This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 8 Beth Roper had already sold her husband Doug's boat and his pickup truck. Her daughter sends $500 a month or more. But it was nowhere near enough to pay the $5,950-a-month bill at Doug's assisted-living facility. So last year, Roper, 65, abandoned her own plans to retire. To the public school librarian from Poquoson, Va., it feels like a betrayal of a social contract. Doug Roper, a longtime high school history teacher and wrestling coach, has a pension and Social Security. The Ropers own a home; they have savings. Yet the expense of Doug's residential Alzheimer's care poses a grave threat to their middle-class nest egg. At nearly $72,000, a year in assisted living for Doug, 67, costs more than her $64,000 annual salary. "It's devastating," she said. "You can't wrap your head around it." A wave of Americans has been reaching retirement age largely … [Read more...] about Senior care is crushingly expensive. Boomers aren’t ready.
In home senior care providers
The children of troops lost to Iraq War are all grown up
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 12 TUBA CITY, Ariz. - Brandon Whiterock stared at his mother's grave, a collection of incongruous stones carefully configured above the ruddy, dusty desert soil, and contemplated all that had changed since her second burial. Twenty years ago, in March 2003, Lori Piestewa, a U.S. soldier, was listed as missing in action during the hellish and confused early hours of America's war in Iraq. Her convoy was ambushed, leading to the capture and eventual deaths of several troops, Piestewa among them. As her family would learn, the 23-year-old was fatally wounded in a frantic race to help others flee the kill zone, and her remains were crudely buried outside of an Iraqi hospital. U.S. personnel were dispatched later to recover the captives and remains, including Piestewa's body. Anguish washed over the Hopi tribal community in Arizona, … [Read more...] about The children of troops lost to Iraq War are all grown up
A deadly fungal infection is spreading in hospitals. Here’s what to know.
A deadly fungal infection is spreading at "an alarming rate" inside health facilities and long-term-care hospitals across the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. Here's what to know about the highly drug-resistant fungus - a strain of a kind of yeast known as Candida auris (or C. auris for short) that the CDC says "presents a serious global health threat." While healthy people are not likely to contract the infection, those with lower immunity and people living in nursing homes are more likely to fall sick and be unable to fight the infection, and the outcome can be fatal. - - - What is Candida auris? Candida is a family of yeasts that can be found on the skin and inside the body. Usually, the fungus lives in areas such as the mouth, throat, gut and vagina, without causing health problems. Common types of Candida include "Candida albicans," which causes the yeast infection thrush. Sometimes, however, certain types of Candida can … [Read more...] about A deadly fungal infection is spreading in hospitals. Here’s what to know.
War forces thousands of disabled Ukrainians into institutions
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 11 DNIPRO, Ukraine - When a Russian shell slammed into Taya Berkova's apartment building in Kharkiv last March, her neighbors did something she could not: They ran. The 43-year-old, who uses a wheelchair because she has cerebral palsy, was trapped as the floors above her burned. When her elderly parents and other residents finally wrangled her and her chair down six flights of stairs, she became trapped again, in a basement with no ramp and no toilet that she could use without help. Conditions have not been much better in the string of makeshift shelters she has lived in since, including one where she shared a bathroom with 35 others. At times during her year-long odyssey as a disabled refugee, Berkova simply "stopped eating so I wouldn't have to go," she said. After several temporary shelter stays, Berkova now lives in a nursing home in … [Read more...] about War forces thousands of disabled Ukrainians into institutions
DeSantis’s pivotal service at Guantánamo during a violent year
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 Ron DeSantis was a 27-year-old Navy lawyer fresh out of Harvard Law School when he arrived in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, amid an escalating crisis at the U.S. military base. Hundreds of "enemy combatants," held without charges, had gone on hunger strikes. As pressure grew to end the protests, DeSantis later said, he was part of a team of military lawyers asked what could be done. "How do I combat this?" a commanding officer asked in 2006, as DeSantis recalled in an interview he gave years later to a local CBS television station. "Hey, you actually can force-feed," DeSantis said he responded in his role as a legal adviser. "Here's what you can do. Here's kind of the rules for that." Ultimately, it was the Pentagon's decision to authorize force feeding. Detainees were strapped into a chair and a lubricated tube was stuffed down their nose so a nurse could pour down two cans of a … [Read more...] about DeSantis’s pivotal service at Guantánamo during a violent year