Sean Michael Lee, an Army paratrooper who went on to help evacuate thousands of people from war zones after leaving the military — including Fox News’ Benjamin Hall — died Sunday following a battle with esophageal cancer.

A 20-year Army veteran, Lee completed multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with the Army’s renowned 82nd Airborne Division, according to his obituary.

“He was, to his core, a paratrooper. Long after he took off the uniform, the values forged there remained the organizing principles of his life: duty, loyalty, competence under pressure, and an unwavering commitment to the person beside him,” his obituary states.

After his military career, Lee continued devoting his life to helping others. In 2021, as Afghanistan’s government collapsed, he helped evacuate thousands of people amid the chaotic U.S. withdrawal while working with the nonprofit Save Our Allies.

The following year, Lee was in Poland, helping transport supplies to the front lines in Ukraine during Russia’s invasion. There, he became instrumental in the effort to evacuate Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall, who was badly wounded when Russian forces attacked his vehicle near Kyiv. Two members of Hall’s crew were killed in the attack.

“We got the call, we had just finished up a staff meeting with our folks back in the United States, and I can tell you that in about 90 minutes our guys were out the door and on the way,” Lee told the Daily Caller in a 2022 interview.

Lee also supported wounded veterans through his work with The Independence Fund.

In 2024, Lee helped deliver life-saving supplies to survivors of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. He lived out of a tent in the Tar Heel state as he helped deliver aid to communities where support systems had collapsed, according to his obituary.

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Most recently, Lee had been working under Secretary Doug Collins at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

He was part of the U.S. military’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was also part of the storied Bravo Company in the 2-508 Parachute Infantry Regiment. Half of the company received Purple Hearts for an Afghanistan deployment that was documented in Ben Kesling’s book “Bravo Company: An Afghanistan Deployment and its Aftermath.”

Lee’s two best friends — Sgt. Michael Verardo and Sgt. Allen Thomas — both of whom deployed with him to Afghanistan, passed away before him.

Lee’s cancer was the direct result of his exposure to the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. He died at age 50.

“I can’t even begin to explain what the world has just lost,” former MMA fighter and Special Forces sniper Tim Kennedy wrote in a post on Instagram.

“This country has lost one of the finest men ever to serve it,” Kennedy’s message continued.

“Sean redefined the word service. He did not just volunteer to put on the uniform and join the 82nd Airborne. He dedicated his entire life to other people. He put his life on the line more times than anyone can count. Wherever people needed help, you found Sean. Whenever I needed help, I found Sean,” Kennedy wrote.

Lee’s life “cannot be measured simply in years, deployments, jobs, or missions. It is measured in people who made it home because he went toward danger,” his obituary, shared by Heritage Funeral & Cremation Services, says. “In wounded men carried to safety. In Afghan families given a chance to begin again. In communities that received help when they believed they had been forgotten. In veterans whose lives were better because he continued serving them after his own time in uniform ended. And in the children who simply knew him as Uncle Sean: the constant, fiercely protective man who showed up.”

News Media contacted Save Our Allies for comment.

The death of a teenage boy in a San Francisco apartment has been identified as the city’s first fatal overdose linked to cychlorphine, a frightening new drug believed to be far more potent than fentanyl.

Police announced Monday that four people have been arrested in connection with the April death of 16-year-old Dante Lacourte.

Dante was discovered in his bedroom by his mother at their apartment in San Francisco’s affluent Nob Hill neighborhood on April 7.

His face had turned blue, while black fluid seeped from his nose and mouth and collected on his bedsheets, his mother, 53-year-old Christina Lacourte, told The New York Times.

Christina tried to revive her son with two doses of Narcan, but the medication did not work. Paramedics pronounced him dead when they arrived.

Because Dante had struggled with addiction, his mother initially believed fentanyl had caused his death.

Weeks later, however, his autopsy results revealed that he had cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid, in his system.

‘The tragedy marks the first time cychlorphine – estimated to be ten times more powerful than fentanyl and undetectable by fentanyl test strips – has been detected in San Francisco,’ the city’s Department of Public Health said at the time.

Investigators believe Dante ingested counterfeit pills that contained cychlorphine, another synthetic opioid called N-Desethyl Isotonitazene and ethyl bromazolam, a benzodiazepine that is not approved by the FDA.

His death prompted an investigation that led to the arrest of four drug dealers and police seizing over 20,000 counterfeit pills.

San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) used Dante’s phone to determine who he had texted about purchasing the pills before his death.

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Officers went undercover to buy drugs from the same dealers and then were able to obtain arrest warrants.

On September 8, police detained 46-year-old Nicholas Wallace at his home in the Tenderloin neighborhood and recovered 34 suspected oxycodone pills and cocaine.

At the same house, officers located and arrested 44-year-old Sharonee Hyson, who was on active parole and in possession of 11.7 grams of cocaine base and a loaded firearm, the SFPD said.

The next day, September 9, officers arrested Leander Pitts, 46, and Starr Lamare, 39, at a home in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood.

There, police seized over 20,000 pills, including suspected counterfeit Xanax, oxycodone, hydrocodone, cyclobenzaprine and other deadly narcotics, including fentanyl.

Additionally, officers seized 68.5 grams of MDMA, 6.5 grams of black tar heroin, a semi-automatic assault rifle, a semi-automatic pistol and $2,267 in cash.

‘It is a sad day, though, why we are here. When we talk about the loss of life of a 16-year-old. A 16-year-old man who I’m sure had a lot ahead,’ San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said at a press conference announcing the arrests.

The SFPD is working with the federal Food and Drug Administration to determine if any of the counterfeit pills seized contain cychlorphine.

‘San Francisco was caught flat-footed by the fentanyl crisis. We will not let that happen again. When a new deadly drug appears in San Francisco, we are going to find it, we are going to track it, we are going to warn people about it,’ Mayor Daniel Lurie said.

The answer to slowing deadly brain tumors may, in part, lie in what is on the dinner table.

Gliomas are tumors that form in the brain or spinal cord. They can be slow-growing, as in the tumor actress Busy Philipps was diagnosed with this year, or highly aggressive, like those experienced by John McCain, Beau Biden and Sophie Kinsella.

Researchers at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health say they may have identified a way to curb the growth of these tumors — through a carefully designed dietary intervention.

A study published Tuesday found that fast-growing, high-grade gliomas share a metabolic defect with GAMT deficiency, a rare genetic disorder affecting children. These tumors arise when supportive brain cells grow and divide out of control.

The defect causes the production of a toxic chemical that alters brain activity and appears to drive tumor growth. Researchers found that a targeted diet could modify this process and slow the tumors’ progression.

In laboratory testing, scientists gave mice the specialized medical diet used to treat children with the disorder. The approach dramatically slowed cancer growth in the rodents.

“The diet that we are considering for this trial is not really, say, a Mediterranean diet or a ketogenic diet,” Dr. Kalil Abdullah, director for central nervous system cancer at Northwell Health’s Brain Tumor Center, said. “It’s a diet under medical supervision that restricts very specific types of food.”

The team discovered that tumors release excess amounts of guanidinoacetate, or GAA, into the brain. The chemical causes nearby brain cells to become overactive.

That heightened activity seems to accelerate tumor growth, effectively enabling the cancer to hijack the brain’s normal signals to support its own survival.

Children with GAMT deficiency also had elevated GAA levels. In that rare condition, the body cannot properly break down the chemical, which can lead to seizures and epilepsy.

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The researchers used the dietary approach used to manage GAMT deficiency to see if it could also slow tumor growth in mice.

Along with turning off the enzyme (AGAT) that makes GAA in tumor cells, the mice were fed a diet that restricted the amino acid arginine and added extra ornithine, another amino acid.

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and are found in many foods including meat, eggs and grains.

Using extra tissue from tumors removed during brain surgery, the team was able to detect particular DNA, chemicals and other components of the tumors.

“We found that one particular molecule, in this case, GAA, was really wildly different in glioblastoma than it was in other kinds of brain tumor or in the normal brain,” Abdullah said. “And once we discovered that, we started to look into why.”

The findings suggest the diet could potentially be used before treatment for glioblastoma, although it has not yet been established as a treatment for people with the disease.

“Because the human body adapts so quickly, we can have patients change their diet for just three to five days before surgery,” Abdullah said.

“And then we’ll be able to do the surgery as planned, but we’ll be able to measure this molecule and see if the diet has already made a difference.”

Abdullah and his team plan to put their findings into practice with a clinical trial beginning in 2027.

The sole juror who prevented a verdict in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial reached his decision after reviewing the evidence and making his own judgment, his brother said.

“For me, that’s how I would do it,” the holdout juror’s brother told the New York Post. “I would just listen to the case with all the evidence, and go from there.”

“His choice was good for some people, but not good for other people,” he added.

The juror’s brother also pushed back on suggestions that religious beliefs influenced the vote. “I don’t think religion had anything to do with it,” he said.

Clancy, 36, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder over the deaths of her children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan. The children were found strangled inside the family’s home in January 2023.

Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on Sept. 4 after the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision. The panel was divided 11-1.

This is a developing story.