Former US president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, and is reviewing treatment options, a statement from his office said Sunday.

On Friday, the 82-year-old Democrat was diagnosed with the cancer after he experienced increasing urinary symptoms and was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule, the statement said.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” it continued.

Cancer cells are commonly found in the prostates of men of Biden’s age, though in most cases they grow slowly. Hormone therapy is a common treatment that can shrink tumors and slow cancer growth, but is not a cure.

According to the statement, Biden’s cancer was found to have “a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5).”

Prostate cancer that looks “very abnormal” is assigned the highest rating, Grade 5, according to the American Cancer Society. The Gleason Score often indicates the sum of the grades from the two areas in the prostate that make up most of the cancer, but can also be calculated other ways.

Biden left office in January this year as the oldest serving US president in history, and was dogged by questions over his health and age for much of his presidency.

For years he had faced questions, including from Democratic voters, over whether he was too old — lacking in mental acuity or physical endurance — for a job as trying as the presidency.

His response to doubters was a brisk: “Watch me.”

But in July last year he was forced to drop his reelection bid after a disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump in which fears about his decline and cognitive abilities came surging to the fore.

His vice president, Kamala Harris, eventually lost to Trump.

Biden maintains that he could have won the election, but questions have long swirled over the responses of staff and key Democrats to evident signs of his decline.

They have flared with the release, set for this Tuesday, of “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by CNN journalist Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios.

Last week a newly published recording of Biden speaking hesitantly and struggling to remember key events and dates fueled renewed debate over his mental capabilities while still in office.

Biden’s life has been marked by personal tragedy. In 1972 his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car crash, days after he had been elected as a US senator at the age of 29.

Biden underwent surgery twice in 1988 for brain aneurysms. In 2023 he had a skin lesion — a basal cell carcinoma — removed from his chest. He had previously had non-melanoma skin cancers removed.

Biden’s son Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015.

AFP

The Vatican says Pope Leo XIV will hold his first private audience on Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following the inauguration mass.


The pontiff said ahead of the meeting that the “martyred Ukraine” was waiting for negotiations for a just and lasting peace to finally happen.

Recall that Zelensky was among politicians, royals and faith leaders from around the world who attended the mass inaugurating the start of Leo’s papacy.


The pope, in his Regina Coeli prayer at the end of the mass, also explained that in Gaza, children, families and elderly survivors are reduced to hunger.

The pontiff recalled how in Myanmar, new hostilities have destroyed innocent young lives.

Two people died and 19 others were injured after a Mexican Navy training ship hit the Brooklyn Bridge, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday.

The ship snapped all three of its masts as it collided with the New York City landmark late Saturday, while onlookers enjoying the balmy spring evening watched in horror.

“At this time, of the 277 on board, 19 sustained injuries, 2 of which remain in critical condition, and 2 more have sadly passed away from their injuries,” Adams posted on X.

Footage shared online showed the Mexican Navy ship Cuauhtemoc, its sails furled and festive lights draped in its rigging, as it tried to pass beneath the bridge, which sheared off the masts and sent them crashing into the East River.

Hundreds of cheering spectators had gathered minutes earlier to bid farewell to the ship, which had been docked at a pier in southern Manhattan since Tuesday.

The Mexican Navy said in a statement that two crew members died in the crash, with a further 22 injured — half of them critically.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on X that she was “deeply saddened” by the two crew members’ deaths.

The ship lost power at around 8:20 pm (0020 GMT Sunday) while the captain was maneuvering the vessel, forcing it to head for the bridge abutment on the Brooklyn side, New York police chief of special operations Wilson Aramboles told a press conference.

Several sailors at the top of the ship were injured when it crashed into the bridge, Aramboles said.

It is not clear if these sailors are among the dead.

There was “panic on the ship,” Brooklyn resident Nick Corso, 23, who was standing near the water, told AFP.

He had been poised to take a photo, but when he realized what was happening he switched to video.

“Lots of screaming, some sailors hanging from the masts, looked like panic happening on the ship,” he said.

“I didn’t see anyone fall into the water but lots of people up top. People ran back and were screaming!” Corso, who does marketing for the entertainment company VeeFriends, said.

“The one thing that stood out to me was the panic on the ship, and there was a guy at the back waving for people to move away from the walkway we were on,” he said.

The Mexican Navy said in its statement that no one had fallen into the water, and that no rescue operation had been launched.

The ship had been departing New York at the time and flags also fluttered in the rigging, while an enormous Mexican flag waved off its stern.

Seconds after the ship left the dock, “suddenly we saw all the lights, how they collided, hit the bridge, and they (the sailors) all fell down,” Arturo Acatitla, a 37-year-old New York resident, told AFP.

“While inspections will remain ongoing, there are no signs of structural damage to the Brooklyn Bridge,” the New York transport department posted on X.

The bridge which leads from Brooklyn into Manhattan was closed for some 40 minutes before reopening.

Victims were taken to hospital, Mexican ambassador Esteban Moctezuma Barragan told a news conference, and sirens could be heard near the scene.

New York Police Department’s Aramboles said the Cuauhtemoc, a barque built in 1982 which had a mast height of 48.2 meters (158 feet), was sailing to Iceland when it crashed.

“With mariachi, folk ballet and a community full of emotion, we celebrated its arrival at Pier 17 in Manhattan,” the embassy post said.

The Cuauhtemoc was damaged in the “mishap,” the Mexican Navy confirmed in a statement on X.

“The Ministry of the Navy reaffirms its commitment to the safety of its personnel, transparency in its operations and excellence in the training of future officers of the Mexican Navy,” it said.

The ship was later moved to near the Manhattan Bridge, an AFP journalist saw.

The New York Police Department advised residents on X to avoid the area due to “heavy traffic” and “a large presence of emergency vehicles.”

The incident is the second deadly ship crash into a bridge in the United States in little over a year, after a vessel smashed into a bridge in Baltimore in March 2024, causing it to collapse and killing six road workers.

AFP