Radio-talking Marlboro Man doppelganger Don Imus, a famous racist, has cancer. He announced it on his show this morning:

Longtime New York Post real estate columnist Braden Keil died last night, after a battle with melanoma. He worked up until the very end, with his wife helping him write his last column.

Jade Goody, a 27-year-old British woman suffering from cervical cancer, had her diagnosis broadcast on national television. And now that her illness has been deemed terminal, she'll film her last moments alive.

Will scientists ever stop destroying our lives? We're sorry to report, men, that according to a new study, masturbating throughout your 20s and 30s will totally give you cancer.

Layoffs at newspapers tend to hit the less essential sections first. You're not going to see the sports page disappear, but you might no longer have a local science reporter. To fill in the blanks, editors use wire stories, and when it comes to science reporting, they'll apparently print anything they come across. Basing a story off whatever piece of research comes to light is the easiest way to write a science story, with "according to new research" the opening sentence of choice. Over the weekend, we learned that meat causes cancer, exercise stops cancer, sleep stops cancer and stress causes it. Is there any way to prevent newspapers from dumbing themselves into even more layoffs?This AFP story represents everything that is wrong with the state of science reporting. The headline touts, "Exercise, sleep cuts cancer risk." In the body of the piece, actual analysis and understanding of medical issues is nowhere to be found:

Patrick Swayze, like other media and entertainment personalities, opted to work through his treatment for pancreatic cancer. The Times got the first interview with Swayze since his diagnosis, and reported he's working 12-hour days on his TV show, has restored some healthy bulk to his physique and missed less than two days work. But it also indicates Swayze's doctors are still battling his disease, which kills 95 percent of patients within five years. The actor couldn't help but sound a contradictory note amid the Times' reverentially upbeat story:

The New York Times had its resident medical doctor reporter examine all the available medical records of all the candidates for president and vice president. The only problem is that none of the campaigns would turn over any records! But, you know, Barack Obama seems healthy enough, besides the smoking. And Sarah Palin didn't release any records at all, not even about her crazy "giving birth en route from Texas to Alaska" thing, but they only devote like one paragraph to that. Because the point of the story is to let you know that John McCain is an old, sick man. He has all the cancers, everywhere, all over his face. Breaking! Ok, sure, McCain's doctors say he's pretty much recovered from his skin cancer, and the chance of it recurring during his first term, say, is like 10%. But they are maybe not letting us know how serious the last bout of melanoma was!

Some shadowy nonprofit is running ads accusing John McCain of having cancer. Which is true and actually maybe relevant (the fact that John McCain will be America's oldest president ever is certainly more relevant than Obama's house party with Mr. Ayers). The groups behind the ads are apparently run by nutty lefty filmmaker Robert Greenwald and Howard Dean's brother, and the ads feature doctors (with stethoscopes and stuff) saying that cancer is really bad and might kill John McCain. As an underhanded dirty smear, it at least has the advantage of being, you know, 100% demonstrably true! But still. The ads fail, miserably, by not pointing out explicitly that should McCain die in office, he'd be replaced by Sarah Palin. That is the scary thing here! No one would care if old man McCain died and was replaced by someone with half a fucking brain. Anyway, controversy!!

Party like it's 1998! Julia Roberts made what E! is calling a "rare public appearance" yesterday, appearing onstage at the Stand Up for a Cure concert at Madison Square Garden. "Hello New York City!" she said to the audience. "I cannot tell you how excited I am to be in the greatest city in the world to introduce one of the greatest bands of the world." Then, strangely, Dave Matthews Band came out. [E!]

Yesterday we brought you the news that Christina Applegate was free and clear of breast cancer, just a month after being diagnosed with an early form of the disease in one of her breasts. Today, during an interview with Good Morning America's Robin Roberts, Applegate revealed that she beat the disease by having both of her breasts removed. Says People:

John McCain! He's hip and with it! He's a rockin' dude with a maverick attitude! To prove how "plugged in" he is, he recently had a mole removed, just like popular Sex and the City actress Sarah Jessica Parker! Then he went on the TV to advise Americans to avoid the sun and talk to their dermatologists at the first sign of discoloration. Then he asked everyone to please purchase life insurance from AARP. Ha ha just kidding with that last bit. But not the sunscreen thing: [Update: There is video!]

When the Times got a call from Steve Jobs, the hands-on CEO of personal computer maker Apple, it had already been investigating the former pancreatic cancer victim's health for several days. Following a Monday report in the Post that some Jobs associates were "troubled by his thin appearance," the Times on Wednesday revealed Jobs underwent some sort of surgical procedure earlier this year. By Thursday afternoon, Times columnist Joe Nocera was preparing to report that Jobs was losing weight due to "ongoing digestive difficulty" and, possibly, due to a recent infection. That's when Jobs phoned to give a peace of his mind. But with a liberal interpretation of the term "off the record," Nocera would go on to finagle a scoop out of the confrontational call:

Conservative talking head and former George W. Bush press secretary Tony Snow died of colon cancer today. He was 53. After a decade at Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, Snow served 17 months in the Bush administration, from May 2006 through September 2007. "Although a star in conservative politics, as a commentator he had not always been on the president's side. He once called Bush 'something of an embarrassment' in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush's 'lackluster' domestic policy."

He beat cancer and won that phony Tour de France thing seven times, but Lance Armstrong's insatiable appetite for blondes of every shade from dirty to platinum is totally overshadowing all of his causes. "BOTH Lances were in town last week.The first, Lance Armstrong the bicycle champion and anticancer campaigner, was making television appearances to promote a new Web venture, livestrong.com, devoted to healthy living [...] But there was also plenty of publicity unauthorized by Mr. Armstrong, including three days of coverage in The New York Post, a string of articles on Us Magazine's Web site and an article in Life & Style entitled 'How Lance Stole Kate From Owen,' all chronicling Mr. Armstrong's relationship with the actress and tabloid darling Kate Hudson. This is the second Lance, the one people.com called a 'notorious Texas playboy.'"

Since the LA Times earlier this week floated reports that Paul Newman is suffering from lung cancer, the only developing news about the actor's condition is that no one will confirm it. With Newman's rep on one hand saying he is "doing nicely" and old pal A.E. Hotchner on the other acknowledging only "cancer of some sort" (alluding a few breaths later to previous surgery "in the lung area"), the AP today issued a statement saying it stands by its original report on Newman's condition.

We knew Paul Newman was ailing when he retired from acting last year, but the diagnosis only trickled out in the last day or so in reports suggesting the 83-year-old Oscar-winner (and former chain smoker) is suffering from terminal lung cancer. The Dish Rag picked up the story last night at the LA Times:

Martin Bashir, the current Nightline broadcaster, just announced that he has a "potentially life-threatening" brain tumor. Bashir, who made his name with big, probing, salacious TV interviews of Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, said that he plans to "get on with his life" and continue working. In that, he is hardly unique; among many cancer victims, the urge to continue with one's career is a powerful one. And that goes double for those in entertainment and the media, where many personalities are so intimately tied to a very public line of work.

Back in March, it was reported that Ghost, Dirty Dancing, and Roadhouse heartthrob Patrick Swayze had just five weeks to live before succumbing to pancreatic cancer. Well, screw that, says Swayze. His doctors have cleared him to return to work and the A&E Network's just ordered up a new season of his FBI drama The Beast. "A&E has ordered 13 hourlong episodes to go into production this summer in Chicago, with a tentative premiere set for early 2009."

The Kennedy brothers have spawned so many conspiracy theories that it seems excessive to add to the directory. But there's some speculation among medical professionals about Ted Kennedy's brain cancer diagnosis, which we're going to air. In particular: why was the recent operation to remove part of the senator's tumor conducted at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina and not in Kennedy's home state?

Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. He is, more or less, dying. So we can rely on our own New York Post to relay that fact as efficiently as possible. They do, of course, call him a "brave icon," but there's really not a lot of love lost between the rabidly conservative Post and the grand old liberal Kennedy. Boston's tabloid, the Herald, goes with a show of support. The poor Daily News splits the difference.