Statement from Biden’s office comes after US President Donald Trump expressed doubt over timing of diagnosis.
Former United States President Joe Biden was not diagnosed with prostate cancer before last week, and received his “last known” blood test for the disease more than a decade ago, his office has said.
The Biden camp’s statement on Tuesday came as critics, including current President Donald Trump, stoked scepticism over the timing of the diagnosis, which has reanimated questions about whether the former president misled the public about his health while in office.
“President Biden’s last known PSA was in 2014,” Biden’s office said in the brief statement, referring to the prostate-specific antigen test used to detect prostate cancer.
“Prior to Friday, President Biden had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer.”
On Monday, Trump said he was “surprised” that the public had not been notified about Biden’s diagnosis “a long time ago”.
“Why did it take so long? This takes a long time. It can take years to get this level of danger,” Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to the advanced nature of Biden’s cancer.
“Somebody is not telling the facts, and that’s a big problem,” Trump said.
Biden’s office said on Sunday that the former president had, two days earlier, been diagnosed with prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.
Biden’s office said his cancer had score of 9 under the Gleason classification system, which grades prostate cancer from 6 to 10, indicating it is among the most aggressive kinds.
While some doctors have expressed doubt that Biden, 82, was not diagnosed earlier given his access to the best medical care, others have noted that screening is generally not recommended for men of his age and that some cancers do not show up in tests.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other medical bodies do not recommend regular screening for prostate cancer for men over 70 due to the quality of life issues that can result from unnecessary treatment.
“It is entirely reasonable, albeit sad, that even a person of President Biden’s position may present with a new diagnosis of prostate cancer that is metastatic at his age,” Adam Weiner, an urologic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told Al Jazeera.
“Since President Biden is now 82, it is entirely possible he was screened for prostate cancer up to the recommended age and his newly diagnosed prostate cancer first occurred sometime since then,” Weiner said.
Nick James, an expert in prostate cancer at The Institute of Cancer Research in London, said the Biden camp’s account of the diagnosis was “plausible even if a bit unusual”, as certain cancers with a low PSA production can be missed in blood tests.
“It’s one of the drawbacks of PSA testing is that it can miss such tumours. Likewise, prostate MRI, the other test he might have had, also has a false negative rate,” James told Al Jazeera.
Biden’s age and health were major concerns for voters during his presidency and re-election campaign, which the former president abandoned following a disastrous debate performance against Trump in June.
Critics have accused Biden and his team of covering up the extent of his mental and physical decline while in office.
On Tuesday, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson released a new book, Original Sin, detailing the Biden camp’s alleged efforts to conceal his deterioration.
The book includes numerous accounts of Biden’s alleged decline, including an incident in which the then-president was said to have not been able to recognise Hollywood actor George Clooney at a 2024 fundraiser.
For British drummer Zak Starkey, the last few months with rock band the Who have been quite the whirlwind.
Starkey, who the band fired in April and reinstated days later after “some communication issues,” announced Sunday the “Baba O’Riley” group had fired him again. The veteran drummer, son of Ringo Starr, shared his side of the split on Instagram and disputed the band’s separate announcement about his departure.
The Who, in a joint Instagram post with guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend, said Sunday, “after many years of great work on drums from Zak the time has come for a change.”
“Zak has lots of new projects in hand and I wish him the best,” the post said, before adding that drummer Scott Devours would fill his seat for the band’s remaining farewell shows.
Starkey, 59, added his own text atop the band’s statement for his post. In his caption, he claimed he “was asked” to share his own announcement that he would leave the Who to pursue other projects. “This would be a lie,” he wrote. “I love The Who and would never had quit.”
He added: “So I didn’t make the statement…quitting The Who would also have let down the countless amazing people who stood up for me…thru the weeks of mayhem.”
Starkey, who has played with Oasis and the Icicle Works, among other acts, began performing with the Who in the mid-1990s and said he rarely faced conflict juggling his duties with the band and other endeavors. He also noted that the group has, for the most part, “been sporadic or minimalist in touring.”
“None of this has ever interfered with The Who and was never a problem for them,” he continued in his caption, which offered a timeline of his various musical commitments. “The lie is or would have been that I quit The Who — I didn’t. I love The Who and everyone in it.”
A representative for the Who did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.
In a second Instagram post Sunday, the band noted that it is “heading for retirement” and their now-ex-drummer is younger and must “devote all his energy into making” new endeavors a success.
When the Who announced Starkey’s reinstatement, Townshend said in a blog post to the band’s website the drummer needed “to tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line up and he has readily agreed” and shared more details about the sound issues that seemingly led up to Starkey’s initial firing.
“Maybe we didn’t put enough time into sound checks, giving us problems on stage. The sound in the centre of the stage is always the most difficult to work with,” Townshend wrote. “[The Who co-founder] Roger [Daltrey] did nothing wrong but fiddle with his in-ear monitors. Zak made a few mistakes and he has apologised . Albeit with a rubber duck drummer.”
He added: “We are a family, this blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen. It’s over. We move forward now with optimism and fire in our bellies.”
The Who embarks on its Song Is Over North America Farewell tour in August. The group will make two stops at the Hollywood Bowl on Sept. 17 and 19.
After one of her first visits to L.A. County’s juvenile hall in Sylmar, Efty Sharony filed a report that said she witnessed conditions worse than anything she’d seen in “over 20 years of experience visiting every level of carceral facility in California.”
Teens housed in the county’s Secure Youth Treatment Facility could be heard screaming throughout the building, slamming their bodies against doors, crying and howling, she wrote in a 2023 report to the state’s Health and Human Services secretary at the time, Dr. Mark Ghaly.
Urine flowed from beneath cell doors housing youths who had been held in isolation for more than 18 hours during a lockdown, according to Sharony’s report. The unit, at the time, held dozens of youths who had been convicted of serious and violent crimes.
The conditions at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall were exactly the kind of problems Sharony hoped to help solve as part of a broader effort led by Gov. Gavin Newsom to ensure humane treatment amid a remaking of the state’s youth prison system. In her role as the ombudswoman for the state’s Office of Youth and Community Restoration, Sharony said supervisors told her she was supposed to be “the only teeth” the agency had.
Weeks after Sharony sounded the alarm bells about Nidorf, an 18-year-old housed there died of a drug overdose. The California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered the hall closed the same day.
But instead of encouraging her to keep digging, Sharony alleges her bosses soon told her to stop investigating juvenile halls.
Three months later, she was fired and replaced by an attorney who had previously worked for the Newsom administration but had no prior experience with juvenile justice, according to a whistleblower complaint Sharony filed last year.
“It became clear that Efrat’s superiors were more interested in creating the illusion of addressing the many crises in the state’s juvenile facilities rather than doing anything about it,” the complaint read.
A spokeswoman for the state department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on confidential personnel matters, but said the agency remains committed to promoting “trauma responsive, culturally informed, gender honoring, and developmentally appropriate services for youth involved in the juvenile justice system.”
That approach, the statement said, includes giving the ombudsperson “full authority” and “sole direction” to investigate complaints from detained youths.
“Ensuring every complaint is thoroughly investigated is critical to protecting youth across the state and a primary goal of OYCR,” the spokeswoman said.
Sharony’s attorney, Matthew Umhofer, said he has not received any response to the whistleblower complaint, which is a precursor to a lawsuit.
“Efty was fired in retaliation for doing her job. She was fired because her findings about the deplorable conditions in juvenile facilities didn’t align with the state’s political narrative. That’s illegal,” he said. “We’ve given the state every opportunity to right the wrong here, but if they don’t, we’re prepared to fight for Efty in court.”
Sharony’s allegations that state officials have little appetite to fix chronic issues in L.A.’s juvenile halls echo other recent concerns about flagging efforts to improve the county’s crumbling youth facilities.
Faced with questions about his office’s failure to enforce a four-year-old court settlement mandating reforms in the halls, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said earlier this month that he is considering placing them in “receivership,” essentially wresting local control of the facilities away from the L.A. County Probation Department.
The California Board of State and Community Corrections also ordered another L.A. facility, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, shut down last year, but the Probation Department ignored the order for months without consequence. A judge finally intervened last month, and roughly 100 youths will be relocated from Los Padrinos to other facilities under a plan made public by the Probation Department earlier this month.
Sharony’s firing infuriated local officials who have watched the situation at the halls deteriorate for years.
Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Panorama City), who authored a bill to revoke probation departments from overseeing how juveniles are housed, said Sharony’s firing was a colossal mistake.
“I was livid that they fired someone that was passionate, who had experience in this space, and they brought in somebody from the inside,” Menjivar said. “How are you going to have accountability when you hire somebody who is already on the team?”
Efty Sharony, the former ombudswoman for the state Office of Youth and Community Restoration, a role in which she investigated conditions at L.A. juvenile halls.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Sharony — who previously worked as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School’s Juvenile Innocence & Fair Sentencing Clinic and oversaw prisoner reentry programs under former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti — said she believed the ombudswoman’s post would allow her to be part of the state’s reimagining of the juvenile justice system.
Newsom announced his intentions in 2019 to shut down the state’s youth prison system, which formerly housed juveniles convicted of serious crimes such as murder until they turned 25. The Office of Youth and Community Restoration was created by the Legislature in 2021 in part to oversee conditions at the local juvenile halls that would receive the state’s youngest prisoners.
Sharony said her oversight role allowed her to drop in on juvenile facilities with just 48 hours notice to conduct spot checks and review conditions identified in a complaint. It didn’t take long, she claims, for those visits to ruffle feathers.
When she left business cards with youths at a Contra Costa facility while investigating concerns about access to mental health services, Sharony said the department chief called her supervisors within the Office of Youth and Community Restoration to complain.
After she documented the squalid conditions at Nidorf, local officials again allegedly tried to go over her head and voice frustrations, said Sharony. In the whistleblower complaint, Sharony said “her colleagues vocally prioritized political relationships over the timeliness of their investigations.”
The HHS spokeswoman declined to comment on Sharony’s specific allegations.
A spokesperson for the Contra Costa County Probation Department said they had “never filed a complaint with OYCR and would not characterize any of our conversations with OYCR as a complaint.”
“Our relationship and interactions with OYCR are consistent with how we engage with any state agency or oversight body,” the department said in a statement. “We work within the processes and policies established to maintain a constructive and professional relationship.”
Sharony said in her whistleblower complaint that her reports out of Los Angeles went ignored by state officials.
“She was left in the dark, confused about why she was suddenly removed from conversations regarding the serious findings of her initial investigation,” the complaint read.
An HHS spokeswoman said the Office of Youth and Community Restoration did not have the authority to investigate whether a Secure Youth Treatment Facility complex was in compliance with state regulations. Sharony said in an interview that didn’t preclude them from acknowledging concerns about conditions there.
In an email attached to the whistleblower complaint, Sharony’s bosses said they were pausing her in-person visits “as we make final adjustments to our Policies & Procedures and continue to hire and onboard new staff. It’s expected that field visits will resume in the next few weeks.”
But then, in June 2023, Sharony was fired. She said she was never given a reason for her termination.
She was replaced by Alisa Hart, a former deputy legal secretary in Newsom’s office who helped work on the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and had previously worked with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She also previously worked as a staff attorney with the pro bono civil rights firm Public Counsel. Sharony contends Hart’s lack of experience working in the juvenile justice system made her less qualified for the ombudswoman’s post.
A spokeswoman for the Office of Youth and Community Restoration said the agency “hires the most qualified candidate when filling a vacant position,” but declined to answer specific questions about Hart other than to point to her biography on a state website. A spokeswoman for Newsom said the governor had no hand in her hiring.
Kate Lamb, the HHS spokeswoman, said the ombudswoman’s office received 49 complaints from Nidorf and Los Padrinos juvenile halls last year. Investigations into 22 of those complaints have not been completed, Lamb said.
An aerial view of Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
In 2023, when Sharony worked in the ombudswoman role for half of the year, the office received twice as many complaints and all have since been closed out, according to Lamb. Some of those complaints were handled after Sharony had exited the agency.
Those who frequent L.A.’s juvenile halls said Sharony’s removal is just one indication that state officials are not taking the county’s youth justice crisis seriously.
“The first ombudsperson was someone who was widely known and respected as a veteran stakeholder in the juvenile system here in L.A.,” said Jerod Gunsberg, a veteran criminal defense attorney who represents juveniles. “Then after that, the ombudsperson is removed from her position, and we’ve never heard anything again here in L.A.”
This followed allegations he intentionally got a yellow card for betting purposes in four Prem games between November 2022 and August 2023.
The club say they have NO idea when the findings of this will be revealed, so do not know if he will be banned for life or found not guilty.
Being in limbo is taking its toll on Paqueta, who denies any wrongdoing, and he broke down in tears of frustration after being booked in the 1-1 draw with Tottenham on May 4.
Today’s clash against seventh-placed Nottingham Forest is the Hammers’ final home match of the season and it could be the last time he ever dons the claret-and-blue colours.
He was an unused sub against Manchester United last week with a cold.
Potter said: “The week he had was particularly tough for him personally, which I think everybody can understand.
“And then, as a result of that, he was feeling under the weather on the day before the game at Manchester United and during the game.
“So I didn’t want to risk him and make it worse for him. But he’s trained really well, he wants to be part of the team to help and we’ll see how to use him for the weekend.”
When he broke down in tears against Spurs, wife Duda Fournier took to Instagram to express her concerns about her husband’s mental state.
West Ham star Lucas Paqueta charged with betting breaches
She said: “My husband has a posture and a strength that I admire and impresses me. We have been living this nightmare for two years.”
Asked if the situation was taking its toll on Paqueta, Potter replied: “Obviously, you know what it’s like, sometimes you are in stress and pressure, it can manifest itself in a different way.”
Asked if he wants clarity by the start of next season, Potter said: “For everybody concerned, yes. The sooner the better for everyone.
“In fairness to Lucas, he’s handled it brilliantly. Generally he’s come in and conducted himself in a really good way. He’s just ready to help the team.
“I think coming into work is a distraction for him. It takes his mind off things.
“For me, I’m just there to support him, the same with his team-mates.”
The FA declined to comment when approached by SunSport.
It will be an emotional afternoon in East London also for the likes of Aaron Cresswell, Lukasz Fabianski, Vladimir Coufal and Danny Ings.
The quartet, who were part of the 2023 Conference League-winning squad, have not been offered new contracts and will leave this summer.
Czech defender Coufal, 32, joined in 2020 from Slavia Prague.
And in a message to Hammers fans, he said: “I knew that once this time would come but I could not imagine how emotional it would be for me and my family.
“I can say with all honesty in my heart that I enjoyed every minute of being at West Ham. I am taking a lot of unforgettable memories with me.”
Yet there are NO guarantees any of them will play a role today and be given a proper send-off as Potter is eyeing up a possible 13th-place finish.
He added: “There’s a lot at stake in the Premier League in terms of our points and what Forest are fighting for, so we have to make sure we pick the right team to try to win.
“Of course, emotion is always part of football so that can help. But we have to make the decision based on everything to try to win.”
Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claims attack on Djibo military outpost, SITE Intelligence Group says.
An al-Qaeda affiliate has claimed it killed 200 soldiers in an attack on a Burkina Faso army base this week, according to an NGO that tracks armed groups’ online activity.
The base in the northern town of Djibo came under attack on Sunday morning, and a police station and market were also targeted, security sources told the news agency Reuters. Although there was no official toll, three Djibo residents told Reuters that dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed.
Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the death toll. A Burkina Faso military source told Al Jazeera that the armed group was exaggerating the number of casualties.
The United States-based SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activity of armed groups, said Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) made the claim in a formal statement.
“The operation comes amid increased JNIM activity in Burkina Faso over the past month inflicting a high number of casualties,” SITE said.
The organisation previously said Ousmane Dicko, head of JNIM in Burkina Faso, had appeared in a video urging residents of Djibo to leave the town for their own safety.
Reporting from Dakar, Senegal, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said the attack took place over a number of days.
“One of the major military outposts that was supposed to protect this town of about 200,000 people was razed to the ground, such was the firepower of the armed groups,” said Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from Senegal, Dakar.
“This is one of the deadliest attacks in Burkina Faso, and it comes just as Ibrahim Traore [Burkina Faso’s military leader] has been saying that the country has been gaining territory, encouraging people to go back to their homes, but this latest attack proves the opposite,” said Haque.
A video circulating on social media from the al-Qaeda affiliate warned people to leave their homes and said it would seize more territories.
“What we’re seeing here is the pivot point where these armed groups that normally attack villages are now trying to take over towns. It’s a major blow for Burkina Faso’s armed forces,” Haque said, noting the attacks come just as Traore was visiting Russia, asking President Vladimir Putin for more training and arms to fight off armed groups.
JNIM claimed responsibility for another assault this week targeting a military post in Burkina Faso’s northern Loroum province in which the group said 60 soldiers were killed, according to SITE.
The attacks highlight the difficulties the three Sahel nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, ruled by military leaders, are facing in containing the armed groups.
Burkina Faso authorities have not commented on the latest attacks.
A notable attack occurred in the Burkina town of Sole, where JNIM fighters raided the army military post and killed soldiers, SITE Intelligence said, without specifying on which day it took place.
A Military government took power in Burkina Faso in 2022, but they have largely failed to provide stability, as more than 60 percent of the country is estimated to be outside government control.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Office said Tuesday that President Trump’s tariff policies will reduce state revenues in California by $16 billion through next year.
Despite personal income tax and corporate tax receipts in the state coming in $6.8 billion above projections through April, the Newsom administration is predicting that overall revenues will be lower than they could have been from January 2025 through June 2026 because of the economic impact of Trump’s tariffs.
The governor released the new information, which his team dubbed the “Trump Slump,” on the eve of the presentation of his revised 2025-26 state budget plan, seeking to blame the president for California’s expected revenue shortfall. His office has not released any additional figures about the state budget.
Newsom is expected on Wednesday to project a deficit for California in the year ahead with Medi-Cal costs exceeding expectations, including his signature policy to provide free healthcare coverage to low-income undocumented immigrants. The new shortfall comes in addition to $27.3 billion in financial remedies, including $16.1 billion in cuts and a $7.1 billion withdrawal from the state’s rainy day fund, that lawmakers and the governor already agreed to make in 2025-26.
The deficit marks the third year in a row that Newsom and lawmakers have been forced to reduce spending after dedicating more money to programs than the state has available to spend. Poor projections, the ballooning cost of Democratic policy promises and a reluctance to make long-term sweeping cuts have added to the deficit at a time when the governor regularly touts California’s place as the fourth largest economy in the world.
Trump implemented a series of tariffs on all imported goods, higher taxes on products from goods from Mexico, Canada and China, and specific levies on products and materials such as autos and aluminum, in April. The president has backed down from some of his tariffs, but Newsom alleges that the policies and economic uncertainty will lead to higher unemployment, inflation, lower GDP projections and less capital gains revenue for California.
