US Senator John McCain has died, aged 81.
"Senator John Sidney McCain III died at 4:28pm on August 25, 2018," his family said in a statement.
"With the Senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family. At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 60 years.”
His death comes a day after he chose to end treatment he was undergoing for cancer.
"John has surpassed expectations for his survival," the family said on Friday (local time).
"With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment."
Mr McCain represented Arizona in the Senate and House of Representatives for 35 years. The cancer was discovered in July 2017 and he had not been at the US Capitol this year. He also had surgery for an intestinal infection in April.
Mr McCain was the son and grandson of Navy admirals, and after graduating from the US Naval Academy became a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. He was shot down during a bombing run over Hanoi and captured on October 26, 1967. The crash and assault by his captors left him with two broken arms, a broken leg, broken shoulder and numerous stab wounds.
He spent the next five-and-a-half years in various prisons, including the notorious 'Hanoi Hilton', where he was tortured and left with lasting disabilities.
Mr McCain was elected to the House in 1982 and after two terms was elected to the Senate to replace retiring conservative leader Barry Goldwater.
He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 but lost out to George W Bush. He secured the nomination in 2008 but was defeated by Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
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Mr McCain was known as a conservative and a foreign policy hawk with a traditional Republican view of world affairs. He has had a reputation for a hot temper and rarely shied away from a fight but has had Democratic fans who admired the way he could take a civil, bipartisan approach.
Feud with Donald Trump
Mr McCain had a reputation for speaking his mind, which led to a running feud with US President Donald Trump. Sources close to Mr McCain have said Mr Trump won't be invited to the funeral.
The McCain-Mr Trump relationship grew heated in 2015 when Mr McCain said Mr Trump's candidacy had "fired up the crazies." Mr Trump retorted that the senator was "not a war hero" and referred to Mr McCain's years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese by saying: "I like people who weren't captured."
Nonetheless, Mr Trump tweeted his "deepest sympathies and respect" to Mr McCain's family.
Mr McCain castigated Mr Trump last month for his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, issuing a statement that called their joint news conference "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory". He said Mr Trump was "not only unable but unwilling to stand up to Mr Putin".
Mr McCain provided one of the most dramatic moments in recent Senate history in July 2017 when he voted against a Donald Trump-backed bill that would have repealed the healthcare law pushed through by previous President Barack Obama.
The vote came late at night not long after Mr McCain's diagnosis and he still bore a black eye and scar from the surgery when he gave an emphatic thumbs-down gesture to scuttle the measure.
Mr Trump was furious about Mr McCain's vote and frequently referred to it at rallies, but without mentioning Mr McCain by name.
Praise from former foe
Mr Obama in a statement said he and Mr McCain came from different backgrounds and different generations, but shared "a fidelity to something higher - the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched and sacrificed".
"Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did. But all of us aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John's best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt."
Reuters / Newshub.
