Free Republic

A Texas-based company that sells wheelchairs and motorized scooters to people with limited mobility announced Friday that it's shutting down for good, following federal scrutiny over its advertising and billing.

The world’s oldest man, a 112-year-old self-taught musician, coal miner and gin rummy aficionado from western New York, has died. He was 112. Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez died Friday at a nursing home in Grand Island, according to Robert Young, senior gerontology consultant with Guinness World Records. Sanchez-Blazquez became the world’s oldest man when Jiroemon Kimura died June 12 at age 116. …

International Business Machines Corp. plans to move about 110,000 retirees off its company-sponsored health plan and instead give them a payment to buy coverage on a health-insurance exchange, in a sign that even big, well-capitalized employers aren't likely to keep providing the once-common benefits as medical costs continue to rise. The move, which will affect all IBM retirees once they become eligible for Medicare, will relieve the technology company of the responsibility of managing retirement health-care benefits. IBM said the growing cost of care makes its current plan unsustainable without big premium increases. IBM's shift is an indication that health-insurance...

Yesterday many of us participated in a thread entitled "I miss America when it was Decent and Good." Many of us shared our memories and there were some wonderful stories. Today, someone posts that "elderly kooky types" "infest FR" and "go on and on about their grandchildren and what a great president Eisenhower was." Just for kicks (see I'm dating myself already), how many FReepers are "elderly kooky types?"

ANDERSON – Police announced formal charges against a 17-year-old suspect in connection with the July rape of a 93-year-old Anderson woman. According to Anderson Police Chief Larry Crenshaw, the suspect lived closed to the victim. Crenshaw said police collected DNA samples from several people and connected the suspect to the crime through a DNA match. Charges against Iquise V. Taylor include rape, burglary, criminal confinement and strangulation police announced during a news conference Monday. He’s been charged as an adult. Crenshaw called it a “horrific and unimaginable attack” and said the department was satisfied to bring some kind of closure...

A robber attacked an elderly woman after pretending to help her take pictures of her childhood home when she returned with her daughter after 73 years. Marjorie Ramondetta, 93, and her daughter Linda Reynolds, 65, were allegedly shoved down a flight of stairs in the building by a thug when they came back to the house in Washington Heights in Manhattan, New York. The man then stole the women's purses as they lay bruised at the bottom of the stairs, law-enforcement sources said.

Spokane Police release surveillance photos of persons of interest in the homicide of an 88 year old man, occurring in N. Spokane last night. Anyone with information about either of the suspects is asked to call Crime Check at 456-2233. On 08-21-13 around 8:15pm Spokane Police responded to Eagles Lodge, 6410 N Lidgerwood on a call of an assault. When officers responded they located a 88 year-old man in his car with serious injuries to his head. He was transported to the hospital where he died as a result of his injuries.

AMES, Iowa — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is the subject of endless 2016 presidential speculation, and if he does decide to run, he’s already learned one important lesson. “You all had the opportunity earlier this afternoon to get to know my father. And as you saw, my dad is very soft spoken,” Cruz joked during a speech in Iowa this weekend. “I will confess, I am today violating what has been a cardinal rule, which is never, ever, ever follow my father at the podium.” Cruz and his father, Rafael, a Texas pastor, both addressed a gathering of Christian conservatives...

An article at a12iggymom's Blog about an environmentalist decision to terminate ninety percent of Mother Gaia's population starts with this: The Human Race has been declared a hostile species and a threat to the planet: the environmentalists have said so. Obama’s buddy Cass Sunstein, argues strongly for human euthanasia. “…what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible. …” Dave Foreman, Co-Founder of Earth First: “We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox.” Roger Martin, environmental activist, “Fewer people mean better lives.” Obamacare death panels. Democrat strategist Steven Rattner said, “We need death panels…until we start allocating health care resources more prudently—rationing, by...

Family members are questioning the death of a 95-year-old WWII U.S. Air Corps sergeant who killed by cops at an assisted living center last month after resisting medical treatment. John Wrana died from injuries sustained in an incident, which was later ruled as a homicide by the medical examiner, by Park Forest police on July 27. Police were called to Victory Centre, according to the Chicago Tribune, when it was reported by faculty that he was being “combative,” resisting medical treatment to which he was being “involuntarily” committed to. A press release from the police department emailed to the Chicago...

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...