Nine Years After Terminal Diagnosis, Woman With Same Cancer as Brittany Maynard is Still Alive

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In 2006, Sandra Hilburn was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme and was given three months to live. Her diagnosis was the same as Brittany Maynard’s, the 29-year-old terminally ill cancer-patient who received national attention when she legally committed suicide with a fatal dose of phenobarbital.

After finding out she had stage IV glioblastoma multiforme and six months to live, Maynard moved from her California home to Oregon so that she could have access to the “death with dignity” prescription. Currently, in the United States, Oregon is one of five states, along with New Mexico, Montana, Washington, and Vermont that allow assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.

However, unlike Maynard, Hilburn didn’t pursue assisted suicide and is still alive today.

According to the Daily Mail, researchers at Duke University Medical Center found that a dose of tetanus vaccine let patients like Hillburn live longer when added to an experimental treatment for the brain tumor. Researcher Kristen Batich said, “[The treatment] put the immune system on high alert,’ paving the way for the experimental treatment to work better in attacking the disease.”

Now nine years and five grandchildren later, Hilburn is still alive and going strong. She said, “I think I’m good for at least another 10-years.” Hilburn, along with 11 other cancer patients, were given the tetanus shot and then doctors removed white blood cells from the patients and equipped them with a chemical target found in the tumor called cytomegalovirus. Afterward they would return the cells to the patient’s body and train the immune system to go after the cancer cells and kill them. (Read more from “Nine Years After Terminal Diagnosis, Woman With Same Cancer as Brittany Maynard is Still Alive” HERE)

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Watch: President Obama Reads Mean Tweets About Himself on Jimmy Kimmel Live

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President Obama appeared as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live and spoke about Ferguson, Area 51, and other such talk show silliness.

But the clear highlight of his appearance was when he took part in Kimmel’s recurring bit in which Celebrities read mean tweets about themselves.

The tweets made fun of the President’s gray hair, his general terribleness, and the “Thanks, Obama!” meme. (Read more from “Watch: President Obama Reads Mean Tweets About Himself on Jimmy Kimmel Live” HERE)

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State Department Shuts Down Email After One of the Most Serious Cyber Attacks in Department History

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The State Department shut down large parts of its unclassified email system today in a final attempt to rid it of malware believed to have been inserted by Russian hackers in what has become one of the most serious cyber intrusions in the department’s history, U.S. officials told ABC News.

“The Department is implementing improvements to the security of its main unclassified network during a short, planned outage of some internet-linked systems,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement to ABC News.

The outage could last though the weekend, according to officials. But as of now there is no time limit and no real indication of when the system will be back online.

Last November, the State Department conducted similar repairs to its system stemming from a cyber-attack it suffered the month before. The attack targeted the unclassified email system and is believed to have been executed by Russian hackers. (Read more from “State Department Shuts Down Email After One of the Most Serious Cyber Attack’s in Department History” HERE)

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Disgusting: 14 Boys Accused of Sex Crimes at California High School [+video]

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Los Angeles police descended on Venice High School on Friday, arresting nine students in connection with a series of sex crimes that began more than a year ago and involved at least two female classmates.

All but one of the arrests were on campus; authorities were attempting to locate five other students. The investigation began after a parent reported the allegations on Tuesday.

As detectives investigated, they discovered at least one photographs showing sex acts, according to law enforcement sources. A photo that appears to show two teenagers engaged in a sex act has been circulated on social media. Allegations involved both consensual sexual acts between minors and coerced acts, which complicates the case, police said.

Twelfth grader Gabriel Siria said he was on his way to his second-period history class Friday morning when he walked past two school administrators with police officers. He watched as three students were handcuffed in the hallway outside of class.

Law enforcement officials stressed the investigation is still in its early stages and that police made the arrests quickly in an effort to prevent any more incidents. (Read more from “Disgusting: 14 Boys Accused of Sex Crimes at California High School” HERE)

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Jeb Bush Says His Amnesty Plan Is ‘the Grown-up Plan’ [+video]

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By Jon Ward. Jeb Bush said on Friday that his plan for reforming the nation’s immigration system is “the grown-up plan.”

Bush kicked off his first pre-2016 trip to New Hampshire with a visit to the Integra Biosciences manufacturing plant in Hudson, where he took questions from local business leaders. The former Florida governor, whose position on immigration reform has come under criticism from members of his party, once again endorsed “earned legal status” for immigrants who entered the country illegally.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Well, anything you can propose is amnesty.’ But that’s not a plan,” Bush said. “That’s a sentiment perhaps.”

Bush also faced questions about Common Core, the national educational standards that he’s supported despite widespread opposition from conservative politicians. (Read more from “Jeb Bush Says His Amnesty Plan Is ‘the Grown-up Plan'” HERE)


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Obama’s Clash with Venezuelan Leader Backfires; Latin Americans Unite against U.S.

By Andre F. Radzischewski. President Obama largely shrugged off the provocations of Hugo Chavez, but a clash with the late Venezuelan leader’s hand-picked successor may be backfiring.

Latin American leaders have rallied around embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as relations between Washington and Caracas have plunged to a new low.

Governments from Havana to Buenos Aires have denounced Mr. Obama’s executive order labeling Venezuela as a national security threat as unwelcome U.S. meddling in regional affairs. Analysts say the move may do little to improve the volatile situation in Venezuela and could well worsen it. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Photos Show the inside of Usama Bin Laden’s Pre-9/11 Tora Bora Hideout [+video]

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Newly surfaced photos of Usama bin Laden, taken in his Tora Bora hideout in the years before he launched the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history, and more than a decade before Navy SEALs killed him in his squalid Pakistan compound, show the Al Qaeda mastermind surrounded by guns, books and terrorist toadies.

The pictures were taken in 1996 by Palestinian journalist Abdel Barri Atwan, and introduced at a trial in Manhattan federal court of former Bin Laden deputy Khaled al-Fawwaz. Al-Fawwaz was convicted of conspiracy in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa and sentenced to life in prison.

The Saudi-born Bin Laden, who went to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Russians, and hid there before and after the 9/11 attacks, lived in a primitive mountain home made of mud and stone. Photos show him smiling with fresh-faced cronies, seated amid massive shelves of books and grinning with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder.

Bin Laden had declared war on the United States and summoned Atwan, who was then-editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, an independent Arabic weekly published in London, to his hideout in an effort to get his jihadist message out to the world.

The photographs were found by Scotland Yard detectives in a search years later of al-Fawwaz’s London home. (Read more from “Photos from inside Usama’s Pre-9/11 Tora Bora Hideout” HERE)

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American Scientists Are Trying to Genetically Modify Human Eggs

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Several teams of researchers around the world are believed to be working on ways of modifying the chromosomes of human egg cells with a view to moving towards “germ-line” gene therapy, as the process is called. Germ-line refers to the “germ” cells – sperm and eggs – that pass on genes to future generations.

However, other scientists have called for a moratorium on editing the human germ-line, arguing that it is ethically unacceptable because it is too unpredictable and too risky.

Nevertheless, researchers at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have attempted to use the Crispr (pronounced “Crisper”) gene-editing technique on human ovarian tissue cultured in the lab to see if it might be possible to correct the defective BRAC1 gene involved in inherited breast and ovarian cancer. As ovarian cells develop into egg cells, the research is likely to have involved the altering of some immature egg cells, known as oocytes.

The work was carried out last year by Luhan Yang, a researcher working in the lab of the veteran Harvard geneticist George Church. But the study has not been published in a scientific journal and Dr Yang was unavailable for comment.

Professor Church emphasised that the work was purely experimental. He said that it was carried out on human ovarian cells cultured in a laboratory dish and there was no intention of fertilising any eggs or transplanting them into a woman. (Read more from “American Scientists Are Trying to Genetically Modify Human Eggs” HERE)

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Man Tricked Ex With Abortion Pill Smoothie

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A man in Norway has admitted to tricking his pregnant ex-girlfriend into terminating her pregnancy by making her a smoothie laced with abortion pills, claiming he felt it was “the only way out”.

The 26-year-old man on Monday pleaded guilty both to inflicting serious bodily harm and also to terminating a pregnancy without the mother’s consent, in a case the prosecutor claimed was almost unique in Norwegian legal history.

“I had a bad conscience and felt remorse, but thought that it was the only way out,” the man told the court, according to Norway’s state broadcaster NRK.

The man already had a child with the woman from a short previous relationship, and had been unhappy when she became pregnant again after they had casual sex after meeting at a party.

“He tried several times to convince me to have an abortion but it was not an option for me,” the woman (20) told the court in Trondheim. (Read more from “Man Tricked Ex With Abortion Pill Smoothie” HERE)

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Veteran Alaska Musher First to Reach Iditarod Halfway Point

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A veteran Alaskan musher looking for his first Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race victory became the first to reach the official halfway point late on Thursday, pulling into the trail’s northern most community.

Aaron Burmeister, 39, arrived in Huslia on the fourth night of this nearly 1,000-mile race, which commemorates a 1925 rescue mission that carried diphtheria serum by sled-dog relay to the coastal community of Nome.

Welcome signs and cheers greeted Burmeister in this largely native Alaskan village of fewer than 300 people that serves as a checkpoint in the famed race, now in its 43rd year.

Huslia became part of the trail when race officials designed an alternative route after deeming sections of the traditional trail unsafe for competition.

Iditarod blogger and former competitor Sebastian Schnuelle wrote on the Iditarod website that “the whole town seemed out and about” awaiting Burmeister. (Read more from “Veteran Alaska Musher First to Reach Iditarod Halfway Point” HERE)

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Woman Gets Terrifying Surprise When She Notices Something Odd about Her Banana

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Maria Layton, 43, mum of Siri, aged six and Phoebe aged three, made the frightening discovery after opening the bag of bananas bought from Tesco.

The Tesco bananas were exported from Costa Rica – home of the world’s most dangerous spider – the Brazilian Wandering Spider aka Banana Spiders whose Greek name means “murderess” . . .

Maria, of Westbury-on-Trym, said:” My husband bought the bananas from Tesco. They had been in the house a whole day before I ripped the bag open.

“Siri asked for a banana. The first banana had a funny bit on it, so I got another one for her and that was when I found the massive spider cocoon.”

“There was spider web on the other bananas too. I was so scared – I don’t like spiders at the best of times, but have read about Brazilan Wandering Spiders – and was very frightened about the potential threat to my family.” (Read more from “Woman Gets Terrifying Surprise When She Notices Something Odd about Her Banana” HERE)

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