Former Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, a conservative who rebuked political tribalism and stood out as a longtime critic of President Donald Trump, announced Tuesday he was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
Sasse, 53, made the announcement on social media, saying he learned of the disease last week and is “now marching to the beat of a faster drummer.”
“This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase,” Sasse wrote. “Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.”
Sasse was first elected to the Senate in 2014. He comfortably won reelection in 2020 after fending off a pro-Trump primary challenger. Sasse drew the ire of GOP activists for his vocal criticism of Trump's character and policies, including questioning his moral values and saying he cozied up to adversarial foreign leaders.
Sasse was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict the former president of “ incitement of insurrection ” after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. After threats of a public censure back home, he extended his critique to party loyalists who blindly worship one man and rejected him for his refusal to bend the knee.
He resigned from the Senate in 2023 to serve as the 13th president of the University of Florida after a contentious approval process. He left that post the following year after his wife was diagnosed with epilepsy.
Sasse, who has degrees from Harvard, St. John’s College and Yale, worked as an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush. He served as president of Midland University, a small Christian university in eastern Nebraska, before he ran for the Senate.
Sasse and his wife have three children.
“I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more," Sasse wrote. “Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived.”
FILE - Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., walks the halls of the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File)
Air traffic controllers lost communication for about 10 minutes with a small Mexican Navy plane carrying a young medical patient and seven others before it crashed off the Texas coast, killing at least five people, Mexico's president said Tuesday.
Authorities initially believed the plane had landed safely at its destination in Galveston, near Houston, before learning it had gone down Monday afternoon, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said. A search-and-rescue operation in waters near Galveston pulled two survivors from the plane's wreckage, while one remained missing, Mexico’s Navy said.
U.S. authorities are investigating the cause, but the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that it could take a week or more to recover the aircraft,
Four Mexican Navy officers and four civilians, including a child, were aboard the plane, according to the country's military. Two of the passengers were affiliated with a nonprofit that helps transport Mexican children with severe burns to a hospital in Galveston.
“My condolences to the families of the sailors who unfortunately died in this accident and to the people who were traveling on board,” Sheinbaum said in her morning press briefing, without elaborating on a possible cause. “What happened is very tragic.”
U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Luke Baker said at least five aboard had died but did not identify which passengers.
The twin turboprop Beech King Air 350i crashed Monday afternoon in a bay near the base of the causeway connecting Galveston Island to the mainland. Emergency responders rushed to the scene near the popular beach destination about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Houston.
Sky Decker, a professional yacht captain who lives about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the crash site, said he jumped in his boat to see if he could help. He picked up two police officers who guided him through thick fog to a nearly submerged plane. Decker jumped into the water and found a badly injured woman trapped beneath chairs and other debris.
“I couldn’t believe. She had maybe 3 inches of air gap to breathe in," he said. "And there was jet fuel in there mixed with the water, fumes real bad. She was really fighting for her life.”
He said he also pulled out a man seated in front of her who had already died. Both were wearing civilian clothes.
It’s not immediately clear if weather was a factor. The area was experiencing foggy conditions over the past few days, according to Cameron Batiste, a National Weather Service meteorologist. He said that at about 2:30 p.m. Monday a fog came in that had about a half-mile visibility.
Teams from the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board were at the crash site Monday, the Texas Department of Public Safety said. An NTSB spokesperson said in an email that investigators will gather flight track data, recordings of any air traffic control communications and review maintenance records and weather forecasts, with a preliminary report expected within 30 days.
Mexico's Navy said the plane was helping with a medical mission in coordination with the Michou and Mau Foundation. In a social media post, the foundation offered condolences to the families and said it shared their grief “with respect and compassion.”
The charity was founded after a mother died trying to save her kids from a fire. One child succumbed to his injuries because he didn't receive highly specialized medical care, while another survived after receiving treatment at Shriners Children's Texas in Galveston. Over 23 years, the foundation has helped transfer more than 2,000 patients to that hospital and other medical facilities with burn expertise, according to the charity's website.
The charity's director didn't immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Shriners Children’s Texas said in a statement that it learned of the crash with “profound sadness” but wasn't able to provide any information about the child's condition because the child hadn't yet been admitted.
This latest crash comes amid a year of intense scrutiny on aviation safety after a string of high-profile crashes and the flight disruptions during the government shutdown driven by the shortage of air traffic controllers.
The January mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and an airliner near Washington D.C. was followed by the crash of a medical transport plane in Philadelphia. This fall’s fiery UPS plane crash only added to the concerns. Still, the total number of crashes in 2025 was actually down a bit from last year and experts say flying remains safe overall.
Galveston Police officers watch the water on Galveston Bay west of the Galveston causeway, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, near Galveston, Texas, as emergency personnel search for a small airplane that went down in the bay in heavy fog. (Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News via AP)
In this image provided by Sky Decker Jr., authorities and volunteers respond to a Mexican Navy plane crash near Galveston, Texas, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. (Sky Decker Jr. via AP)
Emergency personnel rush a victim of a small plane crash to an awaiting ambulance, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, near the Galveston causeway, near Galveston, Texas. (Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News via AP)
In this image provided by Sky Decker Jr., authorities and volunteers respond to a Mexican Navy plane crash near Galveston, Texas, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. (Sky Decker Jr. via AP)null
