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As the final seconds expired in Minnesota’s Game 7 victory against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals, Karl-Anthony Towns processed an onslaught of emotions.

The Timberwolves’ first conference finals appearance in two decades; the responsibility Towns felt for getting the team into this position; his commitment to the franchise and the Twin Cities; the blame he absorbed in season’s when the Timberwolves didn’t reach expectations; the loss of his mom, Jacqueline, from COVID-19 in 2020, and the all-important role he played in Game 7.

It was a fitting conclusion to the series for Towns, who had 22 points and 12 rebounds and played outstanding defense on NBA MVP Nikola Jokic.

After a 36-46 season in 2018-19, Towns posted on social media, “Minny deserves better. I plan to give it to them.” Five years later, through sorrow, joy, recovery and rediscovery, Towns delivered.

“It's a feeling that I've been waiting for a long time just to have that moment,” Towns told USA TODAY Sports. “When those closing seconds came and you really could sense the game was ours, the feeling of jubilation was something special. It was just a culmination of a lot of hard work, dedication and perseverance finally materializing to something great.”
Dallas took Game 1 of the conference finals and Game 2 is Friday (8:30 p.m. ET, TNT).

"We're going to have to find a way to even play more Timberwolves basketball for a longer set of time," Towns said. "Our discipline has to go up a level. Our execution has to go up a level. Our composure has to be at an all-time high. We have to have a championship mettle to us."

Towns was fantastic against Denver, averaging 18.6 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.0 assists and shooting 51% from the field and 39.4% on 3-pointers. His defense proved effective on Jokic. When Towns was the primary defender, Jokic shot 43.6% from the field and 19% on 3-pointers in the seven games compared to his regular-season averages of 58.3% and 35.9%.

The Timberwolves don't win Game 7 without Towns' performance.
“When you have a three-time MVP, it's going to be a team effort,” Towns said. “You do your best to contain and do your best to utilize your God-given talents and intangibles to guard him.

“When you know that you have the support behind you that I do – Rudy Gobert is four-time Defensive Player of the Year and Jaden McDaniels is a future (DPoY) – you feel comfortable being really aggressive in your defense knowing your teammates got your back.”

'That special thing that special teams have'
Listening to Towns and seeing the results, his growth as a leader is obvious and necessary. When he talks about 2023-24 being the best season of his career, it’s not just because he averaged 21.8 points, 8.3 rebounds and shot 50.4% from the field and 41.6% on 3-pointers. Those aren’t career highs. But the Timberwolves are in the conference finals for the first time since 2004.

“I've been able to impact this team's success in winning in a much higher way than I have in years before,” said Towns, who was an All-Star for the fourth time this season. “So it's about winning. For me to find the best way I can utilize myself for team success is what makes this my best year.”

He throws praise in all directions and wants everyone associated with the franchise to feel a part of the success – from Anthony Edwards to the ticket salesperson to the gameday usher. The feeling of “team” is something that took hold in his one college season at Kentucky in 2014-15.

Then-Wildcats coach John Calipari recruited talented players who could’ve starred elsewhere and averaged more points to sacrifice.

“I see that a lot in our team now, that unity, that cohesiveness, that togetherness, that special thing that special teams have,” Towns said. “It's a selflessness that you need to be willing to win a championship. And I think that's what makes this team so special this year is that there's such a selflessness.”

Re-discovering the love of the game
Towns’ perspective is shaped by life experiences. The loss of his mother in the early days of the pandemic, shattered Towns. She was just 59 years old.

“In a world that was putting so much weight on my shoulders, she allowed me to take that backpack off with the rocks in it and be weightless and that was gone,” Towns said.

Dark days followed. The light had trouble finding its way in, the joy seemed far away and he drifted from his connection to basketball – all understandable in grief.

Towns prioritized his mental health through self-care, and with time, he rediscovered his love of basketball. He wasn’t afraid to express his feelings and invested time in people and projects meaningful to him.

“I had to learn how to take care of myself mentally at the highest level when the things that had brought me peace and had brought me mental stability weren't there anymore,” he said.

On the day of this interview nearly 24 hours before the Timberwolves opened the Western Conference finals against the Mavericks, Towns was home and celebrating an anniversary with his girlfriend Jordyn Woods. They planned to eat dinner at home and then decide what to watch – a movie or TV show.

“This is where my experience kicks in,” Towns explained. “Basketball's what I love, it's what I do, but it's not who I am. And I understand that.”

KAT's voice for change
Last week, Towns was given the NBA’s 2023-24 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award for “for his dedication to pursuing social justice and upholding Abdul-Jabbar and the league’s decades-long values of equality, respect and inclusion.”

He pushed for a bill that restores voting rights to formerly incarcerated individuals, was a producer on the documentary "Forgiving Johnny," which explores how technology and diversion programs can help developmentally challenged defendants. He is also a board member on the National Basketball Social Justice Coalition which aims to “promote policy, build strategic partnerships, and empower action in NBA markets across the nation,” and his fundraising effort for the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities is helping young people get access to mental wellness support.

Towns said he was speechless when he watched a video of Abdul-Jabbar informing him he was the recipient of the award.

“Being able to share my mother's love with the world is something I always want to do, and it's the gift that I'm blessed to say has kept giving and it's been something that's helped a lot of kids and families' lives.” Towns said. “And I'm forever thankful for the teachings and lessons she gave me and teaching me the meaning of the word love.”

The Senate will vote Thursday on a border security bill that is dividing the Democratic caucus and failed earlier this year, exposing rifts within the party even as they try to shift the narrative on border security.

As immigration remains top of mind for voters, the White House and top congressional Democrats have discussed a series of moves aimed at strengthening their hand on border security ahead of the first presidential debate next month. Sources say those talks included reviving the stalled border security measure that initially failed after former President Donald Trump told GOP lawmakers to knock it down.

Democrats have pointed to the failure of the bill – which was negotiated on a bipartisan basis – to argue that Republicans are not serious about trying to fix problems at the southern border and are ready to ramp up that argument after the bill stalls out a second time as expected.

But without Ukraine tied to the measure, some Democrats and immigrant advocates are casting it as purely political and taking issue with key elements of the bill – one of the toughest border measures in recent memory. It’s a dynamic that threatens to undermine the messaging effort from Democrats and the White House.

“I will not vote for the bill coming to the Senate floor this week because it includes several provisions that will violate Americans’ shared values. These provisions would not make us safe,” Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday.

Booker voted to advance the bill in February when it failed 49-50. In his statement, Booker noted that the first time around the bill also included “critical foreign and humanitarian aid.”

Republicans have largely dismissed the vote as a political move for vulnerable Democrats to seek political cover over a major issue in the run-up to the November elections.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer acknowledged over the weekend that not every Democrat may vote for the bill in a letter to colleagues. Sixty votes are needed to break a GOP filibuster attempt. Democrats only have 51 votes total and most Republicans have already said they plan to vote against the effort.

The border bill was a topic of discussion Tuesday during Democrats’ closed door party lunch as members debated the merits of bringing up a bill that has already failed to advance in the Senate. A source in the room told CNN that the vast majority were supportive, but that there were holdouts.

Sen. Alex Padilla, who opposed the bill the first time around, said he will vote against the bill when it comes to the floor on Thursday.

“It’s also not lost on me that the last time we were here, a lot of people mentioned this was the price they were willing to pay for the sake of Ukraine funding. That is no longer the case,” Padilla said, acknowledging that something needs to be done to address the border. “This should not be the Democratic starting point for border security.”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said the fact there may be internal backlash incentivizes some moderates: “Frankly, the fact that some of our most progressive members don’t vote for it, in my mind, is an indication that it really was a true bipartisan, tough bill,” he said.

If passed, the bill would dramatically change immigration law for the first time in decades. It includes, for example, a new emergency authority to restrict border crossings if daily average migrant encounters reach a certain level, raises the legal standard of proof to pass the initial screening for asylum and expedites the asylum processing timeline, among other measures.

Most Republicans view the vote as largely a messaging exercise for Democrats. But Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who previously voted for the bill, indicated she could back the bill again, despite calling the process “dumb.”

“If I thought it was good enough to vote for before, what changed?” Murkowski said. “Explain what is going on to someone who is not in this building. They think we’re nuts.”

But Republican Sen. James Lankford, a key negotiator on the border bill, said he’ll vote against the measure Thursday. “It’s no longer a bill. It’s a prop,” he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Tuesday.

Democrats have sought to shift blame onto Republicans for not securing the border, citing their decision to walk away from a measure that restricted migrants’ ability to seek asylum at the US southern border, among other restrictions.

The message became a winning one in New York’s third congressional district in February when Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi went on offense on immigration and won the seat.

The absence of foreign aid and inclusion of what some immigrant advocates describe as sharp policy has turned up the volume on criticism.

“It is unconscionable and deeply disappointing for Senator Murphy to be championing these policies that will simply not work, and for Leader Schumer, the senator from the home to the Statue of Liberty, to be pushing for this vote,” Robyn Barnard, senior director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First, told CNN.

“The American public were told these harsh policies were necessary to secure Ukraine funding earlier in the year, what is their excuse for adopting anti-immigrant policies now?” Barnard said.

The pressure on Congress also reflects the limited tools the administration has at its disposal to affect the situation on the ground over the next few months.

“We recognize that there are limits to what any administration can do in this space with executive action,” one senior administration official said. “What we really need here and we continue to call for is for Congress to do its job and to take up and pass the Senate bipartisan border security legislation.”

Senior administration officials are bracing for the potential that border crossings will surge this summer, like in previous years and are trotting out a series of policy changes to try to dissuade migrants from journeying to the US – and convince skeptical voters they are working to tighten up immigration at the border.

“All of the factors that have been driving this unprecedented movement of people all over the world remain and we continue to be very vigilant and work, night and day to try to put policies in place that will mitigate its impact on our border,” this senior official said.

Discussions are ongoing on rolling out a border executive action, according to sources, who say that one of the considerations is doing so after Mexico’s election in early June and potentially before the first presidential debate.

It’s all part of a broader strategy to remind voters they have a plan, Democrats say.

“We’ve seen some pretty encouraging polling that indicates that once people know what we have the strongest, bipartisan border bill in generations and we are prepared to do real and tough things that moderates are willing to change their view about Democrats and border security,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii.

“It’s a good bill and it is something that needs attending to. That’s our job. Let’s bring it up,” said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

When Kenyan President William Ruto touched down in Beijing seven months ago, he was welcomed on the tarmac with a red carpet and cordons of Chinese troops standing at attention. Among the goals of his three-day state visit in October: securing another $1 billion in loans from China to help complete infrastructure projects.

On Wednesday, when he arrived at Joint Base Andrews to begin another state visit – this time to Washington – he again found a red carpet and troops. This time, however, a special emissary was sent to greet his plane: first lady Dr. Jill Biden.

President Joe Biden is leaning on the highest trappings of American diplomacy this week to boost ties with the East African nation, including designating Kenya a major non-NATO ally – the first in sub-Saharan Africa – and hosting a sunset state dinner on the White House South Lawn.

Looming over the pomp and circumstance is China’s expanding role in Africa, which has become a central testing ground for the world’s two largest economies as they jockey for economic and geopolitical influence.

Senior administration officials acknowledge a central factor in scheduling a state visit with Kenya was the desire to counter China’s influence and financial leverage on the African continent, which has outpaced the United States in direct investment.

For decades, China has been making high-interest loans to low-income African nations to help them fund development for domestic projects, including some flagship infrastructure projects within China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Among those: A high-speed rail route from Nairobi to Mombasa that the Kenyan government funded with billions in loans from Chinese state banks.

From 2000 to 2022, Beijing lent $170 billion to African nations – including $6.7 billion to Kenya – to fund these initiatives, according to Boston University’s Chinese Loans to Africa database. Those loans saddled Africa with costly debt that countries have been increasingly unable to service, leading many nations to seek relief from their sovereign lenders.

Now, African countries are faced with the choice of servicing their debt and advancing their development.

“That’s a tough spot for them to be in,” a senior US official said. “We would like to see them be able to meet their own ambitions.”

During the state visit, the US and Kenya are set to announce the “Nairobi-Washington Vision,” calling on creditor countries – and likely China in particular – to provide grants, budget support and debt suspension to help alleviate the burden.

Ruto, meanwhile, has called on African leaders to lean more heavily on Western nations and lower-interest loans from the World Bank to fund their development.

“There’s some real China fatigue in Africa,” said a former senior administration official. “The administration sees an opening there.”

And the US has already begun stepping into that opening. At the Group of 20 summit last year, the US and European Union announced they would back the buildout of a rail corridor connecting Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia that would facilitate the transit of the region’s critical minerals back to the West.

In his meetings with Biden, Ruto has sought to emphasize Kenya – and the broader African continent – as an area worthy of investment. In a gathering of CEOs on Wednesday at the White House, he told his American counterpart that old perceptions of the continent were changing.

“You’re all past thinking about Africa as a place of war and destruction instead of opportunity, and we’re making that real,” Ruto told the president during the meeting, according to a senior US administration official who paraphrased the leader’s remark.

Still, Ruto’s visit to Washington comes at a moment of political instability in many African countries. Military coups over the last year have toppled governments and underscored a fragile rule of law, while traditional American allies on the continent have demonstrated new willingness to break from the United States. One of the goals of Thursday’s state visit is to demonstrate the ability of democracies – like Kenya’s – to deliver for their people.

Biden, who hosted African leaders at the White House for a summit earlier in his term, has been consumed since then by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. Since the December 2022 gathering, during which he declared he was “all in” on Africa, he’s hosted only one African leader for talks at the White House: Angolan President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço.

“It’s no secret that the world has had a lot going on the last year and a half,” a senior administration official said this week, pointing to a stream of Cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials who have visited Africa as a sign of the Biden team’s commitment.

Yet the spate of foreign conflicts has prevented Biden himself from paying a visit, which he vowed to do within a year of the summit. He still intends to travel to Africa as president, his national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Wednesday, though he couldn’t say when.

Biden said as he welcomed Ruto to the White House on Wednesday he planned to visit Africa next year – after, he hopes, securing reelection.

“I plan on going in February,” Biden told reporters. It wasn’t clear whether Biden was joking; he asked afterward how questions about his travel plans were “relevant.”

Relevant or not, a presidential trip to Africa would come only after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the continent last year for talks with leaders of the BRICS emerging economies.

Advisers say Biden remains intent on focusing attention on Africa, particularly amid jockeying for strategic influence from Russia and China. A comparison with former President Donald Trump – who privately referred to some African countries as “shitholes” and never himself visited Africa when in office – is also not lost on Biden’s aides.

Thursday’s state visit to Washington will be the first for an African leader since 2008.

“We believe that what today will showcase is not questions about the US commitment but answers that the US is actually delivering for Africa, for the African people – in this case, for the country of Kenya, but also with Kenya for the broader continent,” Sullivan said Wednesday.

In choosing Kenya for Thursday’s state visit, Biden and his team are signaling they view Ruto and his country as among the most critical US allies in a region where allegiances toward Washington have shifted.

Kenya has been a key partner for the US in combatting al-Shabab militants in neighboring Somalia and earlier this year joined a US-led international coalition meant to beat back attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Kenya is also preparing to deploy 1,000 paramilitary police officers to Haiti in a bid to quell gang violence, a mission largely funded by the United States.

This week, a delegation of Kenyan “command staff” arrived in Haiti, according to a law enforcement source in the country, ahead of the Kenyan-led multinational security support force. The delegation was expected to assess this week whether equipment and facilities for the foreign police forces are ready – an assessment that will be decisive in determining a timeline for the deployment, a source with knowledge of the preparations told CNN.

Despite strong support from the US and other regional powers, however, the mission has been mired in uncertainty and legal challenges for months. It was further delayed following the resignation of former Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in March, until the creation of a transitional governing council.

“This is not something that is a completely straight line. It is a dynamic operating environment, to say the least, in Haiti, and this is going to require an adaptive, flexible approach but one guided by certain core functions and operations,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.

Republican lawmakers in states across the U.S. have been rejecting Democrats’ efforts to protect or expand access to birth control, an issue Democrats are promoting as a major issue in this year’s elections along with abortion and other reproductive rights concerns.

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, pushed the issue into the political spotlight this week when he said in an interview that he was open to supporting restrictions on contraception before he reversed course and said he “has never and never will” advocate to restrict access to birth control. He went further in the post on his social media platform, saying “I do not support a ban on birth control, and neither will the Republican Party.”

But recent moves in governor’s offices and state legislatures across the country tell a more complicated story about Republicans’ stances on contraception amid what reproductive rights advocates warn is a slow chipping away of access.
“Contraception is not as straightforward an issue for the GOP as Trump’s statement suggests,” said Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law and a leading abortion politics scholar. “That’s why a lot of right-to-contraception bills have been failing in both Congress and the states. Contraception is more contested than most people understand it to be.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he wants a vote as soon as next month on a bill to protect access to contraception that is similar to one the U.S. House passed in 2022 when Democrats controlled the chamber. Even if that legislation fails to surmount the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster hurdle, it will put Republicans on record on an issue that resonates personally with a wide swath of the electorate.

Voters already have shown they broadly support abortion rights, even in conservative states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio where they have sided with abortion rights advocates on ballot measures over the past two years. Legislative tangling over contraception access has been less visible, but that has begun to change as the abortion debate begins to branch off to other areas of reproductive rights.
Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, vetoed bills from the Democratic-controlled Legislature that would have protected the right to contraception, saying he supports the right to it but that “we cannot trample on the religious freedoms of Virginians.” He also said in his veto message that the measure would have interfered with the rights of parents.

A Missouri women’s health care bill was stalled for months over concerns about expanding insurance coverage for birth control after some lawmakers falsely conflated birth control with medication abortion. In March, Arizona Republicans unanimously blocked a Democratic effort to protect the right to contraception access, and Tennessee Republicans blocked a bill that would have clarified that the state’s abortion ban would not affect contraceptive care or fertility treatments.
Indiana adopted a law that requires hospitals to offer women who receive Medicaid coverage long-term reversible implantable contraceptives after giving birth — but only after stripping IUDs from the bill. That move was made over objections from Democrats and some healthcare providers.

Oklahoma’s Republican-controlled legislature advanced legislation many reproductive rights advocates warned could ban emergency contraception and IUDs. And on Tuesday, the same day Trump made his statements to a Pittsburgh television station, Louisiana lawmakers advanced a measure that would make it a crime to possess two abortion-inducing drugs without a prescription, although pregnant women would be exempted.
“If you look at the policies that have been moving in states since the fall of Roe, we are seeing Republicans dismantle reproductive rights, including contraceptives,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

Dr. Gabriel Bosslet, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, raised concerns about some Republican arguments in favor of restricting access to contraceptives. He said, for example, that some anti-abortion groups have called on lawmakers to treat emergency contraception — such as IUDs — differently from barrier methods of contraception such as condoms by falsely labeling them as “abortifacients,” claiming that they induce abortions.

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Emergency contraception also is referred to as an “abortifacient” in the GOP’s Project 2025 playbook, which is a blueprint for ways to reshape the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win this year.

“This is part of a slow chipping away of contraception access,” said Bosslet, who testified against the Indiana bill.

In Wisconsin, Democrats introduced a bill that was intended to protect contraception access last year, but it never got so much as a hearing in either the GOP-controlled state Assembly or state Senate before the two-year session ended in March. Senate Democrats tried to pull the bill from committee in February and force a floor vote, but all the chamber’s 22 Republicans voted against the move.

Asked Wednesday why the bill never got traction, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, a Republican, said his caucus would rarely let Democrats make such a move regardless of the topic, though he also said he wasn’t familiar with the details of the measure. After a reporter read parts of the bill to him, LeMahieu said the legislation seemed redundant.

“People can already get contraception,” he said. “Not sure why we’d need to pass that bill.”

About half the states have had legislation this year to establish a legal right to contraception, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports reproductive rights. As of May 1, the group found, the only state where one of those measures passed either legislative chamber was Virginia — though the bill was ultimately vetoed by the Republican governor.

Parental involvement in teens’ birth control access also has become a point of contention since an April ruling upheld a Texas law requiring teens to get parental consent. Reproductive rights advocates have warned the ruling could open the door for other states to restrict teens’ ability to access contraception. Meanwhile, efforts to place emergency contraceptives or “morning after” pill vending machines on college campuses also have sparked outrage from anti-abortion groups.

While Trump has sent mixed messages on reproductive rights, President Joe Biden has attacked his positions and highlighted their potential consequences. The Biden campaign this week warned that Trump, in light of the comments his campaign later walked back, would support other states taking similar action to restrict access to contraceptives.

“If Donald Trump returns to office, this terrifying agenda could spread across the country,” Ellie Schilling, a Tulane Law School professor, said on a conference call with reporters.

On that same call, Biden supporters noted that when the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a concurring opinion that troubled reproductive freedom advocates. He suggested that the court also reconsider previous opinions that prohibited bans on contraceptives, sodomy and same-sex marriage.

Ziegler, the UC Davis law school professor, said the same legal reasoning behind the decision to overturn Roe could be used against contraception access. If anti-abortion groups make the false argument that certain contraception methods induce abortion, she said they might be able to use the Comstock Act to try to restrict the distribution of materials related to contraception. The 19th-century law has been revived by anti-abortion groups seeking to block the abortion drug mifepristone from being sent through the mail.

“We’re seeing a borrowing of the anti-abortion playbook and seeing incremental attacks on contraception,” she said.

One passenger died and 71 people were injured when their Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore encountered severe turbulence Tuesday, throwing passengers and crew around the cabin and forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Bangkok.

The Boeing 777-300ER was about 10 hours into its flight and midway through meal service when it hit turbulence while flying over Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Basin, according to the airline.

Andrew Davies, a passenger onboard flight SQ321 who was traveling to New Zealand for business, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that it had been a “perfectly normal” flight when the seatbelt sign came on and seconds later “all hell broke loose.”

“The plane just felt like it dropped. It probably only lasted a few seconds but I remember vividly seeing shoes and iPads and iPhones and cushions and blankets and cutlery and plates and cups flying through the air and crashing to the ceiling. The gentleman next to me had a cup of coffee, which went straight all over me and up to the ceiling,” Davies said.

Davies said he realized the “gravity” of the turbulence when he turned around, describing several passengers with gashes on their heads, including one with “blood pouring down her face” and an elderly passenger in “severe shock.”

“There was so much screaming,” he said.

Video and images from inside the aircraft showed the extent of the damage, with overhead compartments smashed open and emergency oxygen air masks hanging down from the ceiling. A photo of one galley showed a section of the ceiling open with parts of the plane’s interior hanging down. Trays, containers, plastic bottles and hot beverage pots can be seen strewn across the floor.

A 73-year-old British man died in the incident from a suspected heart condition, the General Manager of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport Kittipong Kittikachorn said Tuesday, adding that the autopsy process was still ongoing.

The man was later identified as Geoff Kitchen, who was described as “always a gentleman with the utmost honesty and integrity” by the Thornbury Musical Theatre Group (TMTG), an establishment where he worked for over 35 years.

The British Foreign Office told CNN it was supporting the family of a British passenger who died on a Singapore Airlines flight.

Davies, who was seated toward the front of the plane, said he helped tend to Kitchen, who was seated behind him.

“Lots of people needed some help but we tended to this gentleman and I helped carry him, get him out of the seat, and we lay him on the floor so that some medical profession(als) could administer CPR,” Davies said, adding the passenger was administered CPR for about 20 minutes.”
The Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital in Bangkok, which received the injured passengers, said at least 71 people were injured, with six severely. Those injured include citizens of Malaysia, the UK, New Zealand, Spain, the US and Ireland.

Kittikachorn, who inspected the aircraft, said some injured passengers sustained broken arms.

The flight, carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew, had left London’s Heathrow Airport around 10:30 p.m. local time, according to online flight trackers. It was bound for Singapore’s Changi Airport, however the aircraft was diverted to Bangkok where it landed at 3:45 p.m. local time, according to the airline.

Video filmed after Singapore Airlines SQ321 was diverted to Bangkok shows a passenger being carried from the aircraft on a stretcher by emergency responders.

Kittikachorn said that following the landing in Bangkok almost 200 travelers were waiting to take onward flights to their destinations. A Singapore Airlines plane carrying 131 of the 211 passengers later departed Bangkok for Singapore, he said.

Singapore Airlines CEO Goh Choon Phong said in a statement that the airline is “providing all possible assistance and support” to the passengers and their families.

“On behalf of Singapore Airlines, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased passenger. We also deeply apologize for the trauma experienced by all passengers and crew members on this flight,” he said.

Singapore’s Ministry of Transport said in a statement that it was investigating the situation involving flight SQ321 and the US National Transportation Safety Board is sending personnel to Singapore to help support the investigation.
Turbulence occurs when a plane flies through clashing bodies of air moving at widely different speeds.

With light and moderate turbulence passengers might feel a strain against their seatbelt, and unsecured items could move around the cabin. But in severe cases turbulence can throw passengers around the cabin, causing severe injuries and occasionally death.

A statement from the airline said the plane, “encountered sudden extreme turbulence over the Irrawaddy Basin [a river in Myanmar] at 37,000 feet, about 10 hours after departure.”

Data from aviation tracking site FlightRadar24 shows the flight suddenly dipping then rapidly climbing a few hundred feet before dipping and climbing again and then finally settling back at its cruising altitude. The entire disruption took about 90 seconds, according to the data.

The flight changes course about 14 minutes later. The airline said, “The pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted the aircraft to Bangkok.”
Singapore Airlines is often considered one of the world’s safest carriers.

Its only previous fatal accident was in October 2000 when flight SQ006 crashed when the Boeing 747-400 took off from a closed runway in Taiwan amid heavy rain, killing 83 on board.

Singapore Airlines said later Tuesday that a dedicated team had arrived in Bangkok “to support our colleagues and the local authorities on the ground” in an update on its Facebook page.

The flight operator expressed its “deepest condolences to the family of the deceased. We deeply apologize for the traumatic experience that our passengers and crew members suffered on this flight.”

Boeing has said it is in touch with the Singaporean carrier and is “ready to support them.” The manufacturer is deferring further questions to the airline and local authorities.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described a March 2023 incident involving a private jet. The National Transportation Safety Board later ruled weather had not been involved in the violent movements of that plane.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the country’s foreign minister were found dead Monday hours after their helicopter crashed in fog, leaving the Islamic Republic without two key leaders as extraordinary tensions grip the wider Middle East.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the Shiite theocracy, quickly named a little-known vice president as caretaker and insisted the government was in control, but the deaths marked yet another blow to a country beset by pressures at home and abroad.
Iran has offered no cause for the crash nor suggested sabotage brought down the helicopter, which fell in mountainous terrain in a sudden, intense fog.

In Tehran, Iran’s capital, businesses were open and children attended school Monday. However, there was a noticeable presence of both uniformed and plainclothes security forces.
Later in the day, hundreds of mourners crowded into downtown Vali-e-Asr square holding posters of Raisi and waving Palestinian flags. Some men clutched prayer beads and were visibly crying. Women wearing black chadors gathered together holding photos of the dead leader.
“We were shocked that we lost such a character, a character that made Iran proud, and humiliated the enemies,” said Mohammad Beheshti, 36.

The crash comes as the Israel-Hamas war roils the region. Iran-backed Hamas led the attack that started the conflict, and Hezbollah, also supported by Tehran, has fired rockets at Israel. Last month, Iran launched its own unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel.

A hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary, Raisi, 63, was viewed as a protege of Khamenei. During his tenure, relations continued to deteriorate with the West as Iran enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels and supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

His government has also faced years of mass protests over the ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive.
The crash killed all eight people aboard a Bell 212 helicopter that Iran purchased in the early 2000s, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Among the dead were Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, a senior cleric from Tabriz, a Revolutionary Guard official and three crew members, IRNA said.

Iran has flown Bell helicopters extensively since the shah’s era. But aircraft in Iran face a shortage of parts because of Western sanctions, and often fly without safety checks. Against that backdrop, former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sought to blame the United States for the crash.

“One of the main culprits of yesterday’s tragedy is the United States, which ... embargoed the sale of aircraft and aviation parts to Iran and does not allow the people of Iran to enjoy good aviation facilities,” Zarif told The Associated Press.

Ali Vaez, Iran project director with the International Crisis Group, said that while U.S. sanctions have deprived Iran of the ability to renew and repair its fleet for decades, “one can’t overlook human error and the weather’s role in this particular accident.’’

Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst and consultant, said Iran likely is tapping the black market for parts to maintain the fleet, but questioned whether Iran has the maintenance skills to keep older helicopters flying safely.

“Black-market parts and whatever local maintenance capabilities they’ve got — that’s not a good combination,” he said.

There are 15 Bell 212 helicopters with an average age of 35 years currently registered in Iran that could be in active use or in storage, according to aviation data firm Cirium.

State TV gave no immediate cause for the crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. Footage released by IRNA showed the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. continues to monitor the situation surrounding the “very unfortunate helicopter crash” but has no insight into the cause. “I don’t necessarily see any broader regional security impacts at this point in time,” he said.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday the death of Raisi and Amirabdollahian is not expected to have any substantive impact on difficult U.S.-Iran relations.

He added the U.S. expected the change in leadership would not change Iran’s support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Yemen-based Houthi rebels.

“We have to assume that the supreme leader is the one who makes these decisions and the supreme leader, as he as he did in the last so-called election, made sure to stack the deck with only candidates that met his mandates,” Kirby said.

For now, Khamenei has named the first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, as caretaker, in line with the constitution. The election for a successor was to be held on June 28, IRNA said. Raisi’s funeral was to take place in Mashhad, the city where he was born, on Thursday, with other funerals to be held on Tuesday, state TV said.

Ali Bagheri Kani, a nuclear negotiator for Iran, will serve as the country’s acting foreign minister, state TV said.

Condolences poured in from neighbors and allies after Iran confirmed there were no survivors. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on the social media platform X that his country “stands with Iran in this time of sorrow.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a statement released by the Kremlin, described Raisi “as a true friend of Russia.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar Assad also offered condolences. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said he and his government were “deeply shocked.” Raisi was returning Sunday from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, where he had inaugurated a dam with Aliyev, when the crash happened.

The death also stunned Iranians, and Khamenei declared five days of public mourning. But many have been ground down by the collapse of the country’s rial currency and worries about regional conflicts spinning out of control with Israel or even with Pakistan, which Iran exchanged fire with this year.

“He tried to carry out his duties well, but I don’t think he was as successful as he should have been,” said Mahrooz Mohammadi Zadeh, 53, a resident of Tehran.

Khamenei stressed the business of Iran’s government would continue no matter what — but Raisi’s death raised the specter of what will happen after the 85-year-old supreme leader either resigns or dies. The final say in all matters of state rests with his office and only two men have held the position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Raisi had been discussed as a contender. The only other person suggested has been Khamenei’s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba. However, concerns have been raised over the position going to a family member, particularly after the revolution overthrew the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy of the shah.

An emergency meeting of Iran’s Cabinet issued a statement pledging it would follow Raisi’s path and that “with the help of God and the people, there will be no problem with management of the country.”

Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, in a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. He was sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman detained over her allegedly loose headscarf, or hijab. The monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.

In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.

Raisi is the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days after the country’s Islamic Revolution.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the country’s foreign minister were found dead Monday hours after their helicopter crashed in fog, leaving the Islamic Republic without two key leaders as extraordinary tensions grip the wider Middle East.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the Shiite theocracy, quickly named a little-known vice president as caretaker and insisted the government was in control, but the deaths marked yet another blow to a country beset by pressures at home and abroad.
Iran has offered no cause for the crash nor suggested sabotage brought down the helicopter, which fell in mountainous terrain in a sudden, intense fog.

In Tehran, Iran’s capital, businesses were open and children attended school Monday. However, there was a noticeable presence of both uniformed and plainclothes security forces.
Later in the day, hundreds of mourners crowded into downtown Vali-e-Asr square holding posters of Raisi and waving Palestinian flags. Some men clutched prayer beads and were visibly crying. Women wearing black chadors gathered together holding photos of the dead leader.
“We were shocked that we lost such a character, a character that made Iran proud, and humiliated the enemies,” said Mohammad Beheshti, 36.

The crash comes as the Israel-Hamas war roils the region. Iran-backed Hamas led the attack that started the conflict, and Hezbollah, also supported by Tehran, has fired rockets at Israel. Last month, Iran launched its own unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel.

A hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary, Raisi, 63, was viewed as a protege of Khamenei. During his tenure, relations continued to deteriorate with the West as Iran enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels and supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

His government has also faced years of mass protests over the ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive.
The crash killed all eight people aboard a Bell 212 helicopter that Iran purchased in the early 2000s, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Among the dead were Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, a senior cleric from Tabriz, a Revolutionary Guard official and three crew members, IRNA said.

Iran has flown Bell helicopters extensively since the shah’s era. But aircraft in Iran face a shortage of parts because of Western sanctions, and often fly without safety checks. Against that backdrop, former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sought to blame the United States for the crash.

“One of the main culprits of yesterday’s tragedy is the United States, which ... embargoed the sale of aircraft and aviation parts to Iran and does not allow the people of Iran to enjoy good aviation facilities,” Zarif told The Associated Press.

Ali Vaez, Iran project director with the International Crisis Group, said that while U.S. sanctions have deprived Iran of the ability to renew and repair its fleet for decades, “one can’t overlook human error and the weather’s role in this particular accident.’’

Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst and consultant, said Iran likely is tapping the black market for parts to maintain the fleet, but questioned whether Iran has the maintenance skills to keep older helicopters flying safely.

“Black-market parts and whatever local maintenance capabilities they’ve got — that’s not a good combination,” he said.

There are 15 Bell 212 helicopters with an average age of 35 years currently registered in Iran that could be in active use or in storage, according to aviation data firm Cirium.

State TV gave no immediate cause for the crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. Footage released by IRNA showed the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. continues to monitor the situation surrounding the “very unfortunate helicopter crash” but has no insight into the cause. “I don’t necessarily see any broader regional security impacts at this point in time,” he said.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday the death of Raisi and Amirabdollahian is not expected to have any substantive impact on difficult U.S.-Iran relations.

He added the U.S. expected the change in leadership would not change Iran’s support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Yemen-based Houthi rebels.

“We have to assume that the supreme leader is the one who makes these decisions and the supreme leader, as he as he did in the last so-called election, made sure to stack the deck with only candidates that met his mandates,” Kirby said.

For now, Khamenei has named the first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, as caretaker, in line with the constitution. The election for a successor was to be held on June 28, IRNA said. Raisi’s funeral was to take place in Mashhad, the city where he was born, on Thursday, with other funerals to be held on Tuesday, state TV said.

Ali Bagheri Kani, a nuclear negotiator for Iran, will serve as the country’s acting foreign minister, state TV said.

Condolences poured in from neighbors and allies after Iran confirmed there were no survivors. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on the social media platform X that his country “stands with Iran in this time of sorrow.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a statement released by the Kremlin, described Raisi “as a true friend of Russia.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar Assad also offered condolences. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said he and his government were “deeply shocked.” Raisi was returning Sunday from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, where he had inaugurated a dam with Aliyev, when the crash happened.

The death also stunned Iranians, and Khamenei declared five days of public mourning. But many have been ground down by the collapse of the country’s rial currency and worries about regional conflicts spinning out of control with Israel or even with Pakistan, which Iran exchanged fire with this year.

“He tried to carry out his duties well, but I don’t think he was as successful as he should have been,” said Mahrooz Mohammadi Zadeh, 53, a resident of Tehran.

Khamenei stressed the business of Iran’s government would continue no matter what — but Raisi’s death raised the specter of what will happen after the 85-year-old supreme leader either resigns or dies. The final say in all matters of state rests with his office and only two men have held the position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Raisi had been discussed as a contender. The only other person suggested has been Khamenei’s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba. However, concerns have been raised over the position going to a family member, particularly after the revolution overthrew the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy of the shah.

An emergency meeting of Iran’s Cabinet issued a statement pledging it would follow Raisi’s path and that “with the help of God and the people, there will be no problem with management of the country.”

Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, in a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. He was sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman detained over her allegedly loose headscarf, or hijab. The monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.

In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.

Raisi is the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days after the country’s Islamic Revolution.

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