Boston University researchers in a groundbreaking study found that those with CTE have a much higher chance of being diagnosed with dementia.
The largest study of its kind from the Boston University CTE Center reveals that the progressive brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy should be recognized as a new cause of dementia.
The BU researchers discovered that those with advanced CTE — who had been exposed to repetitive head impacts — had four times higher odds of having dementia.
“This study provides evidence of a robust association between CTE and dementia as well as cognitive symptoms, supporting our suspicions of CTE being a possible cause of dementia,” said Michael Alosco, associate professor of neurology at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine.
“Establishing that cognitive symptoms and dementia are outcomes of CTE moves us closer to being able to accurately detect and diagnose CTE during life, which is urgently needed,” added Alosco, who’s the co-director of clinical research at the BU CTE Center.
The researchers studied 614 brain donors who had been exposed to repetitive head impacts, primarily contact sport athletes.
By isolating 366 brain donors who had CTE alone, compared to 248 donors without CTE, researchers found that those with the most advanced form of CTE had four times increased odds of having dementia.
The four times odds are similar to the strength of the relationship between dementia and advanced Alzheimer’s disease pathology, which is the leading cause of dementia.
Dementia is a clinical syndrome that refers to impairments in thinking and memory, in addition to trouble with performing tasks of daily living like driving and managing finances. Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause, but there are several other progressive brain diseases listed as causes of dementia that are collectively referred to as Alzheimer’s disease related dementias (ADRD).
With this new study, the authors argue that CTE should now also be formally considered an ADRD.
The study also reveals that dementia due to CTE is often misdiagnosed during life as Alzheimer’s disease, or not diagnosed at all. Among those who received a dementia diagnosis during life, 40% were told they had Alzheimer’s disease despite showing no evidence of Alzheimer’s disease at autopsy. An additional 38% were told the causes of their loved one’s dementia was “unknown” or could not be specified.
In addition, this study addressed the controversial viewpoint expressed by some clinicians and researchers that CTE has no clinical symptoms. As recently as 2022, clinicians and researchers affiliated with the Concussion in Sport Group meeting, which was underwritten by international professional sports organizations, claimed, “It is not known whether CTE causes specific neurological or psychiatric problems.”
Alosco said, “There is a viewpoint out there that CTE is a benign brain disease; this is the opposite of the experience of most patients and families. Evidence from this study shows CTE has a significant impact on people’s lives, and now we need to accelerate efforts to distinguish CTE from Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of dementia during life.”
As expected, the study did not find associations with dementia or cognition for low-stage CTE.
The BU CTE Center is an independent academic research center at the Boston University Avedisian and Chobanian School of Medicine. It conducts pathological, clinical and molecular research on CTE and other long-term consequences of repetitive brain trauma in athletes and military personnel.
NORTHALLERTON, England — Repeatedly heading a soccer ball “likely” contributed to the brain injury that was a factor in the death of former Manchester United and Scotland defender Gordon McQueen, a coroner found Monday.
McQueen died in June 2023 at the age of 70, with the cause of death given as pneumonia after he became frail and bed-bound for months.
In his narrative conclusions following an inquest, coroner Jon Heath said McQueen died from pneumonia as a consequence of mixed vascular dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated head trauma.
“It is likely that repetitive head impacts sustained by heading the ball while playing football contributed to the CTE,” the coroner said.
His daughter, Hayley McQueen, was in court to hear the findings. She gave evidence during the inquest, saying her father had said that ’heading a football for all those years probably hasn’t helped” his condition.
She said her father was relatively injury-free during his career but did suffer some concussions, adding: “They would just head back out and play.”
Hayley McQueen, a TV presenter, said she hopes the findings of the inquest will lead to change in soccer and “make sure that this really real, horrible problem isn’t a problem for future generations.”
McQueen played 30 games for Scotland between 1974-81, and for Manchester United and Leeds in a 16-year career.
After retiring as a player, McQueen went into coaching and became a TV pundit.
After his death, his family donated his brain to professor Willie Stewart, a consultant neuropathologist at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, the inquest heard.
Stewart said the only evidence available was that McQueen’s “high exposure” to heading a soccer ball contributed to the death and that heading the ball contributed to the CTE.
If television commercials and sales volume are any indication that people are worried about their brain health, then the answer is an unequivocal yes. It seems like you can’t watch TV for more than a few minutes without seeing an advertisement touting a vitamin or dietary supplement as a way to improve your memory and brain function.
The brain health supplements market in the United States was valued at $3.5 billion in 2024 and is expected to nearly double by 2030, Grand View Research reports. Studies on cognitive decline support this fear and the enormous reliance of an aging population on these supplements, but new research suggests there may be an alternative. It’s a more natural way to boost your brain health, fight off the cognitive effects of aging and reap other benefits.
Well-grounded concerns
Concerns over cognitive decline among the aging population are well grounded in science. The journal Frontiers in Aging Neurosciencereports that aging is among the contributing factors of physiological cognitive decline, noting that “the effect of aging on cognitive functions is the largest and most consistent influence documented by extensive research.”
Echoing these findings, the Journal of Clinical Investigation reports that cognitive decline and neurodegenerative changes are appreciable with advancing age. They say that as early as our 30s, core cognitive abilities, including processing speed, reasoning, episodic memory and spatial visualization begin to decline. The diminishment is small, yet consistent across our lifespans. With Mother Nature working against us, it’s not surprising that baby boomers, Generation X, and maybe even millennials are looking to maximize their cognitive functioning as long as possible.
Brain Health Support
In 2021, the AARP surveyed adults 50 and older and found that nearly 80% take a vitamin or dietary supplement and that 21% take a vitamin or dietary supplement for their brain health. It also showed that 71% wanted to maintain or improve their memory, 60% wanted to maintain or improve mental sharpness, and 12% take a supplement to delay dementia.
In September, I cited an earlier AARP survey that found three-quarters of adults age 40 and older are concerned about their brain health declining in the future. The National Institute on Aging is among various institutions that have reflected on the concerns about aging and brain health. It notes older adults worry about their memory and other thinking abilities. Coupled with the sales data on vitamins and supplements, these findings paint a picture of generations looking to do whatever they can to maintain their cognitive abilities.
The problem with supplements is found in a report from the University of Michigan that questions their effectiveness. According to the University’s Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation, “no major research studies support the effectiveness of supplements to enhance memory.” The experts at Michigan further indicated that studies on dementia show that few poll respondents discuss their concerns with their doctors, a potentially more effective way to apply evidence-based approaches to prevent or delay cognitive decline. Consistent with this message, new research indicates there is indeed an evidence-based alternative to keeping your brain young and doing it in a more natural way.
More muscle leads to less fat and a younger brain
A study of 1,164 healthy adults with an average age of 55 — roughly half men and women — based on comprehensive brain scans found that “those with high muscle mass and lower visceral fat showed significantly younger brain ages than their chronological years would predict.”
Visceral fat is the deep abdominal fat surrounding internal organs. It differs from the subcutaneous fat just under our skin, which is often the focus of our cosmetic attention. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America by Dr. Cyrus Raji, associate professor of radiology and neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Raji noted that “better brain health, in turn, lowers the risk for future brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.” In short, the researchers characterized their results as showing that more muscle and less belly fat slows brain aging, demonstrating that resistance training can be an effective neuroprotective strategy.
The findings are consistent with prior research showing that resistance training can support cognitive health, and further, provide an empowering, evidence-based alternative to supplements, and one which conveys other benefits.
Putting the findings to work
Commenting on the study’s implications for adults over 50, fitness trainer Dash Hartwell said resistance training (weight lifting 2-3 times per week) is the primary driver of muscle mass and that visceral fat “often responds relatively quickly to lifestyle intervention.” He cited dietary changes that reduce refined carbohydrates and processed foods, adequate sleep and stress management.
As to how best to approach resistance training, Hartwell said “the key is progressive overload: gradually increasing demands over time to continually stimulate adaption.” The goal, Harding said, is “body composition optimization.”
The American Cancer Society agrees. The organization says strength training can benefit men and women of all ages and suggests that two or three, 20- to 30-minute training session each week can produce significant benefits including the ability to reverse the loss of muscle mass associated with age. Other benefits include stronger bones, joint flexibility, weight control and better balance.
Mental health and well being has been a big part of my advocacy for men over 50. The logic is simple. If we want to maximize our quality of life and enjoy every bit of what life has to offer, we need to be both physically and mentally sharp. I won’t tell you it’s easy, but I will tell you that the fulfillment it can bring you is incredible.
And, let me remind you, when you get into rhythm and healthy living becomes ingrained in your life, what was once a tedious chore becomes another source of enjoyment. Our brains are at the center of our functional fitness; we need to attend to their wellbeing.
The best part is that this new research reinforces the point that what’s good for our mind is good for our body, and that’s a great return for the best investment you’ll ever make.
Congratulations, you’ve reached the final day of the Brain Health Challenge! Today, we’re asking you to do a few things that might feel a bit out of left field — like getting your blood pressure checked.
No, it isn’t as fun as playing Pips, but experts say it’s one of the most important things you can do for your brain. That’s because heart health and brain health are intrinsically linked.
High blood pressure, in particular, can damage brain cells, and it’s a significant risk factor for stroke and dementia. When blood pressure is too high, it places stress on the walls of arteries in the brain. Over time, that added stress can cause the blood vessel walls to thicken, obstructing blood flow. In other cases, the increased pressure causes the artery walls to thin and leak blood into the brain.
These changes to the blood vessels can sometimes cause a large stroke to occur. More commonly, the damage leads to micro-strokes and micro-hemorrhages, which cause fewer immediate problems and often go unnoticed. But if someone has hypertension for years or decades, these injuries can build up, and the person may start to experience cognitive impairment.
High blood pressure “is known as a silent killer for lots of reasons,” said Dr. Shyam Prabhakaran, the chair of neurology at the University of Chicago. “It doesn’t cause you any symptoms until it does.”
Because the damage accumulates over many years, experts say that managing blood pressure in midlife matters most for brain health. Hypertension can be addressed with medication or lifestyle changes, as directed by your doctor. But the first thing you need to do is know your numbers. If your blood pressure comes back higher than 120/80, it’s important to take it seriously, Dr. Prabhakaran said.
While you’re at it, there are a few other aspects of your physical health that you should check on.
Your eyes and ears are two of them. Hearing and vision loss have both been shown to increase the risk of dementia. Experts think that with less sensory information coming in to stimulate the brain, the regions that process hearing and vision can start to atrophy. What’s more, people with sensory loss often withdraw or are left out of social interactions, further depriving them of cognitive stimulation.
Oral health can also affect your brain health. Research has found a connection between regular flossing and reduced odds of having a stroke. That may be because good oral health can help to reduce inflammation in the body. The bacteria that cause gum disease have also been tied to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s.
And have you gotten your shingles vaccine? There is mounting evidence that it’s a powerful weapon for protecting against dementia. One study found that it lowered people’s odds of developing the condition by as much as 20 percent.
To wrap up this challenge, we want you to schedule a few medical appointments that benefit your brain, as well as your body.
After five days of feeding, exercising and challenging your brain, you are well on your way to better cognitive health. Thanks for joining me this week, and keep up the good habits!
Today, you’re going to do perhaps the single best thing for your brain.
When I asked neurologists about their top behaviors for brain health, they all stressed the importance of physical activity.
“Exercise is top, No. 1, when we’re thinking about the biggest bang for your buck,” said Dr. Gregg Day, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic.
Numerous studies have shown that people who exercise regularly tend to perform better on attention, memory and executive functioning tests. There can be a small cognitive boost immediately after a workout, and the effects are sustained if people exercise consistently. And while staying active can’t guarantee you won’t develop dementia, over the long term, it is associated with a lower risk of it.
Researchers think that moving your muscles benefits your brain in part because of special signaling molecules called exerkines. During and after a workout, your muscles, fat and other organs release these molecules into the bloodstream, some of which make their way up to the brain. There, those exerkines go to work, helping to facilitate the growth of new connections between neurons, the repair of brain cells and, possibly, the birth of new neurons.
Exercise also appears to improve blood flow in the brain. That ramps up the delivery of good things to brain cells, like oxygen, glucose and those amazing exerkines. And it helps remove more bad things, namely toxic proteins, like amyloid, that can build up and damage brain cells, increasing the risk for Alzheimer’s.
All of the changes brought on by exercise are “essentially allowing your brain to age more slowly than if you’re physically inactive,” said Kirk Erickson, the chair of neuroscience at the AdventHealth Research Institute.
The benefits are particularly pronounced in the hippocampus, a region critical for learning and memory. In older adults, the hippocampus shrinks 1 to 2 percent a year, and it is one of the main areas affected by Alzheimer’s. Researchers think physical activity helps to offset some of that loss.
The best exercise you can do for your brain is the one you’ll do consistently, so find something that you enjoy and that fits easily into your life.
Walking is one option; two neurologists I spoke to said they got their exercise in by walking at least part of the way to their offices. Recent research suggests that just a few thousand steps a day can reduce the risk of dementia. It’s important to get your heart rate up, though, so “walk as though you’re trying to get somewhere on time,” said Dr. Linda Selwa, a clinical professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School.
Or you could try swimming, cycling, Pilates, weight lifting, yoga, pickleball, dancing, gardening — any type of physical exertion can be beneficial.
If the thought of working out feels like a drag, try pairing it with something else you enjoy doing, like listening to an audiobook. This is a trick that Katherine Milkman, a professor who studies habits at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, calls “temptation bundling.”
For Day 3, we’re asking you to spend at least 20 minutes exercising for your brain. Go for a walk with your accountability partner if they’re nearby. (If not, call them and do a walk-and-talk.) Or let us find you a new workout to try, using the tool below. As usual, we can all meet in the comments to catch up and check in.
Welcome to Day 2 of the Brain Health Challenge. Today, we’re talking about food.
Your brain is an energy hog. Despite comprising about 2 percent of the average person’s body mass, it consumes roughly 20 percent of the body’s energy. In other words, what you use to fuel yourself matters for brain health.
So what foods are best for your brain?
In a nine-year study of nearly 1,000 older adults, researchers at Rush University in Chicago found that people who ate more of nine particular types of food — berries, leafy greens, other vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, fish, poultry and olive oil — and who ate less red meat, butter and margarine, cheese, sweet treats and fried food had slower cognitive decline.
Based on these findings, the researchers developed the MIND diet.
Experts think the foods included in the MIND diet are especially good for the brain because they contain certain macro and micronutrients.
Berries and leafy greens, for example, are rich in polyphenols and other antioxidants, said Jennifer Ventrelle, a dietitian at Rush and a co-author of “The Official Mind Diet.” Many of these compounds can cross the blood-brain barrier and help to fight inflammation and oxidative stress, both of which can damage cells and are linked to dementia.
Nuts and fatty fishes, like salmon and sardines, contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are important for building the insulating sheaths that surround the nerve fibers that carry information from one brain cell to another.
Whole grains and beans both contain a hefty dose of fiber, which feeds the good microbes in the gut. Those microbes produce byproducts called short-chain fatty acids that experts think can influence brain health via the gut-brain axis.
You don’t have to revamp your whole diet to get these nutrients. Instead, think about “MIND-ifying” whatever you already tend to eat, said Dr. Joel Salinas, a neurologist at NYU Langone Health and the founder and chief medical officer of the telehealth platform Isaac Health. For instance, add a handful of nuts or berries to your breakfast.
Today’s activity will help you MIND-ify your own meals. Share your choices with your accountability partner and in the comments, and I’ll discuss the ways I’m adjusting my diet, too. For added inspiration, check out these MIND-approved recipes from New York Times Cooking.
Welcome to the Brain Health Challenge! I’m Dana Smith, a reporter at The New York Times, and I’ll be your guide.
To live a healthy life, it’s crucial to have a healthy brain. In the short term, it keeps you sharp and firing on all cylinders. In the long term, it can reduce your risk of cognitive decline, dementia and stroke.
Practicing basic healthy behaviors, like eating nutritious food and getting regular exercise, is the best way to enhance your brain power and protect the longevity of your neurons. These types of lifestyle habits can benefit the brain at any age. And while they won’t guarantee that you’ll never develop dementia or another brain disease, severalclinicaltrials have shown that they can improve cognition or slow decline.
Every day this week, you’ll do an activity that’s good for your brain, and we’ll dig into the science behind why it works. Some of these activities can provide a small immediate cognitive benefit, but the bigger reward comes from engaging in them consistently over time. So along with the neuroscience lessons, we’ll include a few tips to help you turn these actions into lasting habits.
To keep you accountable, we’re encouraging you to complete this challenge with a friend. If you don’t have a challenge buddy, no problem: We’re also turning the comments section into one big support group.
There are so many fascinating ways your daily behaviors affect your brain. Take sleep, for example.
Lots ofstudies have shown that getting a good night’s rest (seven to eight hours) is associated with better memory and other cognitive abilities. That’s because sleep, especially REM sleep, is when your brain transfers short-term memories — things you learned or experienced during the day — into long-term storage.
Sleep is also when your brain does its daily housekeeping. While you rest, the brain’s glymphatic system kicks into high gear, clearing out abnormal proteins and other molecular garbage, including the protein amyloid, which is a major contributor to Alzheimer’s disease. A buildup of amyloid is one reason experts think that people who routinely get less sleep have a higher risk of dementia.
What other behaviors play a big role in brain health? For today’s activity, we’re going to test your knowledge with a quiz. Share your score with your accountability partner and in the comments below — I’ll be in there too, cheering you on.
If the microbiome of those eating plant-based diets protects against the toxic effects of TMAO, what about swapping gut flora?
“Almost 2,500 years ago, Hippocrates stated that ‘All disease begins in the gut.’” When we feed our gut bacteria right with whole plant foods, they feed us right back with beneficial compounds like butyrate, which our gut bugs make from fiber. On the other hand, if we feed them wrong, they can produce detrimental compounds like TMAO, which they make from cheese, eggs, seafood, and other meat.
We used to think that TMAO only contributed to cardiovascular diseases, like heart disease and stroke, but, more recently, it has been linked to psoriatic arthritis, associated with polycystic ovary syndrome, and everything in between. I’m most concerned about our leading killers, though. Of the top ten causes of death in the United States, we’ve known about its association with increased risk of heart disease and stroke, killers number one and five, but recently, an association has also been found between blood levels of TMAO and the risks of various cancers, which are our killer number two. The link between TMAO and cancer could be attributed to the inflammation caused by TMAO, but it could also be oxidative stress (free radicals), DNA damage, or a disruption in protein folding.
What about our fourth leading killer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), like emphysema? TMAO is associated with premature death in patients with exacerbated COPD, though it’s suspected that it’s due to them dying from more cardiovascular disease.
The link to stroke is a no-brainer—no pun intended. It is due to the higher blood pressure associated with higher TMAO levels, as well as the greater likelihood of clots forming in those with atrial fibrillation. Those with higher TMAO levels also appear to have worse strokes and four times the odds of death.
Killer number six is Alzheimer’s disease. Can TMAO even get up into our brains? Yes, TMAO is present in human cerebrospinal fluid, which bathes the brain, and TMAO levels are higher in those with mild cognitive dysfunction and those with Alzheimer’s disease dementia. “In the brain, TMAO has been shown to induce neuronal senescence [meaning, deterioration with age], increase oxidative stress, impair mitochondrial function, and inhibit mTOR signaling, all of which contribute to brain aging and cognitive impairment.”
Killer number seven is diabetes, and people with higher TMAO levels are about 50% more likely to have diabetes. Killer number eight is pneumonia, and TMAO predicts fatal outcomes in pneumonia patients even without evident heart disease. Kidney disease is killer number nine, and TMAO is strongly related to kidney function and predicts fatal outcomes there as well. Over a period of five years, more than half of chronic kidney disease patients who started out with average or higher TMAO levels were dead, whereas among those in the lowest third of levels, nearly 90% remained alive.
How can we lower the TMAO levels in our blood? Because TMAO originates from dietary sources, we could limit our intake of choline- and carnitine-rich foods. They’re so widespread in foods,” though we’re talking about meat, eggs, and dairy. “Therefore, restriction of foods rich in TMA-containing nutrients may not be practical.” Can we just get a vegan fecal transplant? “Vegan donors provided the investigators with a fresh morning fecal sample…”
If you remember, if you give a vegan a steak, despite all that carnitine, they make almost no TMAO compared to a meat-eater, presumably because the vegan hasn’t been fostering steak-eating bugs in their gut. See below and at 3:40 in my video Can Vegan Fecal Transplants Lower TMAO Levels?.
Remarkably, even if you give plant-based eaters the equivalent of a 20-ounce steak every day for two months, only about half start ramping up production of TMAO, showing just how far their gut flora has to change. The capacity of veggie feces to churn out TMAO is almost nonexistent. Instead of eating healthier, what about getting some vegan poop?
In a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, research subjects either got vegan poop or their own poop back through a hose snaked down their nose, and it didn’t work.
First of all, the vegans recruited for the study started out making TMAO themselves, in contrast to the other study, where they didn’t make any at all. This may be because the earlier study required the vegans to have been vegan for at least a year, and this study didn’t. So, there wasn’t much of a change in TMAO running through their bodies two weeks after getting the vegan poop, but the vegan poop they got seemed to start out with some capacity to produce TMAO in the first place.
So, the failure to improve after the vegan fecal transplant “could be related to limited baseline microbiome differences and continuation of an omnivorous diet” after the vegan-donor transplant. What’s the point of trying to reset your microbiome if you’re just going to eat meat? Well, the researchers didn’t want to switch people to a plant-based diet since they knew that alone can change our microbiome, and they didn’t want to introduce any extra factors. The bottom line is that it seems there may not be any shortcuts. We may just have to eat a healthier diet.
A new study found a link between cheese consumption and a decrease in dementia risk. Specifically, it finds that eating at least 50 grams of high-fat cheese a day, including brie, gouda, cheddar, parmesan, gruyere, and mozzarella, is correlated to a reduced risk, as reported by Science Alert.
It’s estimated that 57 million people lived with dementia in 2021, and there are around 10 million new diagnoses every year. According to a 2019 analysis from the Global Burden of Disease, by 2050 the number of cases could reach 153 million.
Because of a lack of treatments, researchers guide their research toward things that will lower the risk of developing dementia. Diets are a key factor, but cheese has always been tricky to figure out.
Researchers, led by nutrition epidemiologist at Lund University Yufeng Du, used data from the Malmö Diet and Cancer cohort, which tracked nearly 28,000 adults in Sweden across 25 years. The participants’ gave an interview about food habits and filled out a 7-day food diary at the beginning of the study, and results were taken at the end.
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They found that those who ate high-fat cheese demonstrated a statistically detectable lower risk for dementia. Roughly 10 percent of participants who ate at least 50 grams of high-fat cheese daily developed dementia, versus the 13 percent who ate less than 15 grams each day. More research is required to learn why.
“For decades, the debate over high-fat versus low-fat diets has shaped health advice, sometimes even categorizing cheese as an unhealthy food to limit,” said Emily Sonestedt, an epidemiologist at Sweden’s Lund University. “Our study found that some high-fat dairy products may actually lower the risk of dementia, challenging some long-held assumptions about fat and brain health.”
Still, the study doesn’t mean that cheese will save you from dementia. (Unfortunately.)
NEW YORK — Federal prison officials say the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch is fit to stand trial on federal sex trafficking charges after he was hospitalized with Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and a traumatic brain injury.
Michael Jeffries had been ordered to be hospitalized in May. But in a letter filed in federal court in New York on Wednesday, Blake Lott, the acting warden at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina said the 81-year-old is “now competent to stand trial.”
Lott didn’t provide further details in the letter but said the center has provided a report to the judge handling the case. Jeffries had been discharged from FMC-Butner on Nov. 21, according to previous filings in the case.
Brian Bieber, an attorney for Jeffries, responded that other doctors had previously found his client incompetent to proceed.
“A doctor from the Bureau of Prisons is of a different opinion,” he said in an email Wednesday. “We look forward to the Judge hearing the medical evidence, and deciding on the appropriate course of action moving forward.”
The letter comes as prosecutors and Jeffries’ lawyers are expected to confer by phone Thursday with U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury on the status of the case.
Jeffries pleaded not guilty last year to federal charges of sex trafficking and interstate prostitution.
His lawyers had argued that the former executive required around-the-clock care and was unable to understand the nature and consequences of the case against him or to assist properly in his defense.
They had said at least four medical professionals concluded that Jeffries’ cognitive issues were “progressive and incurable” and that he would not “regain his competency and cannot be restored to competency in the future.”
Jeffries’ lawyers and prosecutors had requested that he be hospitalized in federal Bureau of Prisons custody so he could receive treatment that might allow his criminal case to proceed.
Choudhury agreed, ordering him placed in a hospital for up to four months. Before then, Jeffries had been free on a $10 million bond.
Prosecutors say Jeffries, his romantic partner and a third man used the promise of modeling jobs to lure men to drug-fueled sex parties in New York City, the Hamptons and other locations. The charges echoed sexual misconduct accusations made in a civil case and the media in recent years.
Jeffries left Abercrombie in 2014 after more than two decades at the helm. His partner, Matthew Smith, has also pleaded not guilty and remains out on bond, as has their co-defendant, James Jacobson.
Saturday Night Live has never shied away from making jokes about political matters. With Donald Trump as the President of the United States, the show has had a seemingly endless supply of material to satirise in recent months.
With the continuous developments at the White House, Saturday Night Live has been heavily focused on US politics, particularly Trump’s bizarre and unbelievable antics. While most of SNL’s criticisms of Donald Trump have been coming through skits, some have been more direct. For instance, a video from the show featuring Weekend Update hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che is currently going viral on social media. In the video, Jost and Che are humorously trolling President Donald Trump while reporting on the latest updates from the White House. They cover a wide range of topics, from the end of the government shutdown to the release of Epstein emails that reveal shocking information about Trump, to the reintroduction of SNAP benefits, and Trump’s recent appearance at a Washington Commanders game (where he got severely booed). A notable moment, however, from the segment is when Jost jokes about Trump’s suggestion to the Washington Commanders to name their new stadium after him, saying:
For those who have been keeping a close watch on Donald Trump during his second term as President of the United States, the reference will be clear, unless they are MAGA supporters, who are often blind to their leader’s shortcomings. For those who aren’t aware, in the past couple of months, Donald Trump has been doing and saying a lot of things publicly, which have led many to believe that he suffers from cognitive impairment. On multiple occasions, he has boasted about taking cognitive tests and acing them, but recently, he described one of the tests he took, and people have pointed out that it resembles the test taken by individuals to detect dementia, prompting many to believe that Trump has been diagnosed with the same.
Sanchari Ghosh is a political writer for The Mary Sue who enjoys keeping up with what’s going on in the world and sometimes reminding everyone what they should be talking about. She’s been around for a few years, but still gets excited whenever she disentangles a complicated story. When she’s not writing, she’s likely sleeping, eating, daydreaming, or just hanging out with friends. Politics is her passion, but so is an amazing nap.
The presence of beta amyloid and tau proteinsare hallmark signs of Alzheimer’s. Amyloid can begin to accumulate in the spaces between neurons as early as one’s 30s, potentially affecting communication between brain cells. As amyloid deposits grow, they can lead to a rapid spread of abnormal tau proteins, which form tangles inside brain cells, thus killing them.
“Physical activity may help slow the buildup of tau — the protein most closely linked to memory loss — and delay cognitive decline in people with early Alzheimer’s,” said lead study author Dr. Wai-Ying Wendy Yau, a neurologist and memory disorders physician scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Cognitive decline was delayed by an average of three years for people who walked 3,000 to 5,000 steps per day, and by seven years in individuals who walked 5,000 to 7,500 steps per day, Yau said in an email.
While the research is informative, relying on a specific number of steps per day to prevent Alzheimer’s is too simplistic, said neurologist Dr. Richard Isaacson, director of research at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Florida. He was not involved in the study.
“I get really cautious about catchy numbers like walking 5,000 or 7,000 steps,” said Isaacson, who conducts studies on cognitive improvement in people who are genetically at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
“If someone has excess body fat, if someone has prediabetes, if someone has high blood pressure, just walking a certain number of steps won’t be enough,” he said. “Everyone needs their own individualized plan.”
No decline in beta amyloid
The study was small — only 296 people between the ages of 50 and 90 — but researchers used objective measures, which improved the reliability of the 14-year study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.
“The strength of this research is the combination of serial highly specialized scans that measure amyloid and tau deposition in the brain, with cognitive assessments and baseline step count. This is unique,” said Masud Husain, a professor of neurology and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oxford’s medical science division, in a statement. He was not involved in the study.
Steps were measured by pedometer; participants underwent yearly cognitive testing for an average of nine years; and everyone received a PET (or positron-emission tomography)scan at the beginning of the study to measure levels of amyloid and tau. A smaller group received a follow-up PET scan at the end of the study.
While tau buildup slowed by between three and seven years for people who walked up to 7,500 steps per day, people who were sedentary had a significantly faster buildup of tau proteins and more rapid declines in cognition and daily functioning, the study found.
An unusual finding was the lack of a relationship between physical activity and a decline in beta amyloid, which appears before tau.
“Instead, for a given amount of elevated amyloid burden, higher step counts were associated with slower accumulation of tau, which largely explained the relationship with slower cognitive decline,” said Yau, who is also an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
Because the study was only observational, it cannot show a direct cause and effect, Yau said. However, such studies reinforce existing knowledge that what is good for the heart — such as walking, stress reduction, quality sleep and a plant-based diet — is good for the brain, experts say.
“We’ve known for years that mice which exercise on their little wheels have about 50% less amyloid in their brains,” Isaacson said. “While we need more research in people, I’m convinced exercise on a regular basis reduces amyloid buildup and improves cognition.”
Maybe you know you snore like a bear, but you don’t feel much urgency to look into it. Or maybe you have been told to wear a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine for sleep apnea, but it is just so cumbersome.A new study shows that it is important to take obstructive sleep apnea seriously now –– it could impact your risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease later.Moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea is associated with a greater risk for new microbleeds in the brain, according to the study.”Cerebral microbleeds are a common finding in the aging brain,” said Dr. Jonathan Graff-Radford, professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. He was not involved in the research.Microbleeds increase with age, and people who have them have a slightly higher risk of future strokes and faster cognitive decline, Graff-Radford said. “Anything that increases microbleeds is relevant to brain aging,” he added.More evidence you need to treat sleep apneaObstructive sleep apnea is a condition in which a blockage of airways by weak, heavy or relaxed soft tissues disrupts breathing during sleep. The condition is different from central sleep apnea, in which the brain occasionally skips telling the body to breathe.There are a few ways to treat obstructive sleep apnea, including relying on oral devices that keep the throat open during sleep, regularly using a CPAP or similar machine, and having surgeries.The study has a strong methodology and should stress the importance of screening for sleep apnea to clinicians and treatment to patients, said Dr. Rudy Tanzi, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was not involved in the research.”Don’t ignore it. Do something about it,” he said. “It’s not just the immediate risk for down the road for bleeds, but also later down the road for Alzheimer’s disease as well.”Not addressing obstructive sleep apnea is a double whammy, Tanzi said. Not getting enough good-quality sleep –– which can be hard to do when your breathing is impaired during the night –– has been associated with brain aging, but the microbleeds that could result may increase the risk for dementia down the line.The study, which was published in the journal JAMA Network Open Tuesday, is observational, which means that it can only establish that obstructive sleep apnea and microbleeds are associated, not that one definitively causes the other. Further studies will need to examine if treating sleep apnea can prevent microbleeds.Know the signsWhen is it time to ask your doctor about obstructive sleep apnea?Loud, frequent snoring is a good indicator, Tanzi said. If your partner notices pauses in your breathing while you sleep or gasping and choking, that’s another sign you should look into sleep apnea.Problems during the day can be a good indicator, too. Sleepiness, trouble concentrating, irritability and increased hunger are signs you may not be getting quality sleep and that it may be time to get assessed for sleep apnea.Night sweats might also be a sign of sleep apnea, as research has shown that about 30% of people with obstructive sleep apnea have reported night sweats.Waking up at least two times in the night, teeth grinding, and morning headaches might also indicate a problem.The latest study “urges (people) to take it more seriously, because the damage that can come from obstructive sleep apnea can definitely be more severe than you think,” Tanzi said.
CNN —
Maybe you know you snore like a bear, but you don’t feel much urgency to look into it. Or maybe you have been told to wear a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine for sleep apnea, but it is just so cumbersome.
A new study shows that it is important to take obstructive sleep apnea seriously now –– it could impact your risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease later.
Moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea is associated with a greater risk for new microbleeds in the brain, according to the study.
“Cerebral microbleeds are a common finding in the aging brain,” said Dr. Jonathan Graff-Radford, professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. He was not involved in the research.
Microbleeds increase with age, and people who have them have a slightly higher risk of future strokes and faster cognitive decline, Graff-Radford said. “Anything that increases microbleeds is relevant to brain aging,” he added.
More evidence you need to treat sleep apnea
Obstructive sleep apnea is a condition in which a blockage of airways by weak, heavy or relaxed soft tissues disrupts breathing during sleep. The condition is different from central sleep apnea, in which the brain occasionally skips telling the body to breathe.
There are a few ways to treat obstructive sleep apnea, including relying on oral devices that keep the throat open during sleep, regularly using a CPAP or similar machine, and havingsurgeries.
The study has a strong methodology and should stress the importance of screening for sleep apnea to clinicians and treatment to patients, said Dr. Rudy Tanzi, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was not involved in the research.
“Don’t ignore it. Do something about it,” he said. “It’s not just the immediate risk for down the road for bleeds, but also later down the road for Alzheimer’s disease as well.”
Not addressing obstructive sleep apnea is a double whammy, Tanzi said. Not getting enough good-quality sleep –– which can be hard to do when your breathing is impaired during the night –– has been associated with brain aging, but the microbleeds that could result may increase the risk for dementia down the line.
The study, which was published in the journal JAMA Network Open Tuesday, is observational, which means that it can only establish that obstructive sleep apnea and microbleeds are associated, not that one definitively causes the other. Further studies will need to examine if treating sleep apnea can prevent microbleeds.
Know the signs
When is it time to ask your doctor about obstructive sleep apnea?
Loud, frequent snoring is a good indicator, Tanzi said. If your partner notices pauses in your breathing while you sleep or gasping and choking, that’s another sign you should look into sleep apnea.
Problems during the day can be a good indicator, too. Sleepiness, trouble concentrating, irritability and increased hunger are signs you may not be getting quality sleep and that it may be time to get assessed for sleep apnea.
Night sweats might also be a sign of sleep apnea, as research has shown that about 30% of people with obstructive sleep apnea have reported night sweats.
The latest study “urges (people) to take it more seriously, because the damage that can come from obstructive sleep apnea can definitely be more severe than you think,” Tanzi said.
LONDON — Actor Prunella Scales, best known as acid-tongued Sybil Fawlty in the classic British sitcom “Fawlty Towers,” has died, her children said Tuesday. She was 93 and had dementia.
Scales’ sons, Samuel and Joseph West, said she died “peacefully at home in London” on Monday.
“Although dementia forced her retirement from a remarkable acting career of nearly 70 years, she continued to live at home,” her sons said. “She was watching ‘Fawlty Towers’ the day before she died.”
Scales’ career included early film roles in a 1952 version of “Pride and Prejudice” and the 1954 comedy “Hobson’s Choice,” followed by her TV breakthrough in the 1960s sitcom “Marriage Lines.”
In “Fawlty Towers” she played the exasperated wife of hapless Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, whose efforts to run a seaside hotel inevitably escalated into chaos. Only 12 episodes were made, in 1975 and 1979, but it is regularly cited as one of the funniest sitcoms of all time.
Later roles included Queen Elizabeth II in “A Question of Attribution,” Alan Bennett’s stage and TV drama about the queen’s art adviser, Anthony Blunt, who was also a Soviet spy. Scales played another British monarch in the one-woman stage show “An Evening with Queen Victoria.”
Scales was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013. Between 2014 and 2019, she and her husband, actor Timothy West, explored waterways in Britain and abroad in the gentle travel show “Great Canal Journeys.” The program was praised for the way it honestly depicted Scales’ dementia.
West died in November 2024. Scales is survived by her sons, stepdaughter Juliet West, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
These episodes, combined with my mother’s observations about increasing forgetfulness and compulsive behaviours, led us to get him medically tested. The diagnosis was direct: early-stage dementia. His doctor suspended his licence and directed me to take immediate control of his finances. That moment introduced my family and me to a harsh reality. While we all expect our parents to age and need help, the sudden immersion into managing someone’s declining health can be shocking and leave us unprepared for the caregiving responsibilities ahead.
Warning signs you may need to step in
Many of the signs may at first seem quite innocent and subtle, but if you notice them occurring frequently and consistently, they could be flags to get a diagnosis. These can include:
Repetitive conversations: Constant circling around the same pattern of compulsive thoughts.
Failing to recognize familiar faces: Several times my father failed to recognize long-time family friends he once spoke to on regular basis. There were times he even failed to understand who I was, which was so disheartening.
Social withdrawal: As health difficulties progress, the person’s social circles shrink slowly but then dramatically. As my father’s condition progressed, both my parents detached themselves from their fairly large social networks. COVID-19 accelerated the process.
A job you never applied for
These behaviours are often more dismaying to family members than to the person with the health issues.
If you’re reading this and thinking about your own aging parents—or if you’re already in the thick of it like I still am—you’re not alone. According to a 2022 report from Statistics Canada, around one in four Canadians aged 15 and older (7.8 million people) provided care to a family member or friend with a long-term health condition, a disability, or problems associated with aging. These 2018 figures likely underestimate the true prevalence of caregiving, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased the demand for elder-care services.
Managing your parents’ finances can feel like a full-time job. I’m now six years into this journey and it’s been a never-ending roller-coaster of phone calls, emails, and appointments with banks and service providers. It is hard enough to stay on top of your own and immediate family’s finances. You must now understand all of your parents’ financial quirks, ranging from their income sources and recurring expenses to what investments they have, if any. At times it feels like an endless scavenger hunt searching for documents, bank accounts, invoices, legal documents, insurance policies, and online accounts.
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Levels of caregiving
In most cases, you are not undertaking this in a bubble. You must navigate through family dynamics, often resulting in difficult and emotional conversations with your parents and other family members. You may need to consider difficult decisions, likely creating resistance as pride and independence are tested. From my experience, this has been the most draining part of this experience, both emotionally and physically.
Financial caregiving can fall into different levels depending on the capabilities of your parents. It could be simply providing your parents with advice and guidance in the form of reviewing and explaining financial accounts and documents. It could fall in the form of suggesting methods for better organizing their financial affairs.
If your parents’ health impairments are more advanced, an active participation may be necessary in the form of paying bills, filing tax returns on their behalf, or accompanying them to appointments with their bank or financial advisor. At the most extreme level—which is what I had to go through with my father—legal interventions using a power of attorney to make financial and health-related decisions on their behalf may be required, which require a high level of commitment and attention to detail.
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More lessons to come
In our upcoming series on MoneySense, I’ll be sharing the practical lessons learned from my journey: the essential documents you need to locate, the conversations to have before they become urgent, the financial red flags to watch for, and the systems that can help preserve your parent’s independence while protecting their financial security.
While we can’t prevent our parents from aging, we can certainly be better prepared for the financial realities that come with it that hopefully will allow them to retain some dignity in their lives and set a positive example for our younglings to pay it forward.
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Montgomery County Ride On bus driver Tilwanna Gollman Stevenson is being hailed as a hero after helping reunite a missing elderly woman with dementia with her family.
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Ride On bus driver’s instinct reunites missing women with her family
A Montgomery County Ride On Bus operator is being praised for her swift action and compassion after helping reunite a missing woman with dementia and her family.
On Monday night, bus operator Tilwonna Gollman Stevenson was driving her usual route through Germantown when a woman boarded her bus.
“When she got on the bus, she stood out to me because she’s not one of my regulars,” Stevenson recalled.
Shortly after, a countywide alert went out to Ride On drivers to be on the lookout for an elderly woman with dementia who had wandered away from a nearby hospital.
Police, acting on the belief that the woman may have taken the bus, pulled over Stevenson’s bus, but no one on board exactly matched the description.
“I was thinking, maybe a young person,” Stevenson said. “The 55 is a very busy bus.”
A few minutes later, Stevenson took another look at the woman who had caught her attention earlier.
“I looked over and said, ‘Hold up.’” she said.
Stevenson got on the radio, asked for more details, and when she learned the missing woman was in her 80s, she realized she had found her.
Stevenson pulled the bus over, contacted Central Communications, and calmly engaged the woman, who didn’t speak English, while waiting for help.
“I turned and I looked at her, and she looked at me, and she stood up like she knew. … I said, ‘Your family’s looking for you. Someone’s on their way to get you,’” she said.
Stevenson stayed with the woman until police arrived and confirmed her identity.
“I didn’t know how long she had been missing, how long she had been traveling on the bus. I just wanted to keep her calm, and I wanted her to know that she was safe,” she said.
Ride On later commended Stevenson with a certificate of appreciation for her actions, but she said she wasn’t looking for recognition.
“It could have been my grandmother who got turned around and maybe confused about where they were going,” she said.
She credited both her instincts and her training as a bus operator for helping her recognize something wasn’t right.
“I’m glad that I was the one who was able to help her,” Stevenson said.
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Federal immigration arrests in Colorado surged this summer as the Trump administration charged ahead with its plans to mass-deport undocumented immigrants.
But as arrests have spiked, law enforcement agencies increasingly have detained people without any prior criminal convictions or charges, internal data show.
Between June 11 and July 28, ICE arrested 828 people in Colorado, according to a Denver Post analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley. That amounted to more than 17 arrests per day, a more than 50% increase from the first five months of the Trump administration, through June 10, a period covered in a previous Post story. The rate from this summer was also more than five times higher than the daily arrest average from the same time period in 2024.
Of those detained over the summer, only a third had prior criminal convictions noted in the records. Another 18% had pending charges, indicating that nearly half had been neither convicted nor charged with a crime and that their only violation was immigration-related.
That, too, is a shift: In the earlier months of President Donald Trump’s second term, two-thirds of the 1,639 people arrested in Colorado had either been convicted of a crime (38%) or charged with one (29%).
“That tracks with what we would have expected (and) what we’ve been hearing from community sources,” said Henry Sandman, the co-executive director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “The data and the reality disproves ICE’s talking points that they’re going after criminals. We’re seeing tactics increase. They’re trying to increase arrest numbers as high as possible, whatever the reason may be for detaining folks.”
Steve Kotecki, a spokesman for Denver’s ICE field office, did not respond to a request for comment late last week.
The data, obtained directly from ICE by the UC Berkeley researchers through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, offers the clearest look at immigration enforcement activities available, as ICE doesn’t post recent information online. For this analysis, The Post examined arrests that occurred in Colorado; arrests that were listed in the dataset as occurring in Wyoming but which took place in a Colorado city; and arrests lacking a listed state but which occurred in a Colorado town or county.
The Post removed several apparent duplicate arrests and a similarly small number of arrests in the region that did not have a specific location listed. The analysis also included a handful of people who appeared to have been arrested twice in the span of several months.
When listing a detainee’s criminal background, the data provides no details about the criminal charges or prior crimes. Illegally entering the country is typically treated as a civil matter upon first offense, but a subsequent entry is a felony criminal offense.
More info about July operation
The newly released data includes the same nine-day period in July during which ICE has said it arrested 243 immigrants without proper legal status “who are currently charged with or have been convicted of criminal offenses after illegally entering the United States.” The arrests, the agency said, all occurred in metro Denver.
But the data published by the UC-Berkeley researchers does not fully match ICE’s public representations.
During the same time frame, the agency arrested 232 people, according to the data. Most of those arrested during that time had never been convicted or charged with a crime, at least according to what’s in the records. Sixty-six people had a previous criminal conviction, and 34 more had pending charges.
Kotecki did not respond to questions about the July operation.
The Post previously reported that ICE falsely claimed that it had arrested a convicted murderer in Denver as part of the July operation. The man had actually been arrested at a state prison facility shortly after his scheduled release, state prison officials said last month.
While ICE claimed the man had found “sanctuary” in the capital city — a shot taken at Denver’s immigration ordinances — The Post found that state prison officials had coordinated his transfer directly to ICE. He was then deported to Mexico, and information matching his description is reflected in the UC Berkeley data.
It’s unclear if all of ICE’s arrests are fully reflected in the data, making it difficult to verify ICE’s claims. The researchers’ data is imperfect, experts have told The Post. The records likely represent the merging of separate datasets before they were provided by the government, increasing the likelihood of mistakes or missing data.
Some arrests in Colorado were listed as occurring in other states or had no state listed at all. Other arrests were duplicated entirely, and researchers have cautioned that ICE’s data at times has had inaccurate or missing information.
The anonymized nature of the data, which lacks arrestees’ names but lists some biographical information, also can make it difficult to verify. When ICE announced the results of the July operation, it named eight of the people it had arrested. Court records and the UC Berkeley data appear to match up with as many as seven of them.
The eighth, Blanca Ochoa Tello, was arrested on July 14 by ICE’s investigative branch in a drug-trafficking investigation, court filings show. But it’s unclear if she appears in the ICE data, as she was arrested in La Plata County and no woman arrested in that county was listed in the data.
To verify ICE’s July operation claims, The Post examined arrest data in Colorado and Wyoming, which jointly form the Denver area of operations for the agency. The Post also searched for arrests in every other state to identify any arrests that may have occurred in a Colorado area but were errantly listed under other states.
Federal agents detain a man as he exits a court hearing in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on July 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Nationally, immigration authorities had their most arrest-heavy months this summer, according to data published by researchers at Syracuse University. Immigration officials arrested more than 36,700 people in June, its highest single-month total since June 2019, during Trump’s first term. More than 31,200 were arrested across the country in July.
The Trump administration has also set out to increase its detention capacity to accommodate the mass-deportation plans.
As of late July, ICE planned to triple its detention capacity in Colorado, according to documents obtained last month by the Washington Post. That plan includes opening as many as three new facilities and the expansion of Colorado’s sole existing facility in Aurora.
DHS officers watch from the parking lot as protesters gather at the entrance to the ICE Colorado Field Office on Aug. 30, 2025, in Centennial. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post)
Over the course of this year, ICE arrested people in Colorado who were originally from more than 60 countries, according to the data. That included 10 Iranians arrested in late June or early July. Six of those people were arrested on June 22, the day after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. Three more were arrested over the next 48 hours.
The vast majority of the undocumented immigrants who were arrested and deported were returned to their home countries, though roughly 50 were sent somewhere else, the data show. Nine Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador in the first two weeks of the Trump administration, when alleged gang members were dispatched to a notorious prison there.
ProPublica identified roughly a dozen Coloradans who were sent to that prison. It reported that several were arrested in late January, which matches information listed in the ICE data published by UC Berkeley.
Advocates’ fears of continued arrests have escalated as ICE’s funding has surged. On Aug. 30, several immigration advocates picketed outside an ICE field office in Centennial after a number of immigrants received abrupt notices to check in at the facility.
Four people were detained, said Jordan Garcia, the program director for the American Friends Service Committee’s immigrant-rights program in Colorado.
Among them, he said, was an older Cuban man with dementia. Garcia and other advocates spoke with the man and his son before they entered the facility. The son later came out, Garcia said, and said that his father had been detained.
CAUSE TODAY. THE 2025 WALKED IN. ALZHEIMER’S GOT UNDERWAY IN YUBA CITY, KCRA 3’S ERIN HEFT SHOWS US HOW YOU CAN STILL HELP. THE FLOWERS ARE A BEAUTIFUL REPRESENTATION OF THE CONNECTION THAT WE HAVE TO ALZHEIMER’S. THE CONNECTION THAT WE HAVE AS A CAREGIVER IS YELLOW. THE CONNECTION THAT WE HAVE FOR SOMEONE THAT IS EMPATHETIC TO THE CAUSE BUT DOESN’T REALLY HAVE SOMEONE THAT THEY KNOW CLOSE TO THEM, THAT IS ORANGE. AND THEN FOR SOMEONE THAT HAS LOST SOMEONE TO ALZHEIMER’S, THAT IS THE PURPLE FLOWER. FLOWERS IN HAND, MARCHED DOWN THE STREETS OF YUBA CITY, A LIFE BEHIND EACH ONE. THE BLUE ONE IS THE ONE THAT IS THE HARDEST TO SEE. SOMETIMES IT’S THE PERSON THAT HAS ALZHEIMER’S AND WE WANT THEM TO FEEL INCLUDED. AND THIS ONE TIME, MAYBE JUST ONCE A YEAR, THEY FEEL THAT THEIR CONNECTION IT MATTERS. A DAY TO SUPPORT, A DAY TO BRING TOGETHER, A DAY TO HONOR THE MANY LIVES TOUCHED BY DEMENTIA AND ALZHEIMER’S. WE SPOKE WITH RANDY MA, WHO EXPLAINED SHE’S HERE TO HONOR A CLOSE FAMILY FRIEND AS ONE OF THEIR CARETAKERS. IT IS VERY STRESSFUL AND YOU HAVE TO HAVE A LOT OF LOVE AND COMPASSION AND BE JUST BE THERE FOR THOSE THAT NEED YOU TODAY AND TOMORROW AND IN THE FUTURE. THESE CROWDS, NOT ONLY RAISING FUNDS, BUT AWARENESS, LEAVING LOVING MESSAGES OF TRIBUTE. THE ALZHEIMER’S ASSOCIATION BRINGING TO LIGHT THE REALITY THAT THE COUNTRY FACES WITH 7 MILLION AMERICANS CURRENTLY DIAGNOSED, THAT NUMBER IS PROJECTED TO NEARLY DOUBLE BY THE YEAR 2050 THROUGH FUNDRAISING. IT’S THEIR GOAL TO END ALZHEIMER’S, PUTTING ONE STEP IN FRONT OF THE OTHER TO CHANGE THE FUTURE FOR MILLIONS. WE ARE PROUD OF YOU IN YUBA CITY, ERIN HEFT KCRA THREE NEWS WALKED IN ALZHEIMER’S YUBA CITY HAS A FUNDRAISING GOAL OF $97,500, AND CURRENTLY THEY’VE MADE IT TO 70% OF THEIR GOAL. BUT
Miles for a cause: Walk to End Alzheimer’s steps off in Yuba City
Flowers in hand, participants marched through city streets, each bloom symbolizing a life, a story, and a connection to the cause.
The 2025 Walk to End Alzheimer’s set off in Yuba City on Saturday, drawing families, caregivers and supporters determined to change the future of dementia. Flowers in hand, participants marched through city streets, each bloom symbolizing a life, a story, and a connection to the cause.“The flowers are a beautiful representation of the connection that we have to Alzheimer’s,” explained Elicia Stewart, Walk Manager for Yuba City and Chico. “Yellow represents caregivers. Orange is for those who support the cause. Purple honors those we’ve lost. The blue one is the hardest to see…it’s for the person living with Alzheimer’s, and we want them to feel included.”It was a day to support, a day to bring together and a day to honor the many lives touched by dementia and Alzheimer’s. Among the walkers was Randie Marr, who came to honor a close family friend as one of their caretakers. “It is very stressful, and you have to have a lot of love and compassion,” Marr said. “Just be there for those that need you today and tomorrow and in the future.”Beyond the sea of flowers and heartfelt tributes, the crowd focused on raising both funds and awareness. The Alzheimer’s Association underscored the urgency: with 7 million Americans currently diagnosed, that number is projected to nearly double by 2050. Through fundraising and community action, the goal is clear, to end Alzheimer’s.The Walk to End Alzheimer’s Yuba City has set a fundraising goal of $97,500 and has already reached 70% of that target. Donations remain open on the event website through the end of the year, as walkers keep putting one step in front of another to change the future for millions.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
YUBA CITY, Calif. —
The 2025 Walk to End Alzheimer’s set off in Yuba City on Saturday, drawing families, caregivers and supporters determined to change the future of dementia.
Flowers in hand, participants marched through city streets, each bloom symbolizing a life, a story, and a connection to the cause.
“The flowers are a beautiful representation of the connection that we have to Alzheimer’s,” explained Elicia Stewart, Walk Manager for Yuba City and Chico. “Yellow represents caregivers. Orange is for those who support the cause. Purple honors those we’ve lost. The blue one is the hardest to see…it’s for the person living with Alzheimer’s, and we want them to feel included.”
It was a day to support, a day to bring together and a day to honor the many lives touched by dementia and Alzheimer’s. Among the walkers was Randie Marr, who came to honor a close family friend as one of their caretakers.
“It is very stressful, and you have to have a lot of love and compassion,” Marr said. “Just be there for those that need you today and tomorrow and in the future.”
Beyond the sea of flowers and heartfelt tributes, the crowd focused on raising both funds and awareness. The Alzheimer’s Association underscored the urgency: with 7 million Americans currently diagnosed, that number is projected to nearly double by 2050. Through fundraising and community action, the goal is clear, to end Alzheimer’s.
The Walk to End Alzheimer’s Yuba City has set a fundraising goal of $97,500 and has already reached 70% of that target. Donations remain open on the event website through the end of the year, as walkers keep putting one step in front of another to change the future for millions.
In previous years, the committee recommended updated COVID-19 vaccines within days of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving them. This year, the committee doesn’t have any meetings scheduled until late September, and may not recommend the shot when it does meet, since Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appointed multiple members with anti-vaccine views after removing all prior appointees in June.
The lack of a recommendation also means that insurance companies aren’t legally required to pay for the COVID-19 vaccine without out-of-pocket costs. Most private insurers will cover the updated shots this year, though that could change in 2026, according to Reuters.
Initially, CVS said it couldn’t give the COVID-19 vaccine to anyone in Colorado or 15 other states, because of their ACIP-approval requirement. As of Friday morning, its pharmacies can offer the shots to eligible people who have a prescription, spokeswoman Amy Thibault said.
As of about 10 a.m. Friday, CVS’s website wouldn’t allow visitors to schedule COVID-19 shots in Colorado.
Walgreens didn’t respond to questions about its COVID-19 vaccine policy, but its website said patients need a prescription in Colorado. A New York Times reporter found the same in 15 other states.
History of stroke or disease in the brain’s blood vessels
Chronic kidney disease
Liver disease
Cystic fibrosis
Diabetes (all types)
Developmental disabilities, such as Down syndrome
Heart problems
Mental health conditions, including depression and schizophrenia
Dementia
Parkinson’s disease
Obesity
Physical inactivity
Current or recent pregnancy
Diseases or medications that impair the immune system
Smoking
Healthy people technically still can get the vaccine, but would have to ask a health care provider to prescribe it off-label. An off-label prescription refers to one given for a condition the drug isn’t approved to treat, such as a blood-pressure drug prescribed to prevent migraines.
Not everyone has a regular health care provider or the inclination to take time out of their day for an office visit, though. Insurers also vary in their willingness to cover off-label prescriptions.
“Every person in a position of responsibility who has cognitive decline must make their own decision about how and when to adjust. It is my duty to represent the best interests of District residents, often on complex matters. I do not want to cast a vote on an issue which I may not be able to fully consider,” Gray’s statement said.
His announcement comes after his children petitioned a D.C. court to appoint a guardian and conservator over him. The Washington Post, which first reported the petition, also reported a judge has ruled to appoint Gray a guardian and conservator due to his inability to handle his personal and financial affairs.
The chairman of the D.C. Council, Phil Mendelson, applauded Gray’s transparency about his health in a statement to WTOP, a sentiment echoed by Mayor Muriel Bowser.
“After a long and distinguished career in DC Government, this is a selfless decision to put our city and the residents of Ward 7 first. I join DC residents in wishing Councilmember Gray well and thanking him for all that he has done for our city,” Bowser said in a post on the social media platform X.
Wendell Felder, who has previously worked in D.C.’s executive office of the mayor, won the Democratic primary crowded with candidates hoping to replace Gray. He’ll be the heavy favorite in the general election against Republican candidate Noah Montgomery.
The 81-year-old Gray first joined the D.C. Council in 2005 before serving as mayor from 2011 to 2015. He returned to the Council in 2017.
“I have complete confidence in the collective judgment of my Council peers. My mind is at ease regarding all matters slated to come before the Council between now and the New Year,” Gray said.
This story is developing. Stay with WTOP for updates.
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