Free Republic

An 'Officer of the Year' for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is now under investigation after security footage was released showing him attacking a 60-year-old man who was just reporting a burglary. Last September, victim Brian Hudkins was in town for a business conference. He was staying at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis with one of his employees, Andrew Davis. After dinner, the two went back to the hotel, but Davis was locked out of his room. He heard people behind the door and called Hudkins, believing it was a burglary. The two went downstairs to report the incident to...

The 95-year-old resident of a Park Forest senior living community who died after a Friday confrontation with police was killed by the bean-bag rounds police fired at him, the Cook County medical examiner's office determined following an autopsy today. The Cook County medical examiner's office said that the cause of death of John Warna was hemoperitoneum – bleeding in the stomach area from blunt force trauma of the abdomen after he was shot with a bean bag gun.

We know the AARP is typically left-leaning and sided with the Obama Administration on Obamacare and other policies that will wind up hurting seniors. But now it seems they’re siding with the far-left environmental movement to put people out of work and raise energy prices — something that has a direct effect on seniors with fixed incomes. The AARP and Sierra Club worked together to stall nuclear energy legislation in Iowa. They claimed the legislation would hurt seniors when, in reality, the legislation would have incentivized low cost nuclear energy production in Iowa. The AARP joined with the Sierra Club...

LOS ANGELES -- An elderly man was terrorized on a Metro bus and it was all caught on camera. Another bus rider appears to strike the man and screams at him after the older man accidentally sat on him. The incident happened around 8 p.m. Wednesday near Wilshire Avenue and Vermont Boulevard. "I started filming it for my husband who doesn't realize all the crazy stuff that happens on the bus all the time, and then it got really intense," said Erica Rodriguez, who captured the incident on camera. Rodriguez says she's not really surprised that no one stepped in...

A 75-year-old woman found dead in her northwest Las Vegas home in May was beaten with a pistol and shot in the head during a robbery, according to police reports. Jean Main was found dead the morning of May 21 at her home in a gated community on Green Pasture Avenue near Lone Mountain Road and Durango Drive, with her home apparently burglarized. Metro detectives learned that a laptop, Kindle Fire, Main’s purse, $800 and several other items were missing from the house.

A retired professional man has become the first British dementia patient to end his life at the Dignitas clinic. The wealthy 83-year-old chose to travel to the controversial clinic in Switzerland because he did not want to face the agony of the progressive disease. He is believed to be the first person to use the clinic’s services solely because of dementia. The unnamed man from England went to the clinic after obtaining a report from a psychiatrist stating he was mentally competent to choose to kill himself. …

Planning for retirement usually means budgeting for food, travel and other expenses. Don’t forget to include $220,000 for health care costs. That’s how much the average 65-year-old couple will spend on medical expenses through their retirement, according to the latest estimates from Fidelity Investments. If you’ve set your sights on retiring earlier, plan on squirreling away an even bigger savings pile. The average couple hoping to retire at 55 will spend $744,800 on out-of-pocket health costs if they both live to age 85, according to a separate study released Wednesday by the Society of Actuaries. That’s if you’re relatively healthy...

CARSON, NV - Thelma Kessler is 86, her husband Stanley, 87. They've been married for 36 years, but now in the sunset of their lives they are allowed to see each other for just one hour a week and a court order gives others the power to file for their divorce. Thelma no longer has control of her husband's life. That's responsibility now rests with Carson City Public Guardian Debi Marzoline. After a series of court hearings, Stanley was removed from their home and put in a nursing home. There was an allegation Thelma was starving him and she was...

2014 retirements: Dems heading for the hills By: Alexander Burns April 23, 2013 04:49 PM EDT Doesn’t anyone want to run for Senate in 2014? Midway through candidate recruitment season, the bad news for Democrats is this: They are watching a generation of talent leave the Senate and head for retirement. The less-bad news: So far, few marquee-name Republicans are interested in these seats either. When Montana Sen. Max Baucus called it quits on Tuesday, he became the latest in a long series of senior legislators to announce that they’ve had quite enough of life on the Hill. National Democrats...

When Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) was launched on Aug. 15, 1981, many felt there would be little demand for a Catholic network. In fact, when Mother M. Angelica, a cloistered nun, fulfilled a promise to our Lord in the early 1960s by founding Our Lady of Angels Monastery in Irondale, Ala., she had no idea she would one day found the largest religious media network in the world. Who could have imagined that a cloistered nun would found a global television network? Who could have predicted that a network funded entirely by donations from “people in the pews” instead of...

If you watch daytime TV or have been stuck watching daytime TV while visiting your parents, surely you’re familiar with The Scooter Store. The power wheelchair vendor has had some trouble lately, including accusations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud, a raid by the FBI, and even a lawsuit from the company’s hometown, of New Braunfels, Texas. The company laid off most of its employees, and plans to deal directly with health care providers, rather than blanketing the airwaves and selling directly to consumers. Those investigations came after a scathing investigative piece by CBS News about the company. (Warning: the video...

Landing A Reverse Mortgage Just Got Tougher Mark Koba, CNBCApr. 14, 2013, 9:20 AMSeniors looking for a big cash payout from a reverse mortgage will have to look elsewhere for needed funds. A small but increasing number of defaults on the loan product has prompted a crackdown by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) on the biggest payout loan to homeowners. The basic theory behind reverse mortgages — you must be 62 or older to apply — is that instead of making payments to a lender like in a traditional mortgage, the borrower receives non-taxable money from the lender, which does...

A growing number of House Democrats are concerned that President Obama's proposal to cut Social Security benefits will haunt the party at the polls in 2014. Although Democrats have long-championed the retirement program, they say Obama's plan to reduce payments for future beneficiaries through a chained consumer price index (CPI) has weakened their stance and opened the door for Republicans to vilify the president. The leader of the campaign arm for House Republicans, Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.), on Wednesday called Obama’s plan a "shocking attack on seniors." Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign...

According to Genworth, an insurance company that deals with long term care, a year in a private nursing home has jumped 24 percent over the past five years. The average price is nearly $84,000 a year –up from $60,000.... The company's vice president said insurance, food, building maintenance and labor costs are all going up and being passed onto the customer.

The recently passed UN Global Arms Trade Treaty contains a provision that would ban those over 55 years old from owning guns. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon explained that “most crimes are committed by gun-wielding assailants who generally are younger than their victims. If we allow those who are near the end of their lives to use guns to kill these younger assailants the human race will be losing more ‘life-years,’ on balance. Therefore, it is better that these elderly victims not be given the means to resist even if that means they will be slain by their attackers.” if...

There was no doubt 86-year-old George Sanders killed his ailing wife. Yet everyone in the small Arizona courtroom — the prosecutor, the judge and even the couple's family members — agreed it was a time for compassion, not punishment. "My grandfather lived to love my grandmother, to serve and to make her feel as happy as he could every moment of their life," Sanders' grandson, Grant, told the judge, describing the couple's life together as "a beautiful love story." "I truly believe that the pain had become too much for my grandmother to bear," he said, while Sanders looked on...

LINCOLN, Del. - March 21, 2013 (WPVI) -- Delaware State Police have charged 5 teenagers with the carjacking, kidnapping and robbing of a senior citizen and locking her in a car trunk for two days. 89-year-old Margaret Smith of Lincoln, Delaware spoke exclusively to Action News Thursday night and says she is relieved to have survived the wildest ride of her life. "I'm still shaking," Smith said.

A 911 dispatcher pleaded with a nurse at a Bakersfield, Calif., senior living facility to save the life of an elderly woman by giving her CPR, but the nurse said policy did not allow her to, according to a newly released audiotape of the call. "Is there anybody there that's willing to help this lady and not let her die?" the dispatcher asked in a recording of the 911 call released by the Bakersfield Fire Department. "Not at this time," the nurse said. The incident unfolded on Tuesday when 87-year-old Lorraine Bayless collapsed at Glenwood Gardens, a senior living facility...

Happy birthday Yoko Ono. Mrs Lennon is 80-years old today. Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo on February 18, 1933. She met John Lennon at an art exhibition in 1965. They married in 1969. It was the second marriage for John and third for Yoko. Towards the end of The Beatles, John and Yoko formed the Plastic Ono Band. The first album was ‘Live Peace In Toronto 1969’ on The Beatles Apple label. The first single was ‘Give Peace A Chance’ The original line-up for Plastic Ono Band featured John, Yoko and Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voormann on bass...

Pope Benedict XVI 'is to resign' Breaking news The Pope is to resign at the end of this month in an entirely unexpected development, reports from the Vatican say.