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Former President George H.W. Bush, and former first lady Barbara Bush attend the Texas A&M University commencement ceremony in College Station, Texas, December 12, 2008. Larry Downing / Reuters

"Doctors performed a procedure to protect and clear his airway that required sedation," McGrath said. "President Bush is stable and resting comfortably in the ICU, where he will remain for observation."

McGrath said doctors believe the procedure, in which a tube was used to remove a blockage in a lung, was a success. Until Wednesday morning's issue, Bush was making great progress, McGrath said. "Yesterday, he was telling everybody he'd be out by Thursday or Friday," he said.

Bush chief of staff Jean Becker earlier said he's "fine and he's doing really well," according to the

President Barack Obama was among those wishing George and Barbara Bush well. "They are as fine a couple as we know. So we want to send our prayers and our love to them."

Former President Bill Clinton said his thoughts were with the Bushes after learning about their hospital stays Wednesday. Hillary Clinton also sent her well wishes in a tweet and President-elect Donald Trump said he was "looking forward to a speedy recovery."

Bush, who served as U.S. president from 1989 to 1993, has a form of Parkinson's disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility. He was hospitalized in Maine in 2015 after falling at his summer home and breaking a bone in his neck.

In December 2014, he was hospitalized in Houston for about a week for shortness of breath. Previous to those stays, he spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues.

Despite the loss of mobility, he celebrated his 90th birthday by making a tandem parachute jump in Kennebunkport. Last summer, Bush led a group of 40 wounded warriors on a fishing trip at the helm of his speedboat, three days after his 92nd birthday celebration.

His office announced earlier this month that George H.W. and Barbara would not attend Donald Trump's inauguration this week due to the former president's age and health.

"Barbara and I are so sorry we can't be there for your inauguration on January 20th. My doctor says if I sit outside in January, it likely will put me six feet under. Same for Barbara. So I guess we're stuck in Texas," Bush said in a Jan. 10 letter. "But we will be with you and the country in spirit."

"Bush 41," as he affectionately became known, entered politics in 1964 when he lost his bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas. But he went on to win a House seat two years later and run again for Senate in 1970 at the urging of President Richard Nixon. He was unsuccessful, however, Nixon rewarded Bush by appointing him as ambassador to the United Nations.

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George H.W. Bush, right, and his wife Barbara Bush, wave to the crowd at a victory celebration rally in Houston, Texas, on Nov. 8, 1988. J. Scott Applewhite / AP

From there he went on to hold a host of different titles, including chairman of the Republican National Committee, the U.S. envoy to China, and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The experiences would prove the cornerstone of his failed 1980 presidential campaign that led to his selection as Ronald Reagan's running mate. It catapulted his own presidential campaign in 1988 when he defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis.

As the 41st president, he helped oversee the end of the Soviet Union, made two selections to the Supreme Court and, most notably, stood up to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, temporarily boosting him to record-high approval ratings.

But a faltering economy and breaking his famous "no new taxes" pledge led to Bush's 1992 loss to Bill Clinton.

McGrath said the outpouring of support and well wishes have been comforting.

"It's been truly heartwarming to see the positive messages, the prayers, the thoughts that are being directed to both President and Mrs. Bush emails and phone calls from all over the country and all over the world," he said.

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George HW Bush and Wife, Barbara, Hospitalized as 'Precaution' for Separate Health Issues - NBCNews.com

WARREN, Mich. Thousands of people showed up in freezing temperatures on Sunday in Michigan where Sen. Bernie Sanders called on Americans to resist Republican efforts to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law, one of a number of rallies Democrats staged across the country to highlight opposition.

Labor unions were a strong presence at the rally in a parking lot at Macomb County Community College in the Detroit suburb of Warren, where some people carried signs including "Save our Health Care."

Lisa Bible, 45, of Bancroft, Michigan said she has an auto immune disease and high cholesterol. She says the existing law has been an answer to her and her husband's prayers, but she worries that if it's repealed her family may get stuck with her medical bills.

"I'm going to get really sick and my life will be at risk," she said.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to overturn and replace the Affordable Care Act and majority Republicans in Congress this week began the process of repealing it using a budget maneuver that requires a bare majority in the Senate.

"This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. It is time we got our national priorities right," Sanders told the Michigan rally.

The law has delivered health coverage to about 20 million people but is saddled with problems such as rapidly rising premiums and large co-payments.

Britt Waligorski, 31, a health care administrator for a dental practice, said she didn't get health insurance through work but has been covered through the health law for three years. While the premiums have gone up, she said she is concerned that services for women will be taken away if it is repealed.

"It's done a lot for women for their annual checkups, for mammograms -- women's health in general. If this gets repealed, we're going to go back to the old days when that's not covered," she said.

The health law has provided subsidies and Medicaid coverage for millions who don't get insurance at work. It has required insurers to cover certain services such as family planning and people who are already ill, and has placed limits on the amount that the sick and elderly can be billed for health care.

Sanders, a strong supporter of the law, made several visits to the state last year during the Michigan primary and defeated Hillary Clinton in the state. But in a major surprise, Michigan narrowly voted for Trump on Nov. 8, the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state since 1988.

Rallies in some other cities in support of the health law also were well attended. Police estimated about 600 people showed up in Portland, Maine. Hundreds also attended a rally in Newark, New Jersey.

Republicans want to end the fines that enforce the requirement that many individuals buy coverage and that larger companies provide it to workers.

But they face internal disagreements on how to pay for any replacement and how to protect consumers and insurers during a long phase-in of an alternative.

Mark Heller, 45, a civil rights, immigration and labor attorney who drove to the Michigan event from Toledo, Ohio, said that stopping Republicans from repealing the law may take more than attending rallies.

"I think that it's going to take civil disobedience to turn this around because they have the votes in both the Senate and the House, and the president," he said.

Link:
Thousands attend US rallies to support Obama health law - Fox News

Legendary Democratic Californian Congresswoman Maxine Waters, whos boycotting Trumps inauguration on Friday, raised eyebrows on Monday whenshe devised an unusual rationaleforimpeaching the President-elect: calling Hillary Clinton Crooked Hillary and questioning her health.

Appearing on MSNBCs Hardball with Chris Mathews last night, Waterswas asked why some Democrats viewTrumps victory in the election as illegitimate.

If theres some sort of as you call it collusion, then what? Does that make Trump subject to impeachment? Just generally, tell me what you mean by the term? Matthewsasked.

The Congresswoman then responded that: If we discover that Donald Trump or his advocates played a role to help provide strategy if theyre the ones who came up with Crooked Hillary, if theyre the ones who came up with, shes ill, somethings wrong with her energy, and the way that he basically described her during the campaign I think that is something that would put the question squarely on the table whether or not he should be impeached.

Mathews didnt press theCalifornia Democrat on her logic, but askedwhether you can commit an impeachable offense before you take office?

Well, I think that at the point that investigations discover and confirm and can document any of that role in helping to strategize they had a role in attempting to determine the outcome, she answered.

That in many ways they used the information they got when they hacked into emails etc. if that was used against Hillary Clinton in some way, yes I think thats impeachable.

No doubtCongresswoman Waters will be delighted to learn that Trump indeed came up with Crooked Hillary nickname for Clinton. He unveiled the name at a rally in New York back in April last year, where he focused on Clintons ties to special interests.

On April 17th, Donald Trump used the nicknamefor the first time on his Twitter account, saying Crooked Hillary Clinton is spending a fortune on ads against me. I am the one person she doesnt want to run against. Will be such fun!

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Top Democrat Maxine Waters: Trump Should Be Impeached For Devising 'Crooked Hillary' Nickname - Heat Street

Today, Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the most recognizable figures in the world. Shes known forbeing theUnited States first female Democratic nominee for president, serving as Secretary of State under the Obama administration and for championing health care as First Lady. But also woven into the fabric of Clintons complicated legacy is one sharp, memorable comment that shegave reporters back in1992 during the Democratic presidential primary: I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life, Clinton told media.

A hoopla blossomed from her words, andFamily Circlemagazine responded by challenging the soon-to-be First Lady to a bake-off. And so, Americans are left with another (this time accidental) legacy from the trailblazing politician: her recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Ive been baking the cookies myself, artist Jennifer Rubell told me by phone. You learn a lot about someone by making this recipe. The New York-based artist has made a name for herself in the art world for creating elaborate performances involving foodand witty interactive sculptures. This week, she opens her first New York gallery show at Sargents Daughters on the Lower East Side, titled Housewife, and among the works on viewwhich include a sculpturethat allows viewers to carry a bride over the threshold, vacuum in high-heels and a painting that featuresthe artists real cell phone numberis a 5-foot-tall orange cookie jar which has beencast in the shape of one of Clintons iconic pantsuits. For the showsduration, the sculpture, calledVessel,will be filled with cookies made using Clintons recipe, and baked by Rubell.

Shes a public figure for my generation of women. She was a vessel for our dreams and frustrations, said Rubell. The territory in Hillary that most interests me is the relationship between her feminism and femininity.

Vesselwasclose to 80 percent finished before the election on November 8, according to the artist. And while some last-minute decisions were made following Clintons loss to Donald Trump, Rubellhadprepared for either outcome.

The work was completely conceived before the election, she said. I made the decision to have her positioned so shes stepping off the pedestal. It was an instinctive, formal decision, and now looking at it, its very biographical.

The piece, says Rubell, is meant asa portrait. My only goal was really to do some accurate portrait of her, and I feel like whether she wonor lost it was her fated outcome. If it was accurate enough, empathetic and open hearted enough, and political enough, the fate would be built into the piece.

As for the form of Rubells portrait, Clintons rainbow-hued collection of pantsuits are so popular theyve spawned internet memes, and even inspired the name of an invite-onlyFacebook group for supporters called Pantsuit Nation. She could have at any moment in her career locked into an outfit and the conversation would be over, she said. She made the decision to express herself in a very feminine way through color and what she wore.

On the wide-spectrum that is Clintons pantsuit rainbow, Rubellzeros-in on one of hermore boldly colored ensembles. The orange is the most insane, extreme color on the spectrum. The color youd never wear to rule the free world is orangeI love the inclination.

For some, the decision to serve Clinton s cookies out of giant pair of pants will certainly recall memories of Clintons1992 feminist credo, and the sweets-for-votes campaign that followed. For others, it will be a sore but colorful reminder ofa future that could have been. But whichever way the cookie crumbles, Rubell says, Its what never really happens in politics: a real look at a person who plays an outsized role in our lives.

Jennifer Rubell: Housewife is on view at Sargents Daughters January 18-February 16.

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Art (and Cookies) Served Up in Hillary Clinton's Orange Pantsuit - Observer

In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, Yahoo News visited towns and cities across the country, speaking to voters who had supported Donald Trump in the election. As the shape of his administration emerged, we asked voters if they were happy with their choice and optimistic about the future. Here is some of what we found:

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MINGO JUNCTION, Ohio When Donald Trump talked about running to represent the forgotten men and women that the American dream had left behind, he could very well have been talking about the residents of this tiny village at the foothills of the Appalachians, in the heart of the Ohio River Valley.

A little less than 40 years ago, a young Robert De Niro piloted a gleaming white Cadillac up Commercial Street here, filming a pivotal scene in the Vietnam War epic The Deer Hunter. But today, the street stands bleak and empty. Many of its buildings are boarded up and condemned, dark against the rusting iron husk of the vacant steel mill that rises tall above town like a haunted tombstone for the villages better days.

Thousands of people used to walk down the hill toward the river to jobs at the former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel mill before it closed permanently eight years ago after a series of ownership changes. The restaurants and shops that depended on the workers soon went away too leaving just a handful of businesses, almost all of them bars, patronized by residents who struggle to keep their lives afloat in a town that sometimes doesnt have enough money to keep the streetlights lit.

Almost everybody here in this town of 3,300 people is a registered Democrat, a party affiliation that dates back to their parents and their parents parents. But during the past 20 years, as the mining and steel industries here have collapsed, the die-hard Democrats have become less die-hard, disillusioned by a party they feel has left the working class behind.

A closed steel mill in Mingo Junction, Ohio. (Photo: Eric Thayer for Yahoo News)

Slideshow: Scenes from the road in Donald Trumps America >>>

In November, Trump easily captured Ohio, a victory fueled in part by winning over blue-collar workers in eastern arts of the state who had turned out in historic numbers for Barack Obama in the previous two elections. In Jefferson County, where Mingo Junction is located, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by nearly 35 points, but despite his resounding victory, many here remain deeply divided over Trump and whether he will really deliver on his promises to revitalize Rust Belt towns like this.

Weeks after the conclusion of what was widely considered one of the most divisive campaigns in recent memory, Trump was still a touchy subject in Mingo Junction. At Townhouse Bar, an old tavern on a now-deserted end of Commercial Street that used to be a hangout for steelworkers on break, a woman named Darla stopped the conversation when asked about the election. There is a rule here: Never, ever talk about politics in a bar, she warned, as other patrons on nearby stools nodded in agreement. Its nothing but trouble.

But a few minutes later, after playing a round of keno, Darla relented. I know where to take you to talk about this, she said, leading the way down the block to a members-only bar called the Schultzen Club, where Lynn Jackson, a 65-year-old retiree from nearby Steubenville who had been laid off from her job at a coal-fired power plant, sat with her friend Gary Webster, a 63-year-old retired teacher from Mingo Junction. Both had spent their lives in the region, raising families, only to see the city around them fade away as the industry died. We dont even have a gas station, Webster lamented.

They spoke with nostalgia of a time when the air was so dirty that birds barely flew in the sky. I called it boiling the stacks, Webster recalled of the soaring blast furnaces and smokestacks that now sit idle at the mill just outside the bars backdoor. When they were running, pollution floated in the air. It looked like glitter falling.

Even though the air was dirty, the town was booming. People didnt want for nothing really, Jackson recalled. Its not that everybody was rich, but you made a decent income that you could raise your family on. But those days are gone, replaced by a struggle that seems never-ending.

Mingo Junction, Ohio. (Photo: Eric Thayer for Yahoo News)

After living here most of their lives, it was now mostly the older generation that was left. The kids who had grown up here had escaped, looking for better lives elsewhere. Not that their families blamed them. A town that had once held so much promise now seemed like something of a dead end.

There were appealing things about Trumps message, they acknowledged, including his pledge to bring back jobs and industry to struggling towns like this. But for all his promises, there was something that didnt ring true. Jackson, who said she started out giving Trump a chance even though she rarely votes Republican, was turned off by his litany of promises with few details and then by his propensity to shoot off his mouth. She felt uneasy about his temperament to be president and concerned that he was simply saying anything to win. I dont trust him, she said. Hes nothing but a mouth.

But Jackson acknowledged she was in the minority. A few feet away, on a billboard set up near a pool table, someone had hung images of Clinton, one from a newsstand tabloid depicting her with an Adolf Hitler mustache (World War 3, the headline warned) and another of her behind jail bars. She had an idea about who might have hung them there, but fearful of fights, people shied away from talking about whom they did or did not vote for. Oh, you dont talk about religion and politics in a bar, Jackson said, adding, I say, I do, if you ask me.

But down the block, at an old bar called the Parkview Inn, there was one Trump supporter willing to own up to his vote. Joe Mannarino, a 57-year-old steelworker who had bounced from plant to plant after losing his job at the mill out back years before, was a registered Democrat who crossed party lines to back Trump. It wasnt that he believed everything Trump said, he explained, but he saw him as a change candidate who would be more likely to help working-class people like him and towns like this.

The Schultzen Club in Mingo Junction, Ohio. (Photo: Eric Thayer for Yahoo News)

Residents here have a long memory, Mannarino said. They still recalled how Bill Clinton went to Weirton, W.Va., just across the river shortly after he won the Democratic nomination in 1992, where he visited a mill and pledged to stop foreign steel from being dumped at cheap prices. And then he turned around and passed NAFTA and all these trade deals that killed us, Mannarino said. How could anybody trust a Clinton after that?

Trump, he said, was hardly the perfect candidate, but he was the only person who seemed to speak to and care about people like him. On the trail, Trump vividly spoke of reviving the steel industry in order to rebuild the nations infrastructure and the inner cities. We will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, seaports and airports that our country deserves, Trump declared in a line in his stump speech. American steel will send new skyscrapers soaring. We will put new American metal into the spine of this nation.

Now that Trump is soon to be in the White House, Mannarino said he expects him to deliver on those promises to rebuild the country with American steel, as well as his pledge to renegotiate trade deals like NAFTA on more favorable terms to the United States. Can Trump actually follow through on all those promises? Mannarino said with a shrug. Im hopeful, he said. Im more hopeful than Ive been for a while.

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'I'm more hopeful than I've been for awhile' - Yahoo News