Latest news with #Sidner
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
CNN's Sara Sidner opens up about losing Ananda Lewis to breast cancer and her upcoming surgery: ‘How am I doing? I don't know right now, honestly.'
In an emotional interview with TheGrio's Natasha S. Alford, CNN anchor Sara Sidner reflects on the loss of Ananda Lewis, the mental toll of breast cancer, and the health disparities Black women continue to face. After a week filled with deep loss and reflection, CNN anchor Sara Sidner spoke with TheGrio's Natasha S. Alford about something far more personal than the headlines she usually covers: her ongoing battle with breast cancer and the recent passing of her dear friend, Ananda Lewis. In a raw and heartfelt moment, Sidner described the 'tornado of emotions' she's been experiencing as she grieves Lewis—who also battled breast cancer—and simultaneously prepares for her own reconstructive surgery. 'How am I doing? I don't know right now, honestly,' she admitted to Alford when asked how she was doing. 'I can't really explain the tornado of emotions that is swirling around in my body right now. Losing Ananda Lewis after having sat with her just a few months ago and talked about our decisions for our health and knowing that part of her decision was a bit of a trust of the traditional ways of medicine in this country. Sidner pointed to the stark racial disparities in breast cancer outcomes. According to the American Cancer Society, Black women are about 40% more likely to die from the disease than white women. This harsh reality is due to factors like late-stage detection, other health conditions that complicate the disease, and inadequate access to care. She continued: 'Knowing that we both took these different paths and that she was at peace with hers and that I'm at peace mine, but losing her was just a reminder of not only the deadliness that cancer can still med out, but also that it does it to black women more than their counterparts.' 'Having that light be turned off… is just a reminder of our mortality—and a reminder that my fight with this disease is not over.' Sidner shared that while she has completed some phases of treatment, her journey is ongoing. A major reconstructive surgery still lies ahead, and long-term medication will be part of her life for years to come. The emotional toll, she said, is just as real as the physical one. 'I think that's probably one of the hardest things about this particular kind of breast cancer, but cancer in general is you're always wondering is it gonna come back- when does it come back?' Sider reflected. 'There's a mental component of this that I think everyone has to recognize and deal with and try to make sure that there's no shame or blame that goes on both in your own mind and in your community.' Sidner's openness reflects the same themes of truth-telling and healing she explores in her latest CNN story, airing Sunday at 8PM ET on The special is called 'The Simril(l)s: A Family in Black and White' and follows one family—Black and white descendants linked by slavery—as they confront painful history and begin a conversation about reparations. More must-reads: Judge blocks Trump's election executive order, siding with Democrats who called it overreach 7 iconic fictional (but real in our hearts) fathers we love, in honor of Father's Day Key moments from the fifth week of Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Shooting witness of Israeli embassy staff says he saw 'same thing' in shooter's eyes as Columbia protestors
An eyewitness to the shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers said on Thursday he saw the same thing in the eyes of the shooter that he did in the eyes of protesters at Columbia University. "We were in the secure room when he initially walked in," Jonathan Epstein, a witness to the deadly shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum at around 9:08 p.m. Wednesday that took the lives of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, two employees at the Israeli embassy who were about to be engaged. Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old male, is the suspect in the shooting and is in custody. "I saw him screaming and then being handcuffed," Epstein said on CNN. "But what I saw in his eyes, I mean, I went to Columbia for grad school, and I saw the same thing in his eyes as I saw in the eyes of all the protesters at Columbia. Nothing different between him and them." Witness Recounts Chilling Moment Dc Jewish Museum Shooter Confessed 'I Did This For Gaza' On May 7, 2025, over 100 anti-Israel protesters stormed the campus library of Columbia University to show support for Mahmoud Khalil, the said instigator of pro-Palestinian protests at the school. Read On The Fox News App Acting president of Columbia University, Claire Shipman, said the protesters allegedly damaged the campus building and staked out one of the library's main reading rooms, blocking the building's front door. While CNN anchor Sara Sidner said the Columbia protesters "did not create this horrific shooting," Epstein pushed back. "They gave permission, they gave the permission, and they've called for this," Epstein said. "They have called for intifada revolution, which is the same thing he yelled last night." From Campus Protests To Deadly Violence: Israeli Embassy Staff Murdered In Dc When Sidner questioned if there will come a time when there is a "conflation" of people who are protesting and "speaking their mind, who really care about what is happening in Gaza, and those people who are like this person who did this horrific shooting, who intend to do harm," Epstein said he thinks that could already be happening. "A conflation," Epstein said. "I mean, they are calling for intifada at Columbia University. They call for intifada constantly. They're not quiet. They're loud. They're loud. You can hear it. They make recordings of themselves. So what's the difference?" In response to Sidner's question asking him if he was afraid, he said that he was, and "everyone should be," but that life must go on. "Well, I think you just go on and live your life," Epstein said. "I'm a New Yorker. I remember 9/11. You can't let them make you be afraid. You have to go on. You have to live your life. And hopefully your government does things to protect you. Last night, our government failed us."Original article source: Shooting witness of Israeli embassy staff says he saw 'same thing' in shooter's eyes as Columbia protestors
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
TIME100 Health Panelists Talk ‘Curing Cancer'
Sara Sidner, anchor and senior national correspondent for CNN, told the audience at the TIME100 Health Impact Dinner on Tuesday night that she did 16 rounds of chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in 2023—and worked the entire time through it. The room erupted into loud applause. 'It is possible to live your life while trying to kill cancer,' Sidner said. 'We've come such a long way, and I just quickly want to say to this room: whoever is in this room that is a nurse, a doctor, a physician, a researcher, someone who is creating drugs for us—thank you. Thank you for the research. Thank you for your work; we need it so, so much.' Sidner was joined onstage by Dr. Vinod Balachandran, surgeon-scientist and director of the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Victor Bulto, president of the U.S. unit for Novartis, which sponsored the event in New York City. The three appeared on a panel moderated by TIME senior health correspondent Alice Park to discuss the groundbreaking innovations in cancer detection, treatment, and prevention—and the research that still needs to be done. Sidner, who is a 2025 TIME Closers honoree, said she hadn't always planned on publicly sharing her cancer diagnosis. But when she learned she had stage III breast cancer, she realized she wouldn't be able to keep it a secret from everyone. 'You have spent your life telling other people's stories—maybe this is something you need to tell, and tell it in a really honest, sometimes embarrassing, way. Tell people what it's like going through this journey,' she recalled thinking. Balachandran, who is a 2025 TIME100 Health honoree, called cancer 'the most urgent health crisis of our lifetime.' In the United States, one in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer during their life, according to the American Cancer Society. Part of what's challenging, he said, is that cancer is 'an intelligent cell that is constantly programmed to evolve.' 'We have historically been treating it with drugs that do not evolve with an evolving cancer,' Balachandran said. 'Even though cancer is intelligent, we do not fight it with a medicine that is intelligent. We've always envisioned developing intelligent medicines to diagnose and treat cancer, but we have not really been able to achieve this goal.' Now, though, Balachandran said he thinks the health industry has made progress on this. New technologies, including AI, and research advancements—such as understanding how the immune system recognizes cancer—could help medical providers diagnose cancer earlier and treat cancer more effectively, Balachandran said. Balachandran has used mRNA technology to create personalized vaccines that research has indicated could boost patients' immune systems to help treat pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. Bulto said that it's imperative to continue making grounds on the medicine but also on understanding the patient experience. 'On the one hand, we have a lot to do on the science front, but also, the more we learn about the science, the more we are learning … that we have to become as good or as innovative in how we bring those medicines to patients as how innovative the medicines themselves are,' Bulto said. 'We have spent a lot of time trying to understand the lived experience of patients, the felt experience of patients.' He said that whatever innovations are developed for cancer treatment, it's critical to ensure they're distributed to all patients who need them—whether they live in New York City or in a rural community. At the same time that advancements are being made in the cancer field, research funding through the U.S. National Institutes of Health is at risk under the Trump Administration. Despite that, Balachandran said he is 'optimistic.' 'We've made so much progress, so it's really hard to stop this level of progress when results are really transformative and really sort of ushering in a next era of cancer care,' he said. 'If they work, how could you not support it? Because cancer is something that affects all of us.' To close out the discussion, Park asked the panelists: will we cure cancer? Balachandran replied immediately: Yes. 'We already are curing cancer,' he said. 'The question is: how more can we cure cancer, and how more effectively can we cure cancer, and how more simplistically can we cure cancer with less side effects or less medication, and for whom, and for more people?' 'The next revolution of cancer care is really about expanding access to more patients, expanding more treatments with less side effects for people,' he continued. Sidner and Bulto said they agreed with Balachandran, but Sidner added that it was critical to ensure that cancer is cured equitably. She pointed out that Black women are nearly 40% more likely than their white counterparts to die from breast cancer. 'Something's wrong there,' she said. 'And so for whom will cancer be cured is a huge question that needs to be addressed.' The TIME100 Impact Dinner: Leaders Shaping the Future of Health was sponsored by Novartis and FIGS. Contact us at letters@
Time Magazine
14-05-2025
- Health
- Time Magazine
‘We Already Are Curing Cancer': TIME100 Health Panel Discusses How to Solve an ‘Evolving' Disease
Sara Sidner, anchor and senior national correspondent for CNN, told the audience at the TIME100 Health Impact Dinner on Tuesday night that she did 16 rounds of chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in 2023—and worked the entire time through it. The room erupted into loud applause. 'It is possible to live your life while trying to kill cancer,' Sidner said. 'We've come such a long way, and I just quickly want to say to this room: whoever is in this room that is a nurse, a doctor, a physician, a researcher, someone who is creating drugs for us—thank you. Thank you for the research. Thank you for your work; we need it so, so much.' Sidner was joined onstage by Dr. Vinod Balachandran, surgeon-scientist and director of the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Victor Bulto, president of the U.S. unit for Novartis, which sponsored the event in New York City. The three appeared on a panel moderated by TIME senior health correspondent Alice Park to discuss the groundbreaking innovations in cancer detection, treatment, and prevention—and the research that still needs to be done. Sidner, who is a 2025 TIME Closers honoree, said she hadn't always planned on publicly sharing her cancer diagnosis. But when she learned she had stage III breast cancer, she realized she wouldn't be able to keep it a secret from everyone. 'You have spent your life telling other people's stories—maybe this is something you need to tell, and tell it in a really honest, sometimes embarrassing, way. Tell people what it's like going through this journey,' she recalled thinking. Balachandran, who is a 2025 TIME100 Health honoree, called cancer 'the most urgent health crisis of our lifetime.' In the United States, one in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer during their life, according to the American Cancer Society. Part of what's challenging, he said, is that cancer is 'an intelligent cell that is constantly programmed to evolve.' 'We have historically been treating it with drugs that do not evolve with an evolving cancer,' Balachandran said. 'Even though cancer is intelligent, we do not fight it with a medicine that is intelligent. We've always envisioned developing intelligent medicines to diagnose and treat cancer, but we have not really been able to achieve this goal.' Now, though, Balachandran said he thinks the health industry has made progress on this. New technologies, including AI, and research advancements—such as understanding how the immune system recognizes cancer—could help medical providers diagnose cancer earlier and treat cancer more effectively, Balachandran said. Balachandran has used mRNA technology to create personalized vaccines that research has indicated could boost patients' immune systems to help treat pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. Bulto said that it's imperative to continue making grounds on the medicine but also on understanding the patient experience. 'On the one hand, we have a lot to do on the science front, but also, the more we learn about the science, the more we are learning … that we have to become as good or as innovative in how we bring those medicines to patients as how innovative the medicines themselves are,' Bulto said. 'We have spent a lot of time trying to understand the lived experience of patients, the felt experience of patients.' He said that whatever innovations are developed for cancer treatment, it's critical to ensure they're distributed to all patients who need them—whether they live in New York City or in a rural community. At the same time that advancements are being made in the cancer field, research funding through the U.S. National Institutes of Health is at risk under the Trump Administration. Despite that, Balachandran said he is 'optimistic.' 'We've made so much progress, so it's really hard to stop this level of progress when results are really transformative and really sort of ushering in a next era of cancer care,' he said. 'If they work, how could you not support it? Because cancer is something that affects all of us.' To close out the discussion, Park asked the panelists: will we cure cancer? Balachandran replied immediately: Yes. 'We already are curing cancer,' he said. 'The question is: how more can we cure cancer, and how more effectively can we cure cancer, and how more simplistically can we cure cancer with less side effects or less medication, and for whom, and for more people?' 'The next revolution of cancer care is really about expanding access to more patients, expanding more treatments with less side effects for people,' he continued. Sidner and Bulto said they agreed with Balachandran, but Sidner added that it was critical to ensure that cancer is cured equitably. She pointed out that Black women are nearly 40% more likely than their white counterparts to die from breast cancer. 'Something's wrong there,' she said. 'And so for whom will cancer be cured is a huge question that needs to be addressed.'
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Hold On!': CNN Host Smacks Down Rep. Byron Donalds' Hegseth Pivot
CNN host Sara Sidner on Wednesday hit back at Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) after he tried pivoting to a Biden administration scandal in response to questions on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's controversial leadership. Sidner referred to a CNN report on the chaos at the Pentagon as Hegseth deals with leaks, mass firings and further infighting — all while responding to the fallout of a second Signal chat scandal. 'Does this not bother you at all?' Sidner bluntly asked Donalds, who is President Donald Trump's pick to succeed term-limited Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Donalds responded by claiming that Hegseth is just weeks into his job and that the Pentagon is going through a transitory phase between administrations. He then pivoted to talk of former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's January 2024 hospitalization following surgery to treat prostate cancer. Austin and his staff kept his hospitalization secret at the time, a decision that the Pentagon later determined to have no 'ill intent' but was widely criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike. 'Nobody was saying a word when Lloyd Austin, the previous defense secretary, disappeared for a month,' Donalds claimed. 'We did say a word, we reported that story,' said Sidner of the hospitalization scandal. 'Wait, hold on, Byron.' Austin, after news of his hospitalization surfaced, said it was wrong to conceal his cancer diagnosis from Biden and the public. His duties were taken up by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks at the time. Sidner, after summarizing the hospitalization scandal, unloaded on Donalds. ″[You think that's] an equal thing to somebody who is giving out information to his wife, who does not have a security clearance, to his lawyer, to his brother, on a personal cell phone, on a Signal chat, which he's already been looked at for, for doing that with a whole bunch of folks from the administration.' She continued, 'You're equating those two things. Do you think those are the same things, and you're OK with Pete Hegseth and what he did, but not OK with what Lloyd Austin did?' Donalds responded, 'I'm not equating those two things.' Sidner shot back, 'You just did.' Donalds went on to argue that the hospitalization scandal was 'significantly worse' than an 'allegation' against Hegseth. Top CEOs Warn Trump Tariffs Will Empty Store Shelves: Report Whoopi Goldberg Calls Out Trump's $5,000 Baby Bonus For Exactly What It Is A Dozen States Sue The Trump Administration To Stop Tariff Policy
