effects

Memphis Grizzlies forward Brandon Clarke’s death in May was caused by the “effects of heroin and cocaine”, the Los Angeles authorities have revealed.

The County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner ruled that the death was accidental., external

The 29-year-old was found unresponsive in a bedroom at a house in San Fernando Valley on 11 May, 2026 and was pronounced dead by paramedics.

The medical examiner’s office also listed the “combined effects of multiple prescription medications” as a “significant” contributor to his death but did not state what the medications were.

The medical examiner added that its full report would be available at a later date.

The Canada-born player was a first-round draft pick in 2019 but played only two games in the 2025-26 season because of injuries.

Paying tribute at the time, the Grizzlies said they were “heartbroken” by the loss, adding he was an “outstanding team-mate and an even better person whose impact on the organisation and the greater Memphis community will not be forgotten”.

Clarke played 309 NBA games, including 50 starts, and scored an average of 10.2 points per game.

A month prior to his death, Clarke was arrested in Arkansas on charges that included speeding and possession of a controlled substance.

Clarke was born in Vancouver and was a dual citizen of Canada and the USA.

After playing college basketball at San Jose State and then Gonzaga, he was drafted by the Oklahoma City Thunder and traded to the Grizzlies soon after.

Memphis Grizzlies ⁠forward Brandon Clarke’s ⁠May 11 death ruled accidental, with effects of heroin and cocaine cited.

The Los Angeles County ‌Department of Medical Examiner reported on Friday ⁠that Memphis Grizzlies ⁠forward Brandon Clarke died due to the effects of heroin and cocaine.

The medical examiner ruled Clarke’s ⁠May 11 death an accident. The combined effects of multiple prescription medications were also identified as a significant contributing ⁠condition, though the specific medications were not disclosed. The full medical examiner’s report has not yet been released.

Clarke, 29, was discovered unresponsive in a bedroom at a residence ‌in California’s San Fernando Valley and was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. The medical examiner conducted an examination the following day before formally certifying the cause and manner of death on Friday.

Clarke spent his seven-year NBA career with Memphis after finishing ⁠his college career at Gonzaga. He averaged ⁠10.2 points and 5.5 rebounds over 309 games (50 starts) and finished fourth in Rookie of the Year voting in 2019-20.

Injuries limited Clarke during ⁠his final seasons. He missed more than a year after tearing an Achilles ⁠tendon in 2023 and appeared in ⁠only two games during the 2025-26 campaign because of knee and calf ailments.

About six weeks before his death, Clarke was arrested in Arkansas ‌on charges that included possession and trafficking of a controlled substance following a traffic stop.

Following Clarke’s death, the Grizzlies ‌remembered ‌him as an “outstanding teammate and an even better person” whose influence extended beyond the organisation and into the Memphis community.

Memphis Grizzlies forward Brandon Clarke died in May from “the effects of heroin and cocaine,” the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner announced Friday.

The manner of death was determined to be accidental, the department said.

Clarke died May 11 in a San Fernando Valley home, multiple media outlets reported at the time, and drug paraphernalia was found at the scene. The department said Clarke was found unresponsive around 5 p.m. that day and was pronounced dead by paramedics 15 minutes later. He was 29.

“On May 12, a deputy medical examiner conducted an examination of Mr. Clarke at the DME’s Forensic Science Center,” the department said in a statement. “The cause and manner of death were certified Aug. 7.”

Clarke was born in Vancouver, B.C., and played basketball at Desert Vista High in Phoenix, San Jose State and Gonzaga. Selected at No. 21 overall by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2021 NBA draft, Clarke was traded weeks later to Memphis, where he played his entire career.

He played in 309 games but only two last season because of injuries. Clarke averaged 10.2 points and 5.5 rebounds during his career.

“Everyone loved BC because he was always there as the most supportive friend you could ever imagine,” his agency, Priority Sports, said in a statement after his death. “He was so unique in the joy he brought to all of those in his life. It’s just impossible to put into words how much he’ll be missed. We love you, BC.”

Don Iwerks, an Academy Award-winning special effects pioneer whose innovations transformed film and Disney theme parks, died peacefully Thursday at the age of 96, the Walt Disney Co. announced.

For Disney and his own studio, Iwerks Entertainment, Iwerks helped develop technologies and techniques like Circle-Vision, the 360-degree camera behind “America the Beautiful” and other early Disney attractions, and the 3-D effects used in attractions like Captain EO and the Star Tours ride.

“There was a ‘can-do’ attitude I learned from Walt and my father,” Iwerks said, according to a statement shared by the Disney Co. “Walt gave everyone a feeling that they were creating things that others had never thought of before, of being a part of history.”

Born July 24, 1929, Iwerks received his first camera at age 14 as a gift from his father, animator Ub Iwerks.

The elder Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney when both men were teenagers working at a Kansas City, Mo., art studio. They would go on to work together at the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, where Iwerks designed and animated “Plane Crazy,” the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.

After a stint at his own animation studio, Ub returned to Disney as a special effects engineer, pioneering techniques like the 360-degree motion-picture camera.

“He was absolutely my inspiration because he was technically minded. He made my childhood and formative years one of the greatest times of my life,” Don Iwerks told The Times in 1998.

The Iwerks family moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1936, where Don graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1947.

He served as a photographer in Germany during the Korean War and joined his father at Disney following his 1952 discharge from the U.S. Army. An allergic reaction to chemicals used to develop film led to his transfer to the company’s Studio Machine Shop, where he spent the next 34 years.

Don spent three months in the Bahamas manning underwater cameras for the 1954 Disney film “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” He then worked as the camera technician on “A Tour of the West,” an original Tomorrowland attraction at the soon-to-be opened Disneyland. The immersive 360-degree film was shot on the Circarama camera system his father invented.

Together, Don and Ub developed technologies like the “endless loop” system that enabled a single film print to run for up to 10,000 performances with minimal intervention and refinements to the photography processes used in “Mary Poppins” (his favorite of the Disney films) and other movies.

His own hands were used as the model for those of the Abraham Lincoln Audio-Animatronics figure in “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” which opened at Disneyland in 1965. The “Iwerks Hands” now appear on similar figures at Disney parks around the world, according to his family.

In 1986, he co-founded Iwerks Entertainment, which soon became a major player in the film and theme park industries. The company specialized in large-format films and created the 3-D projection system used in the Terminator rides at Universal Studios parks in Hollywood and Florida.

His innovations were honored with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ honorary Gordon E. Sawyer Award and an Academy Scientific and Technical Award, among other prizes.

“It’s very obvious that computers are playing a big role in motion pictures today. The digital technology in film is able to put elements of scenes together on a film and have them look lifelike. It’s hard to know where that will go,” Iwerks said in a 1998 interview.

“My view is that technology should support a good story and add to it. Technology for technology’s sake?” he said with a shrug. “You still need good films.”

Iwerks is survived by his wife of 54 years, Betty; his sons, Larry and John; John’s wife, Chris; his daughter Leslie, and great-nephew,Mike, both of whom have also worked for Disney, according to an obituary shared by his family. His daughter Tamara preceded him in death.

“Like his father, he was a humble genius, a consummate problem solver, and delighted in sharing knowledge, encouraging others, and approaching every challenge with confidence and grace,” his family said in the statement from Conejo Mountain Funeral Home in Ventura.

Both Don and Ub Iwerks are commemorated in a storefront window on Main Street U.S.A. in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Located above the Main Street Bakery, the window is a lasting tribute to a family who made some of the park’s magic possible.

“Iwerks-Iwerks Stereoscopic Cameras,” the lettering reads. “No Two Exactly Alike.”

BANGKOK — With summer around the corner, soaring prices and other complications from the war with Iran are straining the tourism-dependent economies of Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia.

The region’s peak tourist summer season is at risk as elevated jet fuel costs coupled with ceasefire uncertainties prompt flight cancellations and higher ticket prices.

Tourism in Asia has yet to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, many countries are coping with the war’s repercussions on global energy supplies and prices, which hit Asia first and hardest. Some families are pulling back on travel as gas and groceries get more expensive worldwide. Crowds have thinned at some places once synonymous with travel.

“With gasoline prices rising and tourism declining, how can we make money?” asked Siv Pech, a 58-year-old rickshaw driver in Siem Reap, home to Cambodia’s centuries-old Angkor Wat temple complex.

Tourism is an economic lifeline for many developing nations. It contributes nearly 13% of gross domestic product in Thailand and nearly 9% in Vietnam, and it underpins millions of jobs in Cambodia. Travelers bring in much-needed foreign currency for import-dependent economies such as the Philippines and Nepal.

Those tourism dollars are more crucial than ever as war-driven spikes in oil prices push up the cost of fuel imports, especially for parts of the world that relied on the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast as a conduit for much of their oil and gas. Iran essentially shut down the strait to commercial traffic after the U.S. and Israel launched the war more than three months ago.

The war will determine which tourism businesses can survive long enough to benefit from the eventual return of travelers, said Jitsai Santaputra of the Lantau Group, an energy industry consulting firm. “This, happening within five years of each other, first the pandemic and now the war, is horrible for the tourism industry,” she said.

Travel costs

Jet fuel shortages and surging costs have led Vietnam Airlines, the Malaysia-based AirAsia group, Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and other carriers to cut flights or otherwise adjust schedules.

European carriers face a squeeze for similar reasons.

Airspace closures across the Persian Gulf early in the war and the intermittent closures of certain Persian Gulf airports cut off key layover locations for Asia-bound flights or forced commercial airplanes to take longer, costlier routes.

Airfares have jumped, with airlines such as Air India and Cathay Pacific implementing sharp increases in fuel surcharges.

Cathay Pacific’s fuel surcharge for medium-haul flights has jumped to $80, up from $34 before the war. For long-haul flights, it increased to $174, up from $73.

“Jet fuel prices remain at highly elevated levels” and have increased cost pressures, said Lavinia Lau, Cathay’s chief customer and commercial officer. Travelers are booking closer to their departure dates, she said, indicating growing unease.

Sandra Awodele, a freelance travel writer in the Washington area, often plans year-round international trips and hoped this summer would be when she finally crossed off Asia from her bucket list.

In March, she began planning a long-awaited vacation to Thailand, envisioning one to two weeks of exploring. Her plans hit a wall when she checked airfares.

“I looked at flight options and that’s where it ended,” Awodele said.

On the ground, rising fuel costs in tourism-dependent Southeast Asia are squeezing taxi and ride-hailing app drivers.

Pech, the Cambodian rickshaw driver, said he used to earn up to $20 a day toting tourists around Siem Reap. That’s plummeted to about $5 a day.

His gas bill eats half of that. The rest goes to food. “Some days, I don’t earn even a cent,” he said.

Slow summer expected

Tourism is vital for many regional economies, accounting for nearly 11% of economic activity in the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations in 2019, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

An analysis by Moody’s Analytics estimated effects from the war would probably reduce economic growth across the Asia-Pacific region by 0.1 to 0.4 percentage points in 2026.

“The conflict will weigh on growth mainly through higher production costs and consumer prices, along with weaker external demand from trade and tourism,” said Albert Park, chief economist at the Asia Development Bank.

Higher airfares and weaker travel confidence can quickly spill over into household livelihoods and public revenues in economies where visitor arrivals are a major source of jobs, income and foreign exchange, according to a recent report by the United Nations Development Program.

Travel is often the first expense people cut when the economy worsens, said Le Tuyet Lan, who runs bed-and-breakfast properties in Vietnam’s Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

In times of crisis, luxury travelers tend to shift toward mid-range options, mid-range travelers move toward budget hotels, and the cheapest tier of the market becomes the most vulnerable.

“This will disrupt the whole industry,” she said.

‘We are feeling it’

Tourism in Thailand is “a big industry and we are feeling it,” said Santaputra with the Lantau Group in Bangkok, one of Southeast Asia’s most visited cities.

The number of visitors to Thailand fell 7% year-on-year in April, while European arrivals fell almost 16% and Middle Eastern arrivals sank 57%, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.

In neighboring Cambodia, Sokha Sambo, owner of the popular Sambo Khmer & Thai Restaurant in Siem Reap, said the rising price of liquefied petroleum gas used for cooking has strained her budget, hindering her ability to dish out her signature green curries.

“I’m worried about gas and goods inflation. It makes the business less profitable and difficult to cover employees’ salaries,” said Sambo, who has 14 staff members.

In the first four months of 2026, the number of recorded international and domestic visitors to Siem Reap dropped by 37.5% compared with the same period last year, according to the province’s tourism department.

“This has greatly affected all of us,” Sambo said.

Delgado and Chan write for the Associated Press and reported from Bangkok and Hong Kong, respectively. AP writers Aniruddha Ghosal in Hanoi and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas and freelance journalist Sinorn Thang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, contributed to this report.