News Wrap: Rescue effort underway after helicopter with Iran president crashes

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Good evening. I'm Laura Barron-Lopez. John Yang is away. In Iran tonight a frantic search and rescue effort is underway after a helicopter carrying the country's president Ibrahim Raisi and his foreign minister apparently crashed.

State media described it as a hard landing somewhere near the country's northern border with Armenia and Azerbaijan. President Raisi had traveled to the border to inaugurate a new dam. Conditions were foggy and rainy as rescue teams scoured mountainous terrain and dense forests for the helicopter.

Elsewhere in the region, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the war in Gaza. Their meeting follows Sullivan's visit with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman yesterday and comes as Israeli leaders are split over their plan for the war.

Amid the debate, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continued. 27 people were killed in an urban refugee camp in central Gaza. Hospital officials reported most of the dead were women and children.

Back home, President Biden told students at Morehouse College in Atlanta today that he hears their concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Commencement Address gave Biden a chance to both court young black voters at one of the nation's oldest historically black colleges and to acknowledge the protests railing campuses across the country.

There were no major disruptions during his remarks, but the class valedictorian called for a permanent ceasefire, and some students and faculty draped themselves in the symbolic Coffea scarves.

Joe Biden, U.S. President:

I support peaceful nonviolent protest. Your voices should be heard. And I promise you I hear them. This is one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world and there's nothing easy about it. I know that anger and frustrates many of you, including my family. But most of all, I know it breaks your heart, breaks mine as well.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

The President will continue his appeal to black voters this evening, speaking at an NAACP dinner in Detroit, and America's first black astronaut candidate finally made it into space, Ed Dwight was chosen in 1961 by then President John F. Kennedy to train to be an astronaut, but wasn't picked for the 1963 class.

Today, at the age of 90, he got his chance. Dwight joined five other passengers aboard one of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rockets for the 10 minute flight. Dwight is now the new record holder for oldest person in space.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, spreading awareness on the dangers of Lyme disease and the difficult decisions prompted by the overturning of Roe v Wade.