McCain ends cancer treatment

Announcement signals end of battle with life- threatening disease ‘ The progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict,’ the 81- year- old senator's loved ones said in a statement on Friday

Washington, Aug. 24: Veteran US senator and war hero John McCain — a towering figure in American politics for decades — has stopped treatment for brain cancer, his family announced on Friday, one year after the Republican went public with his diagnosis.

The announcement signals the beginning of the end of a tough battle with an aggressive form of cancer — and of a storied life that took the Naval Academy graduate from a Hanoi prison to the doorstep of the White House.

"The progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict," the 81- year- old senator's loved ones said in a statement.

"With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment." McCain has spent more than three decades in the upper chamber of Congress, looming large in debates over war and peace and the moral direction of the nation.

The Navy fighter pilot spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after being shot down while on a bombing mission over Hanoi.

He lost the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama, and was pilloried for selecting controversial Alaska politician Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

"No man this century better exemplifies honor, patriotism, service, sacrifice, and country first than Senator John McCain," said fellow Republican Mitt Romney.

"His heroism inspires, his life shapes our character. I am blessed and humbled by our friendship."

With no more elections to run, since 2016, he has been a rare and outspoken Republican critic of President Donald Trump.