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McCain to halt medical treatment for brain cancer, family says

Sen. John McCain, who defied death in the skies over Vietnam, endured years of torture in enemy captivity and embarked on a storied political career that brought him to the precipice of the presidency, has ended medical treatment for the brain cancer he has fought for 13 months, his family said Friday.

“John has surpassed expectations for his survival. But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict,” the statement said, making clear that McCain’s life is near its end.

The news prompted an outpouring of sympathy and acclaim for McCain, 81, who has served six terms as a Republican senator from Arizona. The tributes came from Republicans and Democrats who had together held out hope that McCain might beat the grim odds posed by his aggressive form of cancer, glioblastoma, and perhaps return to Washington and retake his perch as elder statesman and embodiment of his personal motto: “Country first.”

Born into a military family on Aug. 29, 1936, in Panama, John McCain followed his family’s tradition by joining the U.S. Navy. During the Vietnam War, he was captured by North Vietnamese forces and held as a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973. He stayed in the Navy after his release, but soon entered politics and went on to serve as a congressman and then senator from the state of Arizona. In 2008, he was the Republican nominee for president but lost the election to Barack Obama. At the age of 80, he won his sixth term in the Senate in 2016.

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Chinese vice governor, mayor fired over vaccine scandal

A Chinese provincial deputy governor and the mayor of a major city were fired Thursday as the ruling Communist Party tried to defuse public outrage over revelations of misconduct by a major vaccine producer.

The officials were among four people ordered dismissed following a meeting of the party’s ruling Standing Committee led by President Xi Jinping. It ordered a criminal investigation of a fifth official, a former national drug regulator.

The revelation in July that Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Ltd. falsified production records for an anti-rabies vaccine added to a string of politically damaging scandals over deaths and injuries due to fake or shoddy drugs, food and other products.

Public anger was fueled by disclosures regulators found possible misconduct by the company last year but failed to take prompt action.

Continue Reading: FoxNews.com

Too much TV at age 2 leads to poor health as teens

So says a study from the Université de Montréal’s School of Psychoeducation warning that watching too much TV at age 2 can translate into bad eating habits in teen years and poor performance in school.

Researchers tracked nearly 2000 Quebec girls and boy born between spring 1997 and 1998. At age two, parents reported on their childrens’ daily TV habits. At age 13, the kids themselves noted their everyday TV and eating habits.

“Watching TV is mentally and physically sedentary behavior because it does not require sustained effort,” said study coauthor Isabelle Simonato. “We hypothesized that when toddlers watch too much TV it encourages them to be sedentary, and if they learn to prefer effortless leisure activities at a very young age, they likely won’t think much of non-leisure ones, like school, when they’re older.”

Researchers found that every hourly increase in toddlers’ TV viewing predicted poor eating habits down the road — an increase of 8% at age 13 for every hourly increase at age 2.

In short, the more they watched, the worse they ate. Teens glued to the tube early reported that they ate more French fries, cold cuts, white bread, regular and diet soft drinks, fruit-flavored drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, salty or sweet snacks, and desserts than toddlers who didn’t watch much TV.

Every hour increase of TV also forecasted a higher body mass index, less strenuous behavior at school in the first year of secondary school and less eating breakfast on school days.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids ages 2 to 5 limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programs.

Canadian researchers tested their results against that guideline and found that compared to children who viewed less than one hour a day at age 2, those who viewed between one and four a day later, at age 13, reported having less healthy dietary habits and a higher body mass index.

“This study tells us that overindulgent lifestyle habits begin in early childhood and seem to persist throughout the life course,” said Linda Pagani, co-author of the study published in the journal Preventive Medicine.

Louisiana Grocery Store Worker Befriends Teen With Autism, Kindly Shows Him How to Stock Shelves

A simple act of kindness to a teen with autism made the young man’s day.

At 17, Jack Ryan Edwards doesn’t talk much. His attention span is extremely short. His senses are easily overloaded doing what others consider mundane — going to the grocery store, for example.

“He needs help and prompting with everything,” said his sister, Delaney Edwards Alwosaibi, of her brother with autism. Sometimes people look askance at the teen, with pity or fear in their eyes, she added.

But on a recent trip to a local supermarket in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the young man looked at a stock clerk loading orange juice into a refrigerated case and saw pure beauty.

His father, Sid Edwards, thought Jack Ryan wanted juice. But that wasn’t it. He wanted to pick up the plastic container and place it on a shelf.

Employee Jordan Taylor, 20, read Jack Ryan’s look. “Do you want to help me?” he asked the young man. Oh yes indeed, Jack Ryan did.

As Taylor handed each bottle to Jack Ryan, the teen carefully placed it in the cooler. His father was so taken with his son’s deliberate concentration he pulled out his cellphone and started filming. He called it “a miracle” that his boy was so enthralled with something that he kept after it.

In all, Taylor spent about 30 minutes with the teenager, an unheard of amount of time for anything to captivate Jack Ryan, his family said.

Sid Edwards sent the video to his daughter, who put it on her Facebook page, where it’s been viewed 15,000 times and shared by more than 8,000 users.

After watching it many, many times, Alwosaibi said, she cried for hours. Her heart was full not only for her little brother, but for the simple kindness of a stranger who broke open Jack Ryan’s world with a single question.

“I have no idea what experience this young man has with people with disabilities,” she told InsideEdition.com. “He was so patient and kind with him. Jordan was prompting him, telling him where to put” the containers.

Alwosaibi is a special education teacher, just like her mother. Her dad is a football coach at the local high school, where his wife works and which Jack Ryan attends. They have another son with autism.

“Between my brothers and my students, I know they’re employable,” Alwosaibi said of people with special needs. Jack Ryan is meticulous and detail-oriented, she said. “That’s what stocking is all about — presentation.”

Two wondrous things have come from Jordan letting Jack Ryan help him. The folks at Rouse’s grocery store have offered Jack Ryan a job. And a GoFundMe site established by Alwosaibi to help Jordan realize his goal of going to college has raised more than $59,000 in one day.

“It’s unbelievable,” Alwosaibi said. Jordan told a local station the looks on the faces of father and son were payment enough.

“If you would have flipped the camera, you would have seen his dad’s face. It said it all. He was just happy and he [Jack Ryan] was happy putting the juices up and I was just happy that I could make someone else happy and make their day,” Jordan told WAFB-TV.

The Edwards family has not decided whether Jack Ryan should take the job. School starts soon. But there is no question about their gratitude to the man who noticed their boy.

“Jordan was brave that day,” said Alwosaibi. “It was brave for him to say, ‘Do you want to help me?”’

Source:
https://www.insideedition.com/louisiana-grocery-store-worker-befriends-teen-autism-kindly-shows-him-how-stock-shelves-45641

When construction changed a blind man’s route, a bus driver took a detour to help him

(CNN) We don’t often think of our public transportation drivers as heroes. But in a Wisconsin town, most of the transit system is made up of everyday heroes.

From a bus driver who literally ran through traffic just to help a man in a wheelchair, to a driver who pulled over to help an elderly man who fell in the snow, the Milwaukee County Transit System bus drivers have become as important as the county’s first responders.

The town’s latest hero is Thaddaus Turner, a 28-year-old bus driver who didn’t think twice about helping one of his passengers cross the street after finding out he was blind.

“The route was barricaded, it was rough for me as a driver, I can only imagine how rough it was for him,” Turner told CNN.
Helping others comes as a second nature to Thaddaus Turner.

The passenger, Gene Hubbard, has been taking the same route to and from work nearly every day for the last 20 years. But the route is now under construction, making it difficult for Hubbard to get around, transit spokesman Brendan Conway said.

Thaddaus Turner, a public bus driver, walks Gene Hubbard, who is blind, across the road.

A bystander snapped a photo of Turner helping Hubbard and sent it to the transit agency. The agency then shared it on Facebook and it quickly caught the attention of local new stations.

“I just can’t say enough about all the bus drivers,” Hubbard,69, told CNN affiliate WITI. “If I don’t have a regular locating point to start from, I may as well be in the middle of the ocean.”

Turner says the attention the photo generated has really caught him off guard.

“I was surprised when I saw it in the news,” he said. “I didn’t think I would be here right now over something that is second nature to me, and my colleagues.”

SOURCE : CNN

Seattle lawyer sues hospital after devastating diagnosis

SEATTLE – A Seattle lawyer and amateur jazz drummer says a mistake at the University of Washington Medical Center has him in a losing battle for his life. Now he and his wife are suing over a devastating diagnosis. A lawsuit says a radiologist at UW Medicine reported that he found a lesion on Douglas Roach’s lung. But no one told Roach or his doctors until he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Douglas Roach, his wife and his attorneys are blaming that on a systemic failure at the UW Medical Center; a failure that they say is shortening a once vibrant life.

Douglas Roach comes alive when sitting behind a set of drums. But the fact is, he is dying.

“Lymphangitic carcinomatosis” he said of his diagnosis, “which is indicative of really, really advanced lung cancer.”

Six years ago, Roach was undergoing treatment for a broken back at the University of Washington Medical Center. According to his lawsuit, a radiologist found a lesion on his lung “which was marked ‘critical’ in all caps and was sent to my surgeon,” he said. “And I don’t know why he chose never to share it with me or with my primary care doctor.”

But his lawsuit says some doctors knew.

“Pretty much everybody on that team was talking about it to each other but nobody ever told me about it,” he said.

So for five long years, the lesion grew unchecked. Then early last year, he came down with what doctors thought was pneumonia.

“Then finally, one of the scans last spring, the radiologist said ‘boy, this looks like this guy’s full of cancer,'” he recalled. “Yup.”

It was the last thing they expected.

“I was completely shocked, completely shocked,” said Ruby Blondell, Roach’s wife. “Came from nowhere. There’s no cancer in his family.”

“It’s not like somebody was exercising medical judgment or anything,” said Roach. “Should we treat him with this? Should we treat him with that? They just didn’t tell me. They just didn’t give me information. And I don’t understand it.”

And his lawyer says, what is worse, since filing the lawsuit:

“We reached out to the University of Washington,” said Mike Wampold. “And we wanted to sit down with the University of Washington and talk about what happened to make sure that this never happened again and talk about a resolution to this. And we’ve heard nothing.”

Now just 60, this lawyer and part-time musician taps into what optimism he has left always aware of the cloud hanging over his life.

“Not only do I have to deal with this dire prognosis,” says Roach, “I find myself in, not to sound you know melodramatic, I’m having to console my own widow.”

“You called her your widow not your wife,” he was told.

“That’s what she’s going to be,” he said. “Excuse me.” Then he reached for a tissue to wipe away his tears.

The University of Washington did send out a short statement. They say because of the lawsuit, they aren’t able to comment.

Roach says he is taking a newly approved drug. That is why he isn’t already dead.

He also says he never smoked a day in his life. So he believes if he had been diagnosed early, he would have beaten this disease.

SOURCE:
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/uw-medical-lawsuit/712199149

McDonald’s serves pregnant Canadian cleaning fluid latte

McDonald’s has issued an apology after an expectant mother in Canada was served cleaning solution instead of the latte she ordered.

Sarah Douglas, who is eight months pregnant, asked for the coffee at a drive-thru in the province of Alberta last Sunday morning.

She took a sip a short while later only to discover the brownish liquid in her cup was not coffee and milk.

Sarah Douglas received cleaning solution instead of a latte

Ms Douglas pulled her car over and immediately spat out the substance.

She drove back to McDonald’s and told one of the employees she wanted to speak to the supervisor, she told Lethbridge News Now.

“I showed him the coffee and he had asked if I wanted a new one, and I said, ‘absolutely not, this is unacceptable,'” she told the news site.

The restaurant franchisee said in a statement he was sorry for the incident.

He explained that the machine had been cleaned as usual that morning but the milk supply line to the latte machine had not been disconnected from the cleaning solution while Ms Douglas’ drink was prepared.

“We have taken immediate action to review the proper cleaning procedures with the team and have put additional signage up as an added reminder,” said franchisee Dan Brown.

The pregnant mother of two told Global News that she feels fine but nonetheless visited her doctor as a precaution.

SOURCE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45037850

The man who has seen more U.S. executions than anyone else

Michael Graczyk saw someone die for the first time in March 1984. Graczyk, a reporter with the Associated Press, walked into a Texas prison to watch the execution of James David Autry, who had been sentenced to death for killing a convenience store clerk four years earlier.

Graczyk watched as Autry — a 29-year-old known as Cowboy who had been convicted of killing Shirley Drouet, a mother of five — took his final breaths. It was the second time Graczyk had gone to the prison expecting to see Autry’s execution; a few months earlier, a Supreme Court reprieve halted the lethal injection with the needles already in Autry’s arms.
When it was over, after the lethal drugs were injected and after Autry’s eyes fluttered open one last time, Graczyk sat down to write his story. His dispatch was circulated to readers across Texas and the nation. He wrote about how Autry had unsuccessfully tried to have his execution aired on television and about the heavy fog outside the prison and about Autry’s final meal (a hamburger, fries and a Dr Pepper).
Not long after, Graczyk returned to the prison to

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7 hot new foods that will actually make your life healthier

Some trends are worth following.
Have you tried to buy a box of crackers lately? With more than a dozen varieties of Nut-Thins alone – from country ranch to Asiago cheese to honey cinnamon – it’s not as simple as it used to be. The same could be said for pretty much all shelves of the grocery store these days – you’ll need to make a lot of decisions between classic and trendy. To help you out, I’ve identified seven brand-new and soon-to-be-released products that I hope are here to stay:
1. The Vine’s Sauces
In my opinion, sauce is to a meal what thread is to an article of clothing: It holds it all together. And while tomato-based sauces are often loaded with sodium, additives and preservatives, The Vine’s line of premium sauces stands out from the rest since each sauce contains ingredients you can pronounce and recognize. Plus, even the company’s flavored sauces like Calabrian style spicy marinara and butternut squash tomato sauce provide a maximum of 85 milligrams of sodium per 1/2 cup serving, while other Vine varieties have just 25 milligrams of sodium for the same amount. Vine also makes chunky salsas and even a ketchup sweetened with honey, and all of its products are non-GMO and organic.

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https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/articles/2018-07-23/7-hot-new-foods-that-will-actually-make-your-life-healthier

Copyright 2017 U.S. News & World Report

Demi Lovato rushed to hospital for possible overdose: Report

Demi Lovato was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital after allegedly suffering a drug overdose, but she is reportedly now in “stable” condition.

TMZ, citing police, said it appears that the singer suffered an “apparent heroin overdose.” However, The Blast said that “sources extremely close to the star are adamant she was not abusing heroin.”

According to TMZ, Demi was transported from her home in the Hollywood Hills to an area hospital for treatment on July 24 shortly before noon. TMZ noted that “paramedics found Demi unconscious when they arrived at her home.”

Page Six said the LAPD would not confirm whether Demi was transported, but said it responded to a “medical

© Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock Demi Lovato arrives at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas on May 20, 2018.

emergency” at 11:40 a.m. on Tuesday at a private residence.

Law enforcement sources told TMZ that Demi was treated with Narcan, an emergency treatment for narcotic overdoses, at her home. On Tuesday afternoon, People magazine reported that Demi was “stable.”

Demi has been open about her struggles with cocaine and alcohol in the past. She was apparently sober for six years until recently.

On June 21, Demi dropped a new song and video for “Sober,” in which she hinted that she had relapsed.

“Momma I’m so sorry / I’m not sober anymore / And Daddy, please forgive me for the drinks spilled on the floor,” she sang. “To the ones who never left me / we’ve been down this road before / I’m so sorry, I’m not sober anymore.”
“I’m sorry that I’m here again / I promise I’ll get help / It wasn’t my intention,” she sang. “I’m sorry to myself.”

Demi was scheduled to go on the road this week, but, TMZ said, “our sources say she’s been struggling.” She played a concert with Iggy Azalea on July 22 in Paso Robles, California.

SOURCE :
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/demi-lovato-rushed-to-hospital-for-possible-overdose-report/ar-AAAmQ6K?ocid=spartanntp#image=AAAmMj5|10