John McCain to stop treatment for brain cancer

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) is discontinuing treatment for the brain cancer he was diagnosed with last year, his family said Friday.

"John has surpassed expectations for his survival," the family said. "But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict."

McCain was in Philadelphia in October when he was awarded the National Constitution Center's Liberty Medal, which honors people for their courage and conviction. In his acceptance speech, McCain blasted "half-baked, spurious nationalism" and gave a stinging rebuke of the politics that brought President Trump to power.

Americans, McCain said then, need to reject nationalism "cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems."

>> READ MORE: McCain on his cancer prognosis: It's 'very, very serious'

McCain, a former Navy pilot, spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The son of a storied Navy family, he had been offered early release after his capture, but refused, and endured years of torture in a Hanoi prison.

The type of cancer McCain has, a glioblastoma, was detailed by my colleague Stacey Burling, whose husband died in 2010 from the same cancer.

People across the Philadelphia region on Friday expressed support for McCain and his family.

>> PHOTO GALLERY: Senator John McCain throughout the years