KODIAK, Alaska — As the holiday season comes to a close, Aaron Cooper has many things to be thankful for, most importantly his life.

Four years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska, Cooper, a 2007 Kodiak High School graduate, was involved in a life-threatening snowmachine accident.

The veteran rider was practicing freestyle tricks when things turned for the worse. While doing a jump, Cooper lost control of his sled and had to abort.

He jumped, and when he came back down to earth he broke his back, causing bone fragments to tear through his nerve sac and shatter his nerve system.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is scrambling to find the source of a salmonella outbreak likely linked to ground turkey that has killed one and sickened dozens more.

Finding the source of an outbreak hasn’t been easy; the government has been chasing the illnesses for months. The Agriculture Department, which oversees meat safety, said it is still investigating who produced the meat, and the department hasn’t initiated a recall.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The “golden years” may lose some luster for many baby boomers worried about the financial pressures that come with age.

Many of the nation’s 77 million boomers are worried about being able to pay their medical bills as they get older, a new poll finds. The concern is so deep that it outpaces worries about facing a major illness or disease, dying, or losing the ability to do favorite activities.

Another major concern among the boomers: losing their financial independence.

PALM DESERT, Calif. — First ladies, past and present, and others who called the White House home remembered Betty Ford on Tuesday, not just for her decades-long work against substance abuse but for contributing to a political era when friendship among lawmakers helped them govern.

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter called Ford a friend who “was never afraid to speak the truth.”

“She was someone willing to do things differently than they’d been done before,” Carter said.

Betty Ford was an advocate for those struggling and brought addiction and mental health issues to light, she said.

For nearly four years, a bacterial infection that left a Seattle-area newborn with severe brain damage while his twin brother developed normally has remained a medical mystery, traumatizing his family and stumping local and national disease experts.

Myles Massey, now 3, can’t speak or walk, must be fed through a stomach tube, has little use of the left side of his body and suffers from cerebral palsy and mental delays, all attributed to a rare Bacillus cereus infection that developed after his birth on Sept. 1, 2007.

Some people who need medical care but can’t afford it go to the emergency room. Others just hope they’ll get better. James Richard Verone robbed a bank.

Earlier this month, Verone (pictured), a 59-year-old convenience store clerk, walked into a Gaston, N.C., bank and handed the cashier a note demanding $1 and medical attention. Then he waited calmly for police to show up.

He’s now in jail and has an appointment with a doctor this week.

Verone’s problems started when he lost the job he’d held for 17 years as a Coca Cola deliveryman, amid the economic downturn. He found new work driving a truck, but it didn’t last. Eventually, he took a part-time position at the convenience store.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday charged Johnson & Johnson with bribing doctors in several countries to prescribe its drugs and medical devices.

The company has agreed to pay $70 million to settle the charges, without admitting or denying the allegations.

(CNN) — After 16 years behind bars in Mississippi, two sisters were released Friday on the condition that one donate a kidney to the other.

Gov. Haley Barbour suspended the sentences of Gladys Scott, 36, and Jamie Scott, 38, who were serving life sentences for armed robbery. Gladys agreed to donate a kidney to her sister, who according to their lawyer, is gravely ill.

“I haven’t woke up. It’s still a dream,” said Jamie. “It’s been a long, hard road, but we made it.”

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — Before 33 trapped Chilean miners can begin their passage to the outside world, still more people will join them down below to make their journey as smooth as it can be.

These men — an elite group of three paramedics with the Chilean navy’s special forces and 13 rescue experts with the state-owned mining company Codelco — will work in shifts during the 48 hours it could take to evaluate the men and strap them into the escape capsule for their 15-20 minute ride to the surface.

And the paramedics will be empowered to change a list, already prepared, that suggests the order of the miners’ rescue.

Although a Croatian teen had only just started studying German at school, the 13-year-old has been able to communicate fluently in German since waking up from a 24-hour coma, The Telegraph reports.