methods as they comb the area for the Titan, which lost contact with its mothership just two hours into its dive.

‘The search efforts have focused on both surface with C-130 aircraft searching by sight and with radar, and subsurface with P-3 aircraft, we’re able to drop and monitor sonar buoys.’

So far, the searches have proved fruitless.

The effort was being augmented Tuesday by a huge pipe-laying vessel, which has a remotely operated vehicle expected to be deployed at Titan’s last known position.

Jules Jaffe, who was part of the team that found the Titanic in 1985, said there were two likely explanations for the sub’s disappearance. ‘It’s either a mechanical failure, or an electrical failure,’ he told AFP news agency in La Jolla, California.

‘I’m hoping it’s an electrical failure, because they do have weights, one of the safety procedures that they have is to make themselves lighter. So if you’re heavier than the water, you sink, if you’re lighter than the water you float.’

Jaffe, a research oceanographer at the University of San Diego, said rescuers would be looking on the surface, in the water column and on the seafloor.

‘The worst place for them to be would be on the seafloor, which would imply that the vehicle itself either imploded or got tangled somehow.’

Adding to the challenge is the enormous pressure four kilometers under water, around 400 times what it is on the surface. Such pressures put huge strains on equipment and very few vessels can survive these depths.

Nuclear submarines generally operate at just 300 meters, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Jamie Pringle, a professor of forensic geosciences at Keele University in Britain, said if the mini-sub had settled on the ocean floor, it could be very difficult to spot.

‘The bottom of the ocean is not flat; there are lots of hills and canyons,’ Pringle said, according to NBC.

Further complicating the seafloor prognosis is the debris field from the Titanic itself – the very thing the adventurers had gone to see.

‘It’s a mangled wreck, with probably all kinds of treacherous things which would not be very friendly for a small boat,’ said Jaffe.

‘The opportunities for finding them in a mangled wreck within the next 36 hours, I think are practically impossible.’

If you’re obsessed with Jurassic Park, then you might love the idea of hunting dinosaurs for a living. 

But this real-life fossil hunter says that his job isn’t for the faint-of-heart.

Whether he’s braving the blazing sun of the ominously named Hell Creek Formation, or dodging floods to retrieve T-Rex skulls, no one can say that Anthony Maltese has opted for a cushy job.

As curator for the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center (RMDRC) in Colorado, Mr Maltese splits his time between digging for dinosaurs in the field and carefully preparing specimens for display in museums and private collections across the world.

In the ‘dig season’ between late March all the way through to late November, Mr Maltese might spend up to two weeks living out of a tent deep in the deserts of North Dakota or Montana.

‘It’s not comfortable,’ he told MailOnline, ‘especially when you only have one shower a week in some of the places we work.’

‘When we drive up to Montana, it’s 12 hours in the back of a pickup truck just to get to the site. Then when the gnats, and the mosquitos and ticks are all biting you, it can be pretty miserable out there.’

Neither, as Mr Maltese explained, does all this misery come cheap.

‘When I was in academia 25 years ago, we were budgeting $10,000 a week to run a field programme. Nowadays we’ll drop $20-25,000 a week just going out and looking for dinosaurs.’

Mr Maltese is employed by a RMDRC and Triebold Paleontology, a commercial fossil collector founded by Mike Triebold, to collect new specimens and make casts to sell to collectors.

Prospective buyers can approach Triebold Paleontology to source rare fossils – with some costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

From dedicated fossil quarries in the heart of the USA to dog walkers on the beaches of England’s Jurassic coast; collectors and museums alike rely on private individuals to fill their shelves with new specimens.

Tyrannosaurus Rex bones in particular have commanded extraordinary prices at auction in recent years, with a T-Rex skeleton made up of three different specimens fetching $6.1m (£4.9m) at an auction this April.

Other dinosaurs have been sold for even more outstanding prices.

In 2020, the skull of Stan the T-Rex broke the record for the most expensive fossil ever sold when it went for $31.8m (£25.5m) to a mysterious bidder, later revealed to have been Abu Dhabi museum.

Here in the UK, in 2014 the Natural History Museum enlisted the help of 69 private donors to acquire the world’s most complete Stegosaurus.

‘Sophie’, which was purchased from the Red Canyon Ranch in Wyoming, is even believed to be named after the daughter of the wealthy hedge fund manager who made the purchase possible.

Mr Maltese, alongside the team at Triebold Palaeontology, collects specimens as well as producing casts and replicas for sale at lower prices, but says that around 90% of their customers are museums.

How much an individual dinosaur specimen will sell for varies depending on the species as well as the condition and completeness of the find.

Sometimes, Mr Maltese says that the fossils are sold for just enough to pay back the landowner and cover costs, while others will go for ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’.

However, Mr Maltese says neither himself, nor anyone he works with is in this for the money.

‘When you consider a 30ft long Triceratops, and how many thousands of hours of labour that we have to put into it, there’s not really a high profit margin because it costs a lot of money.’

In some cases, ‘we don’t make money off it, but we can be involved with the publication of these specimens,’ he added.

‘It’s more valuable to get them into the public trust then to try to hang onto them for 20 years in the hope that somebody may want to purchase them.’

When asked what keeps him doing this difficult job Mr Maltese said ‘part of what keeps me going is the thrill. But a bit of it, and I hate to say it, is that working with some of these academics is a lot of fun too!’

‘I love to be able to go out with someone whose entire PhD is on these three feet of rock that’s exposed here, and they can just immerse you in that and tell you everything. That exchange of ideas is extremely satisfying as well.’

Mr Maltese likened his relationship with academics to the fishing industry, with commercial palaeontologists acting like big fishing ships; pulling up lots of types of fish as they go after valuable species.

‘There’s a lot of species that are academically valuable, but not commercially valuable. We call that by-catch, so we can work together with the academics.’

However, the relationship between academics and commercial palaeontologists is not always as harmonious.

Dr Susannah Maidment, principal dinosaur researcher at the National History Museum, told MailOnline that while private collectors are critical for the museum, they can also create problems.

‘In the UK,the amateurs are absolutely critical because they are the people who are out on the coast every day. When there’s a big cliff fall or storm, they are the people who are there,’ she explained.

Dr Maidment says that a lot of collectors, particularly on the Isle of Wight where dinosaur bones can often be found, are very keen to donate items and ‘really would like to see their specimens go to a national museum.

However, relying on private collectors can be a ‘double edged sword’ as some collectors want to keep items for their own personal collections.

An essential aspect of the scientific process, Dr Maidment explained, is the ability to replicate research.

‘I can look at a specimen that was described in 1875 by Richard Owen, who founded the Natural History Museum. Because that’s in our collection and I can go back and check those observations,’ she said.

‘However, in private collections we have no guarantee about where those specimens are going to be and there have been cases where specimens simply disappear.’

On top of scientists not being able to access specimens, another issue with commercial palaeontology is that it can be hard to keep track of exactly where dinosaurs were found.

‘The precise location of where specimens are found is extremely significant if we wish to understand how dinosaurs changed over time. This is one of the biggest problems with buying specimens,’ Dr Maidment explained.

The exact location of a find is so critical that Dr Maidment once had to travel to Morocco and ‘work my way back down the commercial trade’ to track down the farmer who originally discovered a particularly important specimen.

While ethical collectors such as Mr Maltese work closely with academics on digs to ensure that finds are properly document, Dr Maidment says that commercial collection can still cause problems by inflating the price of fossils.

‘The problem is that those sorts of big commercial organizations is that they’re driving up the price of fossils for everybody,’ she said

‘People are buying them not because they have an interest in natural history but because they want to diversify their assets in the way that they might buy a piece of art.

‘When specimens are sold for $32m [£4.90] this puts them so fundamentally out of reach that not even the biggest American museums can acquire them. For that price we can’t come anywhere near close to that.’

However, both Dr Maitment and Mr Maltese agree that a better relationship is possible and that an all-out ban on commercial collection isn’t the way forward.’

‘I grew up looking at Ammonites on the Charmouth and that was a big part of the inspiration for what I do,’ said Dr Maitment.

‘We want to inspire people to understand nature and their impact on the natural world and I don’t think we can do that if we put an absolutely blanket ban in place.

‘It’s not black and white so some sort of nuance is needed because people get very very passionate about one camp or another.’

Likewise, Mr Maltese says he thinks commercial and academic palaeontologists might have more in common than they might tend to think.

‘I came from the academic side of it,’ he said. ‘When you get down to basics, the professor from the college is still someone that is paid to work on dinosaurs.

‘Selling the specimen is not the end game. My end game is going to a museum and seeing what I’ve worked so hard to find, excavate, prepare, and mount on display whether it’s here, or halfway across the world.’

A neurologist paid up to $20,000 a year by biotech companies has been removed from a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee.

Dr David Weisman was removed as a temporary voting member by the agency after he was found to have financial ties to Eisai and Biogen – biotech companies behind a controversial Alzheimer’s drug.

The drug lecanemab, sold under Leqembi, received accelerated approval in January, but concerns over side effects and effectiveness have since emerged.

Dr Weisman, a Pennsylvania-based scientist, revealed he was no longer on the committee in a tweet Monday, which caught the attention of medical professionals who cited his incentive-cause bias toward Lecanemab. 

The FDA told DailyMail.com in a statement: ‘Similar to personnel matters, the FDA does not comment on matters related to individual members of an advisory committee.’ 

Dr Weisman is still employed by Eisai and Biogen behind the drug, which the committee is due to consider for approval later this week. 

The companies also developed the drug aducanumab — or Aduhelm — which has proved controversial over clinical data and its approval.

Dr Weisman, who works at Abington Neurological Associates, did not respond to a DailyMail.com request for comment. 

He tweeted Monday: ‘I’m not on [the committee] — for entirely unrelated reasons,’ he said in response to a post about his membership.

‘Even being considered was a great honor. I hoped to be worthy of the patients and science.’

In April, the neurologist was approved as a temporary voting member of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee (PCNS).

The FDA said at the time that he was needed for his ‘extensive experience’ and ‘unique qualifications’.

The agency stated in a waiver document: ‘Any potential for a conflict of interest is greatly outweighed by the strong need for Dr. Weisman’s expertise in this matter.’

But he has now been removed from the committee before its meeting on Lecunemab set for June 9.

Lecanemab works by removing a sticky protein from the brain that is believed to cause Alzheimer’s disease to advance. 

In a trial that involved 1,795 participants with early-stage, symptomatic Alzheimer’s, lecanemab slowed clinical decline by 27 percent after 18 months of treatment compared with those who received a placebo, Yale Medicine reports.

Christopher van Dyck, MD , director of Yale’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Unit, shared that the most significant side effect is an infusion-related reaction, which may include transient symptoms, such as flushing, chills, fever, rash, and body aches.

There is also the possibility of amyloid-related imaging abnormalities with edema, or fluid formation on the brain, which Yale reports occurred in 12.6 percent of trial participants compared to 1.7 percent in the placebo group.

The third issue was amyloid-related imaging abnormalities with brain bleeding, found among 17.3 percent of trial participants.

‘The medication’s label includes warnings about brain swelling and bleeding and that people with a gene mutation that increases their risk of Alzheimer’s disease are at greater risk of brain swelling on the treatment,’ according to Yale Medicine. 

A waiver document revealed Dr Weisman was paid up to $15,000 a year by Biogen for advising on Aducanumab and helping to research the drug.

He also earned up to $5,000 per year by Eisai for his involvement in the Phase II study of the drug lecanemab, which involves patients that visit his practice.

Dr Weisman was also one of the dozens of signatories of a letter to the FDA published in May that urged it to approve lecanemab.

Lecanemab has proved controversial because it received accelerated approval status from the FDA despite concerns that it was too expensive — at $26,500 per year.

At the time, the FDA also considered it only ‘reasonably likely’ that the drug would help fight the disease. 

Phase III trials have now shown that it slows memory decline by 27 percent, and they are due to decide whether or not to approve the drug next month.

It comes after the agency faced warnings that its poor reputation was preventing it from shutting down misinformation online.

It has recently come under fire for its Covid booster rollout, slow response to the baby formula crisis and for working too closely with biotech companies.

Experts say the litany of scandals has undermined public trust in the agency, which will be an uphill battle to rebuild.

Dr Seema Yasmin, a medical misinformation expert at Stanford University in California, said: ‘The question I start with is, ‘are you a trusted messenger or not?’

‘In the context of the FDA, we can highlight multiple incidents which have damaged the credibility of the agency and deepened distrust of its scientific decisions.’

Dr Leticia Bode, a misinformation expert at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., added: ‘It’s not fair, but it doesn’t take too many negative stories to unravel the public’s trust.’

Tesco’s boss Ken Murphy was paid more than £4m last year even as shoppers faced soaring food prices

By Mark Shapland For The Daily Mail

Published: 16:50 EDT, 12 May 2023 | Updated: 16:50 EDT, 12 May 2023

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