Breast cancer survivor wants to help others

Breast cancer survivor wants to help others

WASHINGTON — Determined to help other young women, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida disclosed Saturday that she endured seven major surgeries last year, including removal of a malignant tumor, to win a bout against breast cancer.

Wasserman Schultz, 42, said she has not missed a day of work since her diagnosis in December 2007 and that she has a clean bill of health.

Now she plans to share her experience while calling for a nationwide education campaign to tell young women about warning signs and testing for breast cancer.

Doctors later discovered that she carries a mutated gene found with relative frequency among Ashkenazi Jews — those of Eastern European ancestry — which raised the risk that the cancer would spread. She decided to have both breasts and her ovaries removed as a preventive measure and to undergo reconstructive surgery. She will be taking the drug Tamoxifen for at least five years.

4 officers are ‘critical’ after manhunt, shootout

OAKLAND, Calif. — Four officers were in critical condition and a suspect dead Saturday after gunfire at a traffic stop led to a massive manhunt that ended in a shootout, police said.

Two officers were shot in the first altercation just after 1 p.m. after they stopped the suspect’s vehicle in east Oakland, said Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason.

The suspect fled on foot into a nearby neighborhood, police said, leading to an intense manhunt by dozens of Oakland police, California Highway Patrol officers and Alameda County sheriff deputies. Streets were roped off and an entire area of east Oakland shut to traffic.

At about 3:30 p.m. officers, acting on an anonymous tip, found the suspect, who had barricaded himself in a building.

The suspect was killed in the exchange of gunfire, and two more officers wounded.

Fire kills 4 residents of group home in N.Y.

WELLS, N.Y. (AP) — Four of the nine residents of a state-run group home in the southern Adirondacks are dead after a fire gutted the home early Saturday.

Gov. David Paterson says the fire started around 5:30 a.m. in the Riverview group home operated by the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities in Wells, a lakeside community 56 miles northwest of Albany.

Despite the efforts of several volunteer fire departments, four residents died — two at the site and two while being airlifted to Albany Medical Center.

The deceased include two men, age 52 and 32, and two women, age 43 and 60, officials said. State mental hygiene law protecting patient privacy prohibits release of the names.

3 retailers offer ideas on union organizing

WASHINGTON — Three major retailers on Saturday laid out broad details of an alternative proposal they hope will fend off a deadlock over a hotly contested bill making it easier for workers to unionize.

Starbucks Corp., Whole Foods Market Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. are opposed to portions of the labor-friendly Employee Free Choice Act, which would take away the right of employers to demand secret-ballot elections by workers before unions could be formed. Under the legislation, unions could gain representation if a majority of workers sign cards authorizing it.

Still, the companies say they recognize that simply opposing the bill might prove futile given a union-friendly environment in Washington in which Democrats control Congress. So the companies Saturday announced an ad-hoc committee aimed at pushing through alternatives. Their proposals will seek to maintain management’s right to demand a secret ballot election and would leave out binding arbitration.

Facts about octuplets’ dad

LA HABRA, Calif. — The Southern California woman who gave birth to octuplets says the father of all 14 of her children was speechless when he learned of the multiple pregnancy.

Nadya Suleman said in the video posted Saturday on RadarOnline.com that the father of her 14 children is a foreign-born California resident in his late 30s. She did not reveal his name or his address.

Suleman gave birth to octuplets on Jan. 26. The babies were born nine weeks premature and are the world’s longest-surviving set of octuplets. She also has six other children.

Combined dispatches